BANGKOK – Haunted by war, and wracked by poverty, Cambodia has had little opportunity to enjoy one its few blessings. The nation of 14 million people, sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam, is flush with natural resources. Veins of iron and gold run beneath its soil. Natural forests offer a wealth of timber. Most promising of all are Cambodia’s deposits of oil and gas, believed to snake offshore all the way through the kingdom’s lush interior.

PHU DONG, Vietnam — Hoan Trong Thuyen, 69, stood over the 2-ton stainless steel milk storage vat with a grim expression. “It’s been here two days already,” Thuyen said. “If the dairy company doesn’t come to buy it tomorrow, we’ll have to pour it out.”

Whether it's your cherished iPhone, Nokia cell phone or Dell keyboard, it was likely made and assembled in Asia by workers who often toil under sweatshop-like conditions.

In Saigon there were several war hotels: The Caravelle and the Majestic were popular. But it was the Continental Palace, a relic of French colonial days, that caught the imagination. It had a quiet garden in an internal, Frangipani-filled courtyard where you could have a good, freshly baked French bread and coffee every morning. There was a peacock in the garden that would take your bread off the table, if you weren't looking. The peacock disappeared at a time when there were shortages in the city during the Tet offensive — I suspect into a cooking pot.