Stubborn & Hell-Bent Following that guiding force ...

When I was planning this trip I had the standard traveling worries – getting my passport or money stolen, getting lost in a foreign country, or getting sick from eating sketchy food … little did I know that would make me sick would have nothing to do with the food.  I arrived in Cambodia yesterday after a roller coaster of a plane ride and was thrown into the turbulence of the Cambodian culture in Phnom Penh.  Beyond the garbage and the run down buildings and being relentlessly harassed by tuk tuk drivers and getting lost amongst the pollution and cockroaches, I found myself in a state of sickness I had not anticipated.  Children in filthy clothing trying to sell you anything they can get their hands on was hard enough to see, but my stomach wrenched itself into knots at the sight of begging mothers with their screaming babies, lying amongst the garbage and filth of the streets.  I went to bed amongst the geckos with a sickening feeling of helplessness and ignorance.  Keeping with the horrors of the city I went to visit the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum where the effects of the Khmer Rouge genocide are still hauntingly present.  The Killing Fields contains a towering monumental structure filled with the skulls of thousands of people murdered under the Khmer Rouge regime.  The numbers are horrific, it’s estimated that in a 4 year period they killed roughly 2 million people out of population of 7 million.  There is little left on the fields to reveal the massacre except signs depicting what was once there.  For a place where so much death took place, it was strange to see so much life present on it’s grounds.  Butterflies and roosters, flowers and the cool breeze coming off the river – which carried with it the sounds of nearby monks chanting.  A strange combination that brought with it a feeling of hope within tragedy.  The genocide museum is a former prison used for torture and interrogation and now displays pictures of thousands of people who were tortured and killed there.  What I found most horrifying was the looks in people’s eyes in the pictures – you could see that some of them still had hope, and even worse you could see those who had entirely lost the ability to fight.  I can’t even begin to understand what happened here, and what’s even worse is how uniformed I was before I saw this.  My overall experience in Cambodia was that of having my blissful ignorance shattered into a million tiny little pieces - something that I think every traveler deals with and in some strange way can be viewed as the most beautiful experiences of traveling.  

I had heard that travel within Cambodia can be quite unreliable, but experienced it first hand today when my tuk tuk got a flat tire – not once – not twice – and no not three times – but four. Yes. That’s right – four times we had to stop to fix it – which left me sitting on the side of the road beside a cross-eyed Chihuahua and a Cambodian tuk tuk driver with an Australian accent. This also brought with it a glimpse into the life of Cambodia: Need gas? Cant find a gas station? See that vendor selling cigarettes and glass Pepsi bottles filled with an unidentifiable yellow liquid? That's your petrol – crack open a refreshing bottle and fill ‘er up please. Just when you think you’ve found the comforts of home you’re reminded that you’re in a far off land where grilled snake on a stick is a treat for the kids and a bottle of Pepsi looks just a little bit off.

After seeing the chaos and beauty of Cambodia, I was granted one last true Cambodian experience. I bought myself a nice ticket in a pretty air-conditioned bus, complete with bathroom, reclining seats, and even a TV, that would shuttle me the 12 hours from Cambodia to bangkok. As i sat in the "bus station" in battambang - i looked down at my ticket with it's pretty picture of a big double decker bus - then i looked up at the sound of a bang and saw a rickety old bus with 1 remaining window, filled to the brim with locals and all their worldly possessions. The nice man who sold me my ticket suddenly turned mean and shoved me on the bus. I looked up and down the aisle to find an empty seat - "where do you expect me to sit!?" i ask, while trying to find air to breath amongst the stale stench of the bus. He looks at me with an evil glint in his eye, and pulls out a tiny plastic stool, and throws it in the aisle. did i mention it only had 3 legs? I sat down, knowing that there was no way i was going to win this argument and also knowing full well that i paid thirty times more for that ticket than i should have. If looks could kill, the poor man wouldn't have lasted a second in my presence. But i survived the hellish ride through the potholes that Cambodia is famous for. lucky for me i spent most of the time in mid air before I'd slam back down onto my pathetic excuse for a stool. When i stepped off the bus in Thailand i was sporting what looked like a horrible spray on tan, compliments of the red dirt roads and the cloud of dust that accompanied me the entire ride.

And that ended my Cambodian experience. One that was wonderful and horrible and worth every minute. And as i breath a dustless sigh of relief, i am on the beaches of southern Thailand. Thailand's beautiful beaches and clean streets have already begun to swarm my head with that dreadful blissful ignorance. Even though i have very few pictures from Cambodia, the images will be forever be ingrained in my mind...clouded though they may be by the red dust that is equally ingrained my skin.