So back to my guy. Turns out we are same age. He's married. Three kids. Age 6, 3 and 1 (spoiler aler

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In college, I learned about Angkor Wat and always wanted to see it. Candidly, I didn't know where it was until researching a possible extension - learning it was in Cambodia. After quick research to make sure it was safe, I booked the ticket and off we go.
My Cambodia goal was singular: see Angkor. I didn't know if life would ever take me back to Indochina, so this was a check mark. Other than a plane ticket and a hotel reservation, I had done no prior planning. I thought I'd rent a bike and go tour. But thanks to 3am karaoke, I'd slept absolutely zero hours before leaving for the Kuala Lumpur airport at 4am. Exhausted and maybe a little hungover, I decided day one probably garage storage cabinets shouldn't be on a bike. So upon checking garage storage cabinets into hotel, I went down to the street and rented a Tuk Tuk driver for a whopping 18 bucks for the whole day.
So off we went. For the uninitiated, a Tuk Tuk is a two wheeled cart towed by a moped. In the hierarchy of traffic in Cambodia, its arguably just above a bike. And since the mopeds, cars, bikes and TukTuks tend to drive where there is open road, regardless of lane or traffic direction, every ride was its own adventure. garage storage cabinets
He spoke decent English. Most "white" visitors are European, so he was a bit shocked when I said "US." We chatted a bit as we rode up to Angkor Thom. After exploring for a few hours, we went to lunch. I bought him lunch to pick his brain on the area, beginning the three day conversation that will stay with me.
To me, Cambodia's poverty is devastating, far worse than Manila or Guatemala, my previous experience with soul crushing poverty. garage storage cabinets Per capita garage storage cabinets GDP is just over $2,000, or roughly 4 percent of per capita GDP in US. But in reality, garage storage cabinets this really overstates it. Some 80 percent live in poverty, defined as an income of 2 dollars a day or less. Most of that 80 percent makes more like a dollar a day. While wealth and cost of living, at some level is relative -- most of the meals I ate in the country, largely from street carts or market vendors, only cost 2-3 dollars, that is wicked expensive for most people who subsist on something akin to a rice soup. Any protein is a luxury here.
Riding by Tuk Tuk provided a vantage that a car or bus would miss: the smell and the noise. Rural Cambodia smelled like fire, because every home had one going in the yard to cook. As for noise, if not for the roar of an occasional tourist bus and mopeds, it would have been silent. We stopped at one particularly beautiful rice field, and it was absolutely still. You could hear animals and men cutting in the rice fields. No hum of development, no loud stereos. Quiet. Almost garage storage cabinets disturbingly so.
So back to my guy. Turns out we are same age. He's married. Three kids. Age 6, 3 and 1 (spoiler alert), the oldest who I first met when Syem and I ran into each other at a town Christmas lighting my first night there.
He was the first in his family to live outside of the rice fields. His family land was bombed by the US in the Vietnam War. His dad lost a leg to a mine accident, and it sounds like his brother has PTSD, which research unsurprisingly shows afflicts a disturbing percentage of the population here. There is growing evidence in Cambodia that because PTSD is so prevalent that it actually gets passed on to the next generation.
Despite this, my driver self taught English, not perfect, but plenty for us to communicate. Over lunch, I drill him a bit. He listens to voice of America and watches CNN & knows our politics well. He pointed out with frustration the pictures of government officials that line the roads, just muttering "corrupt, very corrupt" as we pass beaten down schools and hospitals. garage storage cabinets They don't really do anything for the people he says.
Tourism has been a boom for this part of Cambodia. garage storage cabinets Some 1 million people a year come to see Angkor. Hotels and new construction are everywhere. In fact, I found the town to almost be annoyingly western. You had to get out of city center to find good authentic food. The development has led to jobs, but its hard to say if people are really benefiting. I ran through several neighborhoods garage storage cabinets on Sunday morning & basic services are completely lacking. The beautiful river which goes through the center of town turns into a dumping ground, garage storage cabinets sewage ditch and sadly, swimming/bathing pool only a block away from the tourist district.  Running past naked kids splashing in that polluted sewer of a river was jarring. The main hospital in town looked like a war zone from the outside. garage storage cabinets No westerner would go there except under total direst. Yet the wealth from tourism has led to a series of beautiful homes being built behind walls, garage storage cabinets just outside the city limits.
My guy came here after peace was restored in the late 90s, and all in all does well. Makes enough to be able to afford garage storage cabinets to send his kids to private school (50 dollars a month) where they will learn English. He owns his own cart, though he seems to opera