Cambodia bid us welcome in a harsh kind of way. In our first days in Phnom Penh we were overwhelmed by countless heavy impressions like begging children; children that looked for food in bags full of waste and mothers who tried to sell chewing gum to us while cradling their seemingly newborn children in the other arm. You only had to tilt your head a little to see another with old man who was accompanied by a local woman whose empty eyes spoke volumes. The restaurants were filled with lonely, elderly men of white skin color who were fighting each other or cussing loudly on the streets and got drunk insensately on the cheap local drought beer. Sobering experiences which wore us down by taking all of our westerly convenience from us with its unadorned perspective on poverty and made us blush with shame for perceiving these people’s hard life as an inconvenience.
The coronavirus made the country stumble. Wasn’t the whole world starting to limp in these difficult times? The tourism as one of Cambodia’s strongest economic branches was decreasing, out of fear of the unknown virus and the increasing closing of borders to neighbouring countries tourists were absent and made the life of the locals irregularly harder. Countless TukTuk-drivers were offering their services to us wherever we went, were desperately trying to forcefully talk us into their vehicles, the roadsides were filled with workers on wheels who had no custom to serve. The crisis was so extensive that the government reacted by waiving the tourist taxes for the accommodations in the main tourist areas and even the costly tickets to Anger Wat were now good for twice as long for the same price. The main issue was that the remaining tourists stayed as long as possible. In contrast to Vietnam, which tried to complicate or even forbid the entry in order to gain control over the spread of the virus, Cambodia left its borders open for quite some time. An instant entry ban would’ve hit the country even worse.
The new restrictions and social distancing measures which came up in Europe at this time did not apply to us much. We preferred to wear a mask on longer bus travels by now, but we could continue our journey as undisturbed as we had before. And this is how it came that we rushed through this beautiful country faster than we should have in desperate desire to be close to the seaside again; considering the upcoming pandemic and its restrictions this was actually not a bad decision at all. From Phnom Penh we travelled to Siem Reap were we had to full days ,instead of one, to take a look at the beautiful ruins of Angkor Wat and its huge variety of temples. Even though I first was sceptical about the rather expensive tickets in relation to our tight budget, the visit to the temple complex was one of the best investments we ever made. We had most of the temples almost to ourselves and could spend our days looking for Tokay-geckos who had charmed us with their unusual calls.
We only spent a few days in both Battambang and Kampot, but we made some wonderful memories in this short period of time that we wouldn’t want to miss. In Battambang we had the opportunity to observe thousands of bats swarming out for their nocturnal prey and in Kampot we rented us a scooter and discovered the famous local pepper plantations and beaches and enjoyed our freedom to the fullest. But no joy could have been bigger than our pleasant anticipation when we waited at the pier in Sihanoukville for the ferry which should bring us to Koh Rong Samloem. And we were not disappointed: we spent the upcoming days exclusively at the beautiful beaches of the island, always armed with snorkelling gear to discover the amazing coral reefs and colourful fishes which were to be found in front of the dream beaches of the island. Unfortunately the spread of the new virus shortened our stay in Cambodia by almost two weeks and with a heavy heart, but with a reasonable mind we left for Thailand without even seeing Koh Rong. But the astonishing nature of Cambodia and the lovely locals will forever have a special place in our hearts. It was remarkable that even really young children and elderly people had strikingly broad english skills and for this reason we unfortunately never even learned only one word of the Khmer language. Cambodia is beautiful and I really hope that one day we’ll return with more time to explore this unique country and it’s language.