Creepy Cambodian Men

4/5

Today I did almost nothing just because I was lazy.  My guesthouse has everything I need: reasonably fast working WiFi, my private room with bathroom with Western style toilet AND toilet paper AND soap, and a balcony restaurant with Coke Light, decent (though not great) food for a reasonable price and beer.  There was no reason to leave, so I didn't.

Everyone (my guidebook, other travelers, another guidebook) keeps telling me that the Cambodian people are so great and they're not.  They're not bad, and save for the creepiness of the men, I don't have much to say against them, but they're like anyone else.  Which pisses me off.  People are the same everywhere and that's fine but I'm getting really sick of guidebooks pulling superlative crap.  What's worse is that after reading how great they were in the guidebooks, I was annoyed to find that they were as human and normal and unspecial as everyone else, which would have been fine, but since I'd been told they were so wonderful, I actually got a bit upset with the Cambodians, which of course, is insane.  I'm really starting to hate guidebooks.  Not everywhere has great food/is beautiful/is exciting.

Cambodian men are by far the creepiest I've encountered so far.  After considering the issue for some time, I've decided that it's likely that that's related to the fact that they've had less time to adjust to tourists.  Until about 1998, Cambodia was pretty much a no-go zone as it was extremely dangerous, and they were targeting foreigners as late as 1994!  So even though they've had twelve years to adjust, foreign women are still relatively novel, as compared to Thailand, for example.  Anyway, they're really creepy.  They stare inappropriately and one guy on a motorbike followed me around on my bicycle until I lost him.  And yes, I'm sure he was following me as I tried stopping in the hope that he'd keep going.  He stopped, and started again, only after I had.  Fortunately it was during the day on main streets in the center of Siem Reap, but it was still creepy.  Even when I was entering the country, the guard who arranged my visa asked me if I had a boyfriend and even before I said no, just looked me up and down and continued to stare at me the entire time I was waiting.  I even remember that I had another example, but of course now I can't remember what it was.