Any time i tried to write an update from cambodia, i felt like i really didn't want to relay any of my thoughts onto you - the unsuspecting, happy people back in Canada. Now that i am back in thailand and can look back on my experience in cambodia, i have to say that my overall experience with it was having my blissful ignorance shattered into a million tiny little pieces. I'm just as aware as the rest of them, i've read the papers, i've seen the news, i always knew there were starving kids somewhere in the world who were left hungry when i refused to eat my dinner as a kid ... but still i was floating in my nice bubble of blissful ignorance. On a longboat trip from siem riep to battambang, we passed thru floating villages - entire towns floating on the water - quite an interesting way of life - my thought was that i'd go stir crazy because you could never walk more than 4 feet before you'd have to turn around and walk back again. Floating down the river, we would pass small huts built into the banks where kids would jump up and down at the sight of foreigners, huge smiles on their faces, waving and yelling "hello!", all while they are surrounded by piles of garbage and sewage - yet still the truest smiles i've ever seen. Another strange sight in cambodia was how many ponds there were, randomly found beside the roads, or deep in the fields - i couldn't figure out why there were so many - that was until i was informed that they are craters formed from all the bombs that were dropped during the war. nice. nothing like a little landscaping formed from the reminents of a brutal regime. After being mentally beaten down by the sights of every day life, you wonder how do you sleep at night after homeless, starving children wrap their arms around your waist and beg you for food, for money, for hope. the answer to that is you dont sleep. well i dont anyway. cambodia was a blur of cities and sleepless nights .. each night would come and go and i would think, maybe tonight i will finally sleep, but i have yet to earn that right i suppose. what's a little sleep deprivation compared to what these people deal with. So, i decided to leave cambodia and head back to thailand and hang out on the beaches .. but not without one last cambodian experience. I bought myself a nice ticket in a pretty air-conditioned bus complete with bathroom from cambodia to bangkok, a trip that was scheduled to take 12 hours. 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 as though he wants to spit on me, and pulls out a tiny plastic stool, and throws it in the aisle. did i mention it only had 3 legs? I sat down, looked up at him and said, "i'm going to sit here, and i'm going to ride on this shitty bus, but just know that you're not fooling me, keep my money, i hope it brings you mountains of happiness." If looks could kill, the poor man wouldn't have lasted a second in my presence. But i survived the hellish ride thru 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. Days here are being spent on boats to nearby islands, snorkelling amongst beautiful coral and thousands of strange looking fish. I was walking along a path on one of the islands, on my way to have lunch overlooking the ocean, when the plants along the path started rustling and out of them comes running a lizard, a lizard the size of me, and it's naturally making a b-line right for me. i think it was just as scared of me as i was of him because he was in one hell of a rush, i jumped out of his way, in what was probably the most girliest manouver possible, and he was gone. what worried me more than this gigantic lizard, was what does a lizard that large eat? my feet stayed comfortably on top of my chair at lunch and have yet to comfortably touch the ground.
Tomorrow i am spending the entire day hanging from the limestone rocks above the ocean on a rock climbing adventure that will forever ruin rock climbing back home. Something tells me that the indoor climbing gym in guelph will not bring me the same thrill it once did.
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 engrained in my mind...clouded though they may be by the red dust that is equally engrained my skin.
