Dare to dream

One of the reasons that Cambodia intrigues me so much is because things are changing here so quickly. Vietnam is an exciting and often intense place to live, but it's stable. Next year or even in five years Saigon will look and feel very much the same as it does now. The city is changing but at a steady, predictable pace. Phnom Penh is a city with no skyscrapers, but look around the skyline and you'll see high-rise construction cranes in every direction. Even next year the city may be unrecognizable.

Hopefully these changes portend increasing prosperity for the country. The Pol Pot years constituted one of the worst episodes in world history, but that period was part of the larger pattern of Cambodian history. For 1,000 years or so Cambodia has been struggling to maintain its very existence as Thailand and Vietnam, its bigger and more populous neighbors, chip away at its territory. Thais and Vietnamese openly despise and look down upon Cambodians and speak about them as if they barely more than animals. Siem Reap province, where Angkor Wat is located, was captured by Thailand in 1431 and only returned to Cambodia in 1946.

Even though the country is lurching forward into the modern world, every day there are reminders that I am living in a third world country that is decades behind its neighbors terms of technology and infrastructure. People here carry multiple celphones, for example, because not all of the networks are compatible.

I enjoyed a little chuckle when I read about the Phnom Penh's newest addition: a highway overpass. The first highway overpass in the nation. For the folks back home, think about that the next time you're driving around the Beltway or up I-95. Cambodia now has one overpass.

Cambodia's crafty Prime Minister Hun Sen attended the opening of the overpass. He is a man who thinks big:

"Now that we have the first, there should be a second, third, fourth and so on."