Happy 4th!!!

Trip Start Jun 13, 2005
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Trip End Jul 27, 2005


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Flag of Cambodia  ,
Monday, July 4, 2005

Beth woke up early this morning and went to breakfast and to buy souveneirs. I started feeling quite sick last night, so i just stayed in bed. We then hopped on our noon bus to Phnom Penh in southern cambodia, the ride was pleasant: free water, snacks, wetnaps, aircon etc... and again, we were the only westerners on the bus. I splurged on a somewhat nicer western style hotel at 15$ because feeling sick to my stomach and feverish, after a 6 hour bus ride i was not looking foreward to sweating out a night under a fan. The room was perfect, we arrived at 6ish, watched some tv and went to sleep. That bus ride was something of anb eye opener. Looking at all of those tiny poverty stricken villiages, and how simple and cheap it would be for their government to institute policies which would increase their health and wellbeing 10-fold. Watching people bathing in lakes with their cows, then pulling water buckets from the same lake ( i had a flashback to my shock the first time i saw this at the Ganges in India). If the government would drill one well in every town, build one bath house for people to bathe, and have one teacher come and teach basic rules of sanitation... it would make a huge difference. Most of these people just dont know any better, as dad used to remind us, that people in these poverty stricken countries dont have a concept of anything smaller that the eye can see... if the hypodermic needle is wiped off with a rag, and looks clean, it must be clean. And those who do know better lack the resources to exact any change. I know i sound like a head in the clouds optimist, but it really could be done,probably with a fraction of the money these governments spend on their royal palaces and temples.

Also... while im ranting. G8... should be interesting. Good ol Tony B. is unofficially on the bad side of Chirac and Schroeder because of his presidency of the EU and the whole farming subsidies thing; but needs to garner their support to achieve the funding he wants for his now and always personal fave, african aid. Forget how much money has been put in the hands of corrupt African governments for decades; '1st time shame on you 2nd time shame on me'. Havent we learned that this aid money is no good if it is just being squandered by selfish and corrupt governemtns, we need to set some stringent terms for this aid money, becaus there really is a tremendous amount of good to be done, we just cant be bright eyed optimists thinking it will be different this time for no reason: HELLO the leader of a nation bulldozing his OWN PEOPLE to death demolishing slums!!!!! THIS IS PROGRESS? If he wants to enact any environmental action, hell need bush (usa 20% of all ozone depleting pollutants in the world thank you very much Hummer...)bush who recently actually used the phrase quid pro quo, though i seriously doubt he understands what it means, in discussing his and blair's friendship that the us owes blair nothing, the uk went to iraq to do what was best for the uk and the us went to iraq to do what was best for the us. I would officially say blair is between a rock and a hard place... but damn good rock show, and even a last minute pc event in johannesburg, isnt that a lovely afterthought.
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