I have just been back from Takeo. Phnom Penh is rapidly developing. When I came here last year, I felt Cambodia was a real developing country. It was very fresh for me to see this city. But now, I think this capital is different from other places in this country.
I talked to a man without an arm when we were seeing sunset from the terrace of our guesthouse. Even though he could not speak English, we had great languages in common. It was off course gesture. He was about 40 and lost his arm when he got sick roughly 30 years ago.
When I got at Takeo, I asked moto drivers where a guest house I found in my Lonely Planet was. But nobody knew that place except for one of them. A driver asked his friend in a computer shop where it was, and then he took me there.
To get away from the very busy capital, Phnom Penh, I came to Takeo, a rural area, to south of Phnom Penh, where had a few tourists. It took 2 hours by bus.
When I got to the Phnom Penh, I took a public taxi owned by the local government to the city centre for 7$, which was surprisingly expensive there. Then, a driver took me to a hotel but not a guesthouse.
There is a funny thing here. The name of this guest house is ‘Joe Guest House’, but why? There is no western owner here. Probably, somebody’s name in this family is nearly ‘Joe’.
This is the last evening for me in Laos. Tomorrow, I am going to Cambodia. The Mekong River, the most awesome river I have ever seen, was saying good-bye to me, when I had diner by the river. I was looking at sunset over the river.
There is a difficult question. “Which picture above discribes a happy country?” It is obviously true that Tokyo is much more developed than Phnom Penh in Cambodia. However, we cannot say Japanese is happier than Cambodian.
Lao will be one of the most famous tourist countries in the future. Even if the living cost grew up, it wouldn’t matter. The beautiful Mekong River, hundreds of temple and cheerful people would attract tourists.
At 7:30, I got up and went down to meet a French guy, who I had seen at the station. He turned up late and ordered a cup of coffee before getting into a tuktuk. When he was drinking coffee, a tuktuk driver went into this restaurant and sat on a table.
