Let’s check out Edubook writer Anita Saran’s advice on Asia’s most dangerous tourist spots:
Cambodia
For 35 years, various conflicts have been raging in Cambodia over the control for its territories. It is crawling with Interpol’s most feared fugitives and riddled with millions of land mines and has suffered severe deforestation. Although the numbers of land mines have been greatly reduced, every month, more than 150 Cambodians step on land mines.
In 1978, some westerners were killed by the brutal Khmer Rouge along with the Americans, Michael Scott Deeds and James Clark. The two were captured by the Khmer Rouge when they had sailed mistakenly into Cambodian waters.
Suspected as spies for the American CIA and Vietnam, they were tortured for over a month with electric shocks. Wherever western tourists go, they are trailed by beggars: the impoverished and disfigured victims of Pol Pot’s savage regime.
The countryside may be beautiful, but in many places, the bones of the victims of the Khmer Rouge litter the earth.
Although the Khmer Rouge is no more and some semblance of peace seems to reign over this country, anything can happen. Most people own firearms and The Forbes magazine lists Cambodia as one of the most dangerous tourist destinations.
This writer really needs to read more news and do more REAL RESEARCH. What is mentioned here about Cambodia is completely outdated. That was Cambodia in the mid-90s, not 2009.
In brief, if you know nothing about the place, stop pretending that you do. It only makes yourself another trash writer.
Anita Saran write this in a book? incredible that he has very low knowledge about Cambodia…
He should visite Cambodia today to learn more before writting such a dumb story…
About the beggars, he should ask indian first
Well, it’s a post on Edubook.com, which is a collaborative article publishing site where a team of writers publish their hand-written articles in order to develop and promote their authorship on the web.
I’m surprised something this misleading was accepted on the site. It’s so infuriating.
Now i see:
http://www.edubook.com/dangerous-areas-in-asia-for-tourists/15306/
everybody gave bad comment to the author
Yeah, sorry I messed up with the link earlier. It’s been fixed now. Maybe you should leave a comment too. Haha..
She further made a fool out of herself by responding this way:
“Facts are facts. Here’s 2009 info on Cambodia:
http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/CAMBODIA
Best
Anita”
To be fairer to her, the image of Cambodia as a dangerous place is still dominant in Western media, surely a source on her judgment. But interestingly she is based in Bangalore, India, hardly a better place than Cambodia these days. Travel writer should not rely on second-hand sources.
Sophat,
Have you been to Bangalore, India?
I hope you are not relying on `second-hand sources’.
Luke:
You mean security in Bangalore is better than Cambodia?
Opp, i nearly forget about terrorist attack in Bangalore.. July 25, 2008.. a 9 bomb…etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Bangalore_serial_blasts
Luke,
I haven’t been to Bangalore, but then I’m not a travel writer. I know Bangalore is India’s Silicon Valley, but I doubt that it is far safer and better than the rest of India, where friends of mine have been too and actually were shocked that a country never having gone through civil war could in some ways be as bad as or even worst than Cambodia. The fact that the writer is based so close to Cambodia, and having little sense of what is actually going on there is striking.
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Well; people entitle to their opinion about everything, but do they really know about the country. One shall ask the author, is there any safe spot in her country and would guarantee saftey of other. Seriously, even in Australia, you can be at the wrong place at the wrong time and find yourself in deep shit – unconscious in pool of blood
Mongkol,
Stories such as the one written by the writer in question is indeed infuriating, especially when it was included in the ranks of Pakistan and Iraq. I have been here for more than 9 years now and I had no problems especially that I travel a lot to the countryside. This is utterly irresponsible writing, she should have done MORE research, or better yet, come here and see for herself before writing that crap.
It’s very irresponsible, especially as an award-wining writer she is. However, all the harsh comments to her won’t change her perception about the country and probably even make her more defensive than she was. Hope to see some correction there in her post soon. ;p
[...] Administrator on Nov.04, 2009, under post In a recent blog post, Cambodian blogger Somongkol made a reaction to Anita Saran, an Edubook’s writer, who made claim that Cambodia is one the most dangerous [...]