Samsungia

Cambodia sounds in my mind as a poor cousin of Thailand. It impacts even Polish language - Cambodia means chaos, disorder. Stereotypes are like traits of a distant knowledge mixed with prejudices and personal beliefs - they must mean something but nobody knows how they got into the common knowledge. This one is being confirmed once you cross the border. It's like entering invisible time portal - quick decompression in no man's land between two custom offices and you're in another dimension. Same same but completely different.

Dirt, beggars and overloaded vehicles - this is what strikes you first. Than comes right-side driving, language and exchange rate. You have just managed to extract some useful phrases in Thai to show off at the market or make the locals smile even more and all your effort is suddenly irrelevant.  Khmer seems random and stranger than anything you've heard before although comes from Sanskrit too and influence between Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have been multidimensional throughout history. It sounds a bit like minions quaking to each other in Despicable Me.

Siem Reap is a vibrant and busy town, tuned with nice touristy restaurants and markets but also scattered with slums like land mine craters in entire Cambodia. You don't have to go far to see devastating poverty and scenes that will melt your heart. Angkor complex is the vantage point for the whole area of course, regulating population density and monthly income of all local households but Siem Reap seems to be detached from its gravitational pull at nights.

Everything is named after Khmer or Angkor which gives a bit of hope for lazy tourists in the jungle of a local nomenclature. You have Angkor beer, every second hotel has it in its name in different configuration or order and all local dishes are Khmer this or Khmer that (fried rice, curry or noodles - add whatever you like). Food is good although not as orgasmic as on the street markets in Koh Chang. My favorite - Khmer curry soup and coffee Tarik. Fruits are less fruity as well but still in the higher league than anywhere in Europe (apart from Spain and Portugal as a noble exceptions).

If it ever crosses your mind to hire a car, take a bus from the border to Siem Reap and you will be cured from this ridiculous idea straight away. Nothing I've seen so far comes closer to insanity and traffic chaos - guess where another prejudice comes from? There is only one rule: make yourself visible, horn if you want to turn, overtake or stop and prey other drivers understand your intentions. If you add condition of national roads (main motorway that cuts the country in half along Tonle Sap lake from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh was most likely build for crash tests not transport) you get a recipe for disaster. Needless to say: distance of 160km from Poipet to Siem Reap takes at least 4h (add 1 or 2h to official calculations in travel agencies) and sometimes it's better to drive on the side.

People are nice and polite, even more than Thai (which seems impossible if you experience Thailand first) but it comes with higher level of servility towards foreigners which I honestly hate. White man's burden or rather colonial complex which is still deeply rooted in Asian mentality has its extreme version here. French may be long gone but their shadow still looms over Cambodia like Damocles sword and there is another conquistador knocking to the door already. Not the country but company this time. Samsung swallowed local electronic market like Jonas' whale ready to bring salvation or slavery to the permissive nation of Khmer which forgot their pride.