last night in cambodia

hmm.. it's been a while since i've blogged, no? guess it comes with having company =) the girls just left for the airport abt 2hrs ago, and i will be leaving tomorrow afternoon too, but for KL to take a train home (this is what comes of booking tickets too early: ie. before the news about jetstar's PHN-SIN direct $126 (?) flights came out. sigh. not to mention the S$60 SIN-BKK ticket i forfeited. ah well.

anyway, i wonder which of the girls scream tourist, because in the past 2 hours of walking around, nobody has really thought i am a tourist or at least nobody who dared to approach me. The policeman at Wat Phnom only stepped up after i took out the big camera and started snapping, and even then he spoke to me in khmer first. The usual huge gang of tuk tuk drivers at the entrance didn't even bother to get up, though the nearest one did ask me, "tuk tuk [something in khmer]?". Nobody at the old market bothered me either, nor on the streets... which, trust me, is a HUGE difference from the experience of the past week... they are normally extremely aggressive, enough to rival those of Java (and that time i was with 2 distinctly chinese/taiwanese looking friends).

what have the past few days been like? hmm.. royal palace is nice, but not half as grand or big as that in bangkok. The city is small, but not as small as vientiane. markets are ok, and i actually bought quite a lot by my standards =P probably because i was with people who do stop and browse carefully instead of just walk past the stalls like i usu do... Genocide museum and killing fields were sobering, and very very sad, and more than a little creepy at sunset. i think.. it's something that has to be experienced, because my words are simply not adequate to describe the horrors of recent cambodian history.

I'm not sure if i like cambodia the country. i don't think i've really seen it anyway, and it would be unfair to judge from the very (bad) tourist viewpoint solely. I can understand their desperation/need to rip tourists off sometimes, but it doesn't mean i have to like it, humor it or put up with it.