Cambodia: Arrival and First Impressions

After surviving a brutal 14-hour flight from DC to Seoul, Korea and a less brutal 5-hr flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia (during which I was completely passed out), I finally arrived in this very interesting country. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised by how (relatively) developed this country is. To a Russian, the word “Cambodia” associates with post-conflict devastation, landmines, and complete underdevelopment. However, this country is anything but those things. Indeed, it survived a lot of civil strife, including the bloody Khmer Rouge regime an d other military dictatorships, but somehow it managed to rebuild after those tumultuous years with good roads, relatively well-developed infrastructure, including tourist facilities, and even almost widespread knowledge of basic English . My hotel is a lovely clean and comfortable place with an amazing outdoor swimming pool (already tested it out) and great and kind service staff. The food is delicious: a unique combination of Vietnamese and Thai with its own flavor (Im now addicted to lemongrass fish soup). Right now it is rainy season, which means hot and very humid 95 degree days and heavy afternoon rains.
The biggest question I have so far: Why can’t African countries, which have far greater abundance of natural resources, have the same level of development? One night, we went out to a very Western-looking gas station to get some water at the adjacent convenience store. My colleague and I looked at each other and said: “Why can’t Africa have gas stations?”