Almost everything they say about Japan turns to be true

When we went to Japan last month on a whim motivated by an uncommonly cheap air fare ($300 round trip from Cambodia), I imagined the experience would be pretty much as reputed.

The country would be clean, the crowds orderly, the trains always on time, the cities exhilarating, the history temples and shrines impressive, English rarely spoken, prices high and gardens gorgeous to the extreme.  (Many more photos on Facebook.)

I was not disappointed.

“Clean” doesn’t begin to describe the contrasts between most of the rest of the world and everywhere we visited over three weeks — in order, Tokyo, Yokohama, Hakone (to view Mt. Fuji), Hiroshima, Miyajima, Himeji, Kobe, Kyoto, Kanazawa, Shirakawa-go, Takayama and Matsumoto.  “Immaculate” is more to the point.

There wasn’t a shred of litter on the streets or in the subway or train stations, though maybe I have figured out how that could be the case in view of the rarity of trash receptacles on sidewalks and elsewhere.

One explanation may be that

Cambodia’s Angkor heritage site reveals its dark side

Tuk-tuks and food vendors jam an area across the street from Angkor Wat, visible in the distance.

The Angkor Wat complex enjoys enviable status as a Unesco World Heritage Site and as a prime tourist destination not only in Cambodia itself but in all of Southeast Asia and even the world.

And therein lies one of its biggest problems: Tourists.

Built mostly 1,000-1,200 years ago — more than a millennium — the site including Angkor temple itself covers more than 400 square kilometers (154 square miles).  Thus, the second problem: