[2575] Between Battambang and Phnom Penh
August 12th, 2012 by Hafiz Noor Shams
I am suffering from withdrawal syndrome. Cambodia is a land of mysterious ruins, wide paddy field with cities tinged with colonial life. It gained independence from France in 1953, but Cambodia is still stuck in time. The country is miserably romantic in so many ways. If you have been there before, traveling across the country from Siem Reap in the north to Phnom Penh in the south, you will understand the feeling quickly.
This is somewhere in between Battambang, the second largest city in Cambodia, and Phnom Penh, the capital that still lives in colonial times. Being close to Tonle Sap, the biggest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, the landscape is dominated by paddy field.
The hot blue day makes the country beautiful, but the reality is harsher. Poor farmers had waited from rain for days; their livelihood depended on rain, and there was not enough water to go around during my stay there.
In some places, life is both beautiful and hard. That is Cambodia.
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