Maybe not? It is not so long time, is it?
Since we develop our AGRIBUDDY in Hanoi and the fact I often see the management team of Framgia, an offshore company with the biggest drive in Hanoi, every time when they come to Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, I can’t remember well when the last time I came to Hanoi was.
Although Siem Reap, a place where I live now, is basically a country town with 180,000 population, approximate four million visitors per year come here for sightseeing. Because of this fact, the downtown is packed with only the tourists and there are many restaurants owned by French or Italian people, where we can enjoy authentic French and Italian cuisines with very reasonable price (which is a little more than 20USD per person). So there is no problem to say that Siem Reap is a very convenient town to live. Moreover, the most special thing I have to mention to everyone is the closeness to the airport. You can get to the airport within 15 minutes from anywhere in Siem Reap.
In addition, once you get on an airplane, it is a little bit less than one hour to Bangkok, about one hour to Ho Chi Minh City, about one and half hour to Hanoi, and about two hours to either Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. So, they have definitely great accesses to each city in South East Asia, like we travel between Osaka and Tokyo. I think it is more convenient if the immigration was abolished and we were able to go in and out each countries in South East Asia without any paperwork, like EU countries. Well, I think this issue will be solved sooner or later (actually I want to believe it will happen).
Anyway, each city in South East Asia is not only physically but psychologically close to me as well, so I don’t have any feeling as I am in a different country from the one I live. I feel each city is so close and familiar that I even talk to Vietnamese in Cambodian. I think this is the surefire rule anyone in South East Asia cannot ignore, I guess. Uh…, I wish someone make a software, which able to translate any languages in live, sometime soon.