Another World in our World

I have always been someone who wants to travel. I have a travel bucket list pages long. My trip to Cambodia was the first piece of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the world map, the first tick on my bucket list.
When I landed in Siem Reap there was a quite overwhelming feeling of, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” or perhaps more fittingly, “Where the hell are we?” But I still hopped on a tuk tuk and took it all in. The smells of cooking intermixed with burning petrol from the chaotic traffic, the choking dust and scooters laden with 3 or 4 passengers. The most shocking were 5 star hotels interspersed with ramshackle huts. Tourists would turn a blind eye to the poverty, whose primary aim was to see the temples and ‘tick’ them off. It is not a case of ‘been there, done that’ but the fact that you were swept along with the culture, the people, the food, the way of life.
It was as if we’d landed on another planet. We were extremely lucky to have a bunch of fellow volunteers take us out for dinner on the first night otherwise I’m pretty sure we would’ve locked ourselves in the hotel room, with quite a contingent of mosquitoes for company. There’s no use stressing about the fact the bathroom floods every time you have a shower, that you can’t flush the toilet paper or the fact that there appears to be no road rules.
I got to see what it is like living in a third world country, teach kids English, swim in a waterfall, ride in a tuktuk, face the hectic traffic on a bike, meet some amazing people, experience the terrible history of Cambodia, meet the locals and fall in love with a country.
This was a trip full of firsts. Like that time you climbed to the top on an ancient temple or had to do an impromptu repair on a bike in the back streets of Siem Reap. Or perhaps when you momentarily forgot your shyness and jumped up on a table in a bar to dance. Or making friends with the kids at the school you were teaching at.
It is a testament to just how much you have changed in those three weeks when you arrive home wearing elephant print pants, wrists covered in weaved bracelets and barely held together plimsolls. You come back a different person, a person who has pushed back the curtain and peered through the gap into another world. Mentally, you are already planning your next trip. You see, it’s because you caught the disease, the bug that will forever be a part of your psych. You joined the ranks, the people who work to explore. The experience is priceless.