A week spent in Cambodia navel gazing

Currently back in Bangkok, waiting for a flight to HK to catch up with some friends and family before I start back up at work. Spending time in the business class lounge is a far cry from my last time here..

Back from three days in Siem Reap in and around Angkor Wat, and two days in Phnom Penh; in retrospect I think it was what I really needed; some time out by myself to reflect on what I want out of life for the next few years.

During high school, there was always this goal to get a high TER/get into my course of choice/not let my parents down after they forked out a fortune for a private school education; first year uni was about getting into law; from second year uni it was about getting a job, and from third year it was all about getting into investment banking. I can't say I was terribly focused on it all, I had one hell of a lot of fun whilst pursuing these goals (looking back, especially in fourth year - the year of ridiculous partying and very, very bad marks), but at the end of the day I always had something to aim for, and in the end I did get there.

I guess since starting work, I've realised that although I have done well, I haven't really had any idea where I wanted to go next; I don't have any exit strategy or idea what I want to do after a few years. This time out in Cambodia has been good and now I know what I want to do next; get some good experience out of the next couple of years at UBS, go offshore at the end of it and keep an eye out for someone I want to spend my life with..

Cambodia itself

I arrived in Cambodia in the morning following my nice little sleep on the benches of Bangkok airport. Got settled into a nice little guesthouse; I was the only guest there, which honestly can't be good for business. Spent the next three days cruising around the temples of Angkor on a moto - good fun and quite an experience, seeing these temples dating back from the 9th - 14th centuries - some quite overgrown and others restored to shades of their former glory. Quite a spiritual experience, even for a cynic like me. It was a pleasant time spent amongst the peddlers, stalls and food shops in and around the temples.

Flew into Phnom Penh following my time around Siem Reap and Angkor, and spent two days seeing the sights and generally just chilling out in the town. Its a pretty town at the confluence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers, and in a few years once again will be the "Paris of the East" if nothing goes wrong.

Seeing the Killing Fields and the Tuol Sleng (S-21) Museum was quite macabre; with 1 million Khmers killed during the Khmer Rouge regime, and the evidence of 8,526 exhumed bodies in a Stupa at the Killing Fields and rows upon rows of the victims of Tuol Sleng, as well as pictures of the bodies found there and the instruments of torture used on its victims, it was a view of humanity at its darkest. The statistic that 17,000 people were "processed" by at S-21 in the space of 5 years, and only 7 survived when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia is a chilling thought. Myself and many of my friends seems to have a lot of doubts with what they're doing in life, but being alive to pursue whatever it is we want to do is surely better than such a terrible alternative.

Random travel observations

1. I will now believe Lonely Planet when it says "potholes the size of bomb craters"
2. Technology is spreading - my moto driver from Siem Reap airport had one hand on the handlebars, and one holding his mobile phone talking to a friend - at 40 km/h
3. Internet access is all pervasive, although sometimes a bit slower than you're used to