Siems like a long way

I took the bus from Battambang to Siem Reap, which is only about 75km as the crow flies, yet takes four hours because the route circles laboriously around the Tonle Sap Great Lake which defines the geography of Cambodia. Plus, 15 minutes from the final destination, the bus driver of course stopped for an hour at a roadside coffee/snack shop so that passengers were forced to give business to a distant relative.

A few years ago rumours circulated that the Asian Development Bank was going to finance a road directly across the Tonle Sap between Battambang and Siem Reap, in the name of economic development. NGOs like ours were up in arms as this would be an ecological disaster, disrupting the natural flows of the lake system, on which most Cambodians depend for food security (freshwater fish and annual flooding of rice paddies as the lake expands). Also, with high levels of corruption, the quality of the eventual road would be highly dubious and likely to be unusable within a few years, thereby acting as a very expensive and damaging undertaking, with little gain. Luckily the ideas now seem to have been quelled.

I'm here for the wedding of my friend Allison. She recommended the sister hotel to the wedding venue, which is much plusher than I would normally opt for. I was presented with some pandan tea on arrival and skittered between the massive fake Christmas present boxes that littered the driveway, past signs warning about the need to report suspected child molestation in Cambodia. Carols piped through the cavernous reception whilst the hotel tried to flog me a 150 dollar ticket to the exclusive New Year's Eve gala, which was never going to succeed. It was a diverse array of emotions during the check-in process.

This is the first day since breaking from work that I feel like the burden of stresses and responsibilities has lifted and that I can fully relax. Life at Battambang market was continuing on as normal, as I left.