After six hours in a air conditionned  bus,  I got in Phon Penh. THis time I took a luxury bus for 10 dollars. An attendant from the bus company showed us the main attraction during the journey.It s a pleasure to have her own seat, to not have to share it with someone else. 

Phon Pehn has some french colonial remains (buildings, words, food, ...). Cambodians eat bread, that s not the case of the thais.

IN Phon Penh, I stayed close to the bang koak lake. It was nice  in the terrace to admired the sunset on the lake. I was really shoched about the poverty in the street od Phon Pehn. Cambodia just finshed a civil war , there s no foreign investements yet.

I negociated a room for 3.5 US dollars , just under the lake.  Some rats  rans on the terrace but the athmosphere was so peaceful that it was a good deal. It s a hassle there , tourists have around 50 taxi propositions a day, pretty exhausting.

Cambodians are really good people, actually even if  i travel alone , i don t spend lot of time alone , always you find someone or travelers to have a nice chat or to have a meal.

On saturday i rent a electrical bike to visit the killings fields. KIllings fields is a kind of extermination place, a huge number of cambodian were killed during the red kmers period. That s so moving to see this bones, thoussands of skulls....you see so many piece of clothes going out from the soil.

THe battery of the electric bike went off, i had to come back by bike. On sunday I  had a lunch with doctors in a restaurant along the mekong river thanks to klemarey, a french student girl that i met in PP who invited me. After that lunch, we went to visit a village outside PP. There, we saw a library under constrction and  a workshop where they make handicrafts  . Saram a cambodian living in PP is helping people by this way. He is in charge of that project. His goal is to give scolarisation to the youngs and to the adults in that village.They teach also local know-how, by the way the youngs don t need to go to PP, they can work and earn their life in that village and stay there.

It s 6h30 in the morning, the 4 th of february i moved to chau doc in vietnam, after taking two bus ans two boat i reached vietnam. I past the border in along the mekong river. THe boat stoped to make the formalities.

I past the border with 6 other travelers, it s 7 o clock, we tried to find a taxi to go to siam reap. We find only one car able to take us there. We choose to have the night in poipet. POipet has a weird athmosphere as every border city. Casino are forbiddens in thailand, so poipet has plenty of casino, thai come to gamble there.  

THe next day i took a truck taxi - five hours to fo to siam reap.

Siam reap is 200km from poipet. That the city where travelers stay to visit Angkor temples. 

I rent a bike to visit the temples....so many temples lost in the remote forest. it was built from the 8th to 13th century. Completly abononeted, tree grews in the temples.

THis time i take a air conditioned bus because next time i had to wash everything after my trip, even the backpack.

Travelers or backpackers in english, routards in french, trotamundos in spanish. But what is the meaning of this words.

I gonna try to give not a definition of a traveler but his ways to consume his manners to move.. . What s the characteristic of a traveler? HOw do you recognize a traveler? What s the behaviour of a travelers?

  - he doesn t use travel agency, he makes and plans her way by himself....don t forget that in the trip the most important is not the destination , the most important is the way. He can use travel agency or guide when it s not really safe (climb a mountain), anyway i gonna choose a local guide in priority.

- he eats only local food and drinks local drinks (he doesn t want to influence the developpement of fast food or international food)

- he pays the local price, he refuse to pay tourist price....indeed it can dammage the local economy....a fishman earn 2 US dollar a day, if an american give 5 US dollars for one hour in the boat to reach an island (and it should cost for local persons 0.5 US Dollars) in that case the fisherman give up to fish, they just use their boat to bribe/rip off tourists. THe fishing activity disapear!!!  BUt the american guy is still convince that he has done a good things. 

- he learns few word of the local language (thanks, hello, ...) , he try to avoid to speak directly english

- he avoids to stay in hotel  with a non-local structure or architecture.  Concrete structure doesn t suit really good in the african countryside. IN that case, a travelers prefer to stay  a wooden or bamboo structure shotel .

- He takes public transportations as local people, he avoids to take plane, to take taxi, touristic bus or to rent a car.

 If a traveler respects that conditions, he not gonna pollute too much and not  dammage so much the local culture