Religious tolerance

It was interesting to read that:

"Cambodia was an experience in religious tolerance. Hinduism and Buddhism have fought each other ceaselessly over hundreds of years, with Buddhism finally triumphing. Yet, in each war, where one faith attempted to supplant another, there was tolerance of one another."

... on http://khmerization.blogspot.com/2009/06/vietnam-and-cambodia-impressions-of.html.

I wonder what this means in terms of the faith of the Cambodian people? Is their belief a mixed hybrid of the things said in various sacred texts? Have they replaced the sacred words with their own interpretations? Or are some people more faithful to certain texts compared to others?

I would be interested to understand further what people believe.

Cost of living in Cambodia

A friend shared this URL with me. http://darrenconquest.blogspot.com/2005/05/cost-of-living-in-cambodia.html

I wonder how much the price of things has changed since May 2005?

I read somewhere that the inflation rate is about 15% pa. Could somebody please enlighten me as to whether this is applies to the price of food, of housing, of something else - or if this is applies across the board?

Blessings.

Reading Khmer

A "Lonely Planet" Phrasebook arrived in the post for me today. From this, and a discussion with a friend last week, I learnt that:

• The Khmer script looks a lot like Burmese or Thai. This is apparently quite common in this region.
  
• The Khmer script is not read sequentially. Most languages read as left-to-right (as English or Greek), or right-to-left (as Arabic or Hebrew), top to bottom (as Chinese). I hear that in Khmer, the script can be read as "3rd syllable, then 2nd, then 4th then 1st" or something apparently non-systematic like that.
• It has over 60 letters in its alphabet.
• It is not tonal (like Chinese)
  
• Its grammar is quite simple (languages which carry a larger range of sounds tend to have simpler grammar, languages which have a small range of sounds tend to have a more complex grammar).

Wow! What a challenge. Add pronunciation and accent to appreciate the difficulty a little further.

Corruption

http://www.talesofasia.com/cambodia-corruption.htm told me something about Cambodian culture that is not so comfortable to deal with. Not sure how true all these stories are, but I imagine that they are reflective of a culture. Will need to learn how to tread in this arena over time.

Basic facts about Cambodia

http://geography.about.com/library/cia/blccambodia.htm gives a good summary about Cambodia's geographical background. This is a good basis to start from. The map I post below is copied from this web-page.