@Jan *****************

She's not doing quickie border runs, she's leaving for months at a time.

@Andy ***********

He wasn't staying at hotels.

@Bob *********

I would like to visit, but is it worth it? I've been reading up on it but that 's no substitute for going, of course. What do you recommend I see/do there if I go later this year? Thanks.

@Bob *********

Yes, so I've heard. The Chinese-built casinos have been famously converted into "pig-slaughtering" centers. I briefly knew a Khmer girl who married into that. She shared a little about it, but not much. I suspect she was/is one of the scammers spamming dating sites. The central government used to be beholden to Vietnam but now is to China. There are lawless areas. The rubber plantations in the north are patrolled by the army to protect plantation hands from bandits. No normal communities with families live in that region. The southwest rural parts on the border with Thailand are apparently still controlled by remnants of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia's poor, weak government has been a cakewalk for Chinese investment like the container shipping hub they built in Sihanoukville but also for the Chinese underworld.

@Bob *********

Haha. Lots of cranes. Well, I just hope the locals come out okay. They're hoping so, too. 😏

@Nongnuch *******

I don't think now you can get even 5%. But give You-know-who's tariffs a little longer and rates will have to go up.

@Bob *********

Yep. And in Sihanoukville at the other end. Can see the more legitimate Chinese investment all over PP, too. And Xi Jinping was just there, yesterday.

@Bob *********

You beat me to it. Cambodia and Laos are beholden to Chinese investment, both official and of the underworld.

@Keith ********

They sure would. I've had this conversation with not a few Thais from there. He's being a simplistic foreigner throwing them all together just because there were some shared roots.

@Suzanne *****

Yep. We'll end up being like North Korea where EVERYONE falls all over themselves trying to profess their love for Dear Orangutan lest they be strapped to a canon and blown to smithereens for treachery.