First of all, thank you so much for stopping by and commenting on this post. I hesitated in posting it, but not all travel updates are sunny and cheerful. My husband and I really enjoyed our time in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Most of this post was written in response to the people and conditions that we saw in Sihanoukville. I understand that garbage disposal is a problem, especially in rural areas, but the trash that was thrown all over the beaches in Sihanoukville remains a mystery. There are restaurants and beach bungalows all over the place. Why do people throw things away on the beach and in the water? The water was so dirty after Khmer New Year, we weren’t even interested in swimming in it.

Your comment about street beggars and children who take advantage of the kindness of strangers is also appreciated. But again, this whole post was directed at what we witnessed in Sihanoukville. Two little boys hounded us the entire time we were there. They both wore gold jewelry, new clothes, and were obviously well taken care of. They complained when we wouldn’t buy from them, and one of them even went so far as to threaten to slit my mother-in-law’s throat when she asked them to leave us alone. We happened to befriend a beach hawker there, who told us that most of the children in Sihanoukville are well cared for and quite well off compared to the children we saw in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. These are the kids that I’m referring to with that comment.

Anyways, your points are all very well taken and I really appreciate you taking the time to write.

i can understand your frustration with the poverty, lack of care for the environment, and lack of kindness towards tourists that you experienced while traveling through cambodia. being cambodian american and having spent time volunteering in cambodia and also visiting my family there, i too felt frustrated about many issues but realized that solutions for the problems there are far bigger, more complex than we realize.

for example…you write, “show respect for your environment…clean up your litter”- in the countryside, many khmer homes have plastic bags and plastic wrappers for everyday items they’ve purchased, but there is no such thing as trash pickup. there simply was no place to put trash. what can they do with the trash? can they bury it in landfills cluttered with landmines? nope. they have better roads now, but even a few years ago as you witnessed, the roads were horrible- how can they transport trash on trucks to dump at a landfill even if there was one? eventually they end up burning it b/c there is no place to put it, only releasing more toxins into the atmosphere. and if they are uneducated (as is most of the population) how would they know to take care of the environment? many cambodians lack basic things like primary healthcare, clean water, let alone education. without these things, how would they understand what it means to care for the environment when no one is meeting their basic needs for survival?

as for the street beggars and children who take advantage of the kindness of strangers, many NGOs recommend that if you want to give, the best way is to give to an NGO that provides the resources to take children off the streets and equip them with vocational tools and skills that can help provide a sustainable living. by giving money to children or amputees/ disabled on the streets, it enables them to continue doing it because they recognize it as a steady source of income therefore they do not pursue additional work/skills/training.

anyway, i think its awesome that your blog focuses on your experiences in asia, and i hope that if you go to cambodia in the future you’ll have a better time, more enjoyable time (i read about your poipet border scam. man, that sucks!)