Phnom Penh

We've discovered that you can't help comparing each new country visited to the ones visited before. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's a bad thing, but that's just the way it is.

Malaysia and Thailand were very nice, very easy places to travel. We loved them both, but we missed the roughness and toughness of India, Nepal, and, to a lesser extent, Sri Lanka. It's difficult to explain, really. In those places, everything isn't always pretty, people aren't always nice and respectful, the poverty is in your face, and it seems like the hassling never stops. But there is a flip side to that also. Many of the most beautiful things we've ever seen are in these places, we met many warm, friendly, and amazing people, even though the poverty is tough everywhere you look people are trying to make a better life for themselves by being incredibly inventive and hardworking entrepreneurs. The bottom line is that life can be hard, life can be good, life can be cruel, and life can be beautiful. Not only can it be, but it is.

On the first part of our trip this is exactly what we saw, all around us, all the time. We didn't love every single experience. What we loved was the realness of it all. What you see is what you get and that's life, nothing is glossed over. You like seeing the Taj Mahal? That's great, it's part of life in India. You don't want to see a disfigured child crawling across a train floor sweeping up garbage and begging for rupees? Too bad, that's part of life in India. You like seeing the cultural diversity in food, language, and dress? Great, that's life in India. You don't like seeing kids pooping on the side of the road and smelling human sewage as you walk the streets? Too bad, sometimes that's just the way it is in India.

Things aren't easy, everyone is just trying to do the best they can to make it in this world. To make life just a little bit better for themselves and their family. That by itself is beautiful. We were lucky enough to see it in it's rawest, purest form and we'll never forget it.

We were very happy to arrive in Cambodia even though we had to leave some of the comforts behind. The reason is we left some of that gloss behind too. We were excited to shed it and get back again to having life come at us full on, no apologies.