Sign at Sharky's Bar, Phnom Pehn Cambodia
The sign above - never a truer word said than in jest. A local story goes (confirmed by a friend in Thailand) that a local was kicked out of a popular bar in Phnom Penh. This fellow was connected and very angry about being removed from the club. He went away for an hour, came back and shot a rocket propelled grenade into the bar, destroying the bar and killing the owners wife.
In case you don't get the point to this story Cambodia is dangerous. It has the highest gun ownership per capita in the world.
Here's a quick list of the conflict in Cambodia since the Vietnam War:
1970-1975
Cambodia part of the Vietnam War + Civil War
1975-1979
Khmer Rouge raids into Thailand + Killing Fields Genocide
1979 Vietnamese conquest
1979-1991
Resistance against Vietnamese occupation
1992-1998
Khmer Rouge guerilla warfare
1997
Civil War
Only 8 years since the last of the Khmer Rouge officially stopped aggression, that is 8 years since the civil war officially stopped. Cambodia has not known peace since before the Vietnam War.
Along the highways were big billboards with advertising saying "We Don't Need Guns Anymore" and a picture of an M-16 with a red cross through it (I found it interesting to note that the rebels were assumed to have the American made and supplied M16 rifle)
Amazingly the people are not all gun toting psychos, though I believe
the scars are there and the way the people act will not be 'normal' for
a while yet. Aggression seems very close to the surface for Cambodians
So while in Phnom Penh, the capital, that is still rebuilding after Pol Pot (see the movie "The Killing Fields" for more info on Pol Pot)sent EVERYBODY out to the farms become rural peasants it is an interesting place to see, definitely barely touched by western culture and very few ex-pats and not too many tourists yet. Though the tourists are generally easy to avoid as they are drunk and stupid - best keep away lest they get shot for having a big mouth.
You actually get to see the country relatively untouched.
For a quiet afternoon look around the city you can get the slow (and boring) cyclo taxi driver to take you around.
I caught one cyclo once. The driver decided that I was a tourist and therfore liable to being ripped off. He took me the long way from the market to my hotel - about 45 minutes in total when I knew I was just a block or two away from the hotel. 45 minutes later I was getting sunburned and annoyed and he arrived at the hotel. I paid him for the 300 meter trip it should have been, and if he wanted to pedal all over the city then it was his problem - especially once I realised what he was doing I had to give directions to get back.
He was angry at my small payment - I was doing the "Thai smile" and being polite and nice and pointing the route he should have taken then I walked off, waving him goodbye and wishing him luck with his next tourist.
