Cambodia – Land of Resilience and Hope

Cambodia marked the second leg of my journey through Southeast Asia. Cambodia is a country that, very much like its eastern neighbor Vietnam, lived through a 20th century marked by unimaginable horrors and brutality. The Khmer Rouge regime’s brief but bloody rule from 1975 to 1979, left roughly 2 million Cambodians dead. The Khmer Rouge’s utopian goals of creating the perfect society of peasantry, along with their class war against intellectuals and city-dwellers, displaced countless numbers of Cambodians from their homes and to their graves. 

Although those dark days have passed, Cambodia is still a country rife with corruption and abject poverty. With a majority of the population living on less than a dollar per day, Cambodia is one of the world’s poorest countries. In my travels through the country I witnessed pick-up trucks carrying some twenty-odd people, all standing and huddled together in the rear cargo area. When I descend the tuk-tuk to visit the iconic ruins of Angkor Wat, young children swarm around me begging me to buy their 1 dollar postcards and trinkets. 

The day I arrived in Phnom Pehn was election day. It took hours and hours of waiting before our bus could enter the city, as all major roads were blocked due to reports of clashes between the government and protesters alleging electoral fraud. The city was eerily quiet as our bus slithered its way in. The government had warned residents to stay indoors for fear of violence. In the end, the ruling party, the Cambodian People’s Party won but lost many seats to the opposition party. The prime minister, Hun Sen, will still rule this tiny kingdom for the foreseeable future, continuing his premiership of more than two decades.

Despite the challenges, Cambodia is moving forward and away from the shadows of its dark history. Investment from China, a booming tourism industry and relative stability have all contributed to growth and prosperity. The magnificent Khmer city of Angkor, where many of Cambodia’s iconic temples and buildings are located, was awe-inspiring in its vast and opulent grandeur and exquisite in the finely detailed figures sculpted into the temples’ walls. Tourism to Angkor has meant economic prosperity for the city of Siem Reap. Yet I have often wondered how much of our tourist money actually goes to the locals. 

On the bus from Phnom Pehn to Siem Reap, I saw the locals laugh with tears of joy watching the comedy film playing on the television screen; it was an innocent joie de vivre that struck me. The resilience and optimism of the Cambodians after so many years of horror and instability is truly remarkable. And with that kind of attitude, I truly believe that there is no challenge the Cambodians can’t face.