Cambodia was the first Southeast Asian country I visited and remains for me an ideal representation of the region--a place caught between two vastly different eras. On the one hand, it is traditional, rural and simple. On the other, it is roaring into the twenty-first century, developing at breakneck speed, becoming part of a more homogeneous, middle-class Asia. As I sat on our bus back to Thailand, I looked out of the window at the rolling countryside, daydreaming, and noticed an old farmer, crouching in a rice paddy, tending to his crop. My mind felt comforted and charmed by this quaint image of a bygone era. However, in the next instant, a shiny new combine harvester plowed by in the background. This, to me, is the state of Cambodia right now: one foot is firmly in the past, while the other is decidedly in the future.