This is the story of a rather wet Friday and a mad dash to the airport. It’s monsoon here in Cambodia, which literally translates as “if you were planning on going anywhere there is a high probability that the sky will darken up and dump all its buckets on you”. So, as you may have guessed, downwards poured the rain.
Problem - there was me without a poncho about to meet people for the first time and wanting to make a better impression than turning up with the drowned rat look.
Solution – pull up at a roadside stand and call out for a raincoat, in Khmer, to a dear local lady.
Now I fail to understand why I, a helpless, drenched, foreign girl, sitting on a moto longing for a plastic covering, would pick the bright pink one, but this situation has been tested before and all results have proven that bright pink ponchos should be given to damsel white girls!
She pulled it out with a helpful smile, sending me a secret message that this cutie pink plastic would somehow cheer me up and style my soaked person. So I surrendered to it as she assisted me putting it on as the rain heaped down and the two Khmer guys across the road looked on in complete bemusement.
Maybe that’s what I’m here for in Cambodia, to bring laughter into someone else’s life by the bewildering situations I put myself in. Yep, I think I may have found my calling :)
