I weaved amongst the vendors selling live fish, frogs, eels,
turtles and dead chickens, socks, children’s clothes, and monks accepting alms.
The market by my house is one of my favorite places, especially at 5 a.m. There
is something about the market in the early morning that seems more exotic, more
special, and I never get tired of it. Some awful smell hit my nostrils as I
jumped into the red truck headed to the airport. Through the side of the truck,
I watched dark night sky slowly lighten and brighten, the colors changing with
each passing second.
The sun was about to rise by the time I got to the airport.
I hadn’t even paid the driver, when I heard a man calling out my name. It was
one of the Burmese teachers from the Migrant
Learning Center.
He had brought one of my friends to the airport, who was on the same flight to Bangkok as me. I laughed,
it seems like I can’t go anywhere in Chiang Mai without running into people I
know. He stopped some tourists and asked them to take our picture before I
passed through the metal detector at the door.
It was nice to have company on the flight. I have gotten so
use to traveling by myself, and being surrounded by people who can’t really
communicate with me, that it was quite a treat! It was also nice to have
someone to watch your bags when you had to make a trip to the restroom.
We parted ways in Bangkok,
and I headed to Starbucks with my book to prepare for the five hour layover. I
choose Starbucks because it was decorated for Christmas and they were playing
Christmas music (that and I could sit, read, and drink coffee as long as I
wanted). I was feeling the need to have a quick dose of western culture before
heading to Cambodia.
Descending through the clouds I had my first glimpse of Cambodia;
flat, light green and brown fields, with snaking water ways, flooded fields and
dots of houses here and there. It was a bit startling how “little” I saw as we
landed. After waiting inline to get off the plane, waiting in line for my visa,
waiting in line to pay, waiting in line to get through immigration, picking up
my bags, and getting waved through customs, it was nice to see a smiling face
in the crowd in front of the airport holding a sign with my name on it.
Within minutes I was in the cool air-conditioned interior of
the car. Cambodia
was noticeably hotter than Chiang Mai, and I felt slightly overdressed in my
long sleeve shirt and jeans (not to mention the sweatshirt I had just shed).
The driver told me we were about a half hour from the hotel I was staying at,
as I watched the familiar crazy Southeast Asia
traffic patterns around us.
We talked about everything from his recent marriage, a
vacation he had in southern Cambodia,
his job, where he and his wife were from, studying English, and the Khmer
Rouge. I was amazed that within five minutes I found myself in the middle of a
conversation about Cambodia’s
(recent) turbulent history. He told me about family he had lost, family that
was relocated, escaping to a refugee camp in Thailand
and his return to Cambodia.
I was amazed by all the building going on around the
outskirts of the city, and as we approached the city center, the amount of
crumbling French buildings, ripped up roads, and piles of garbage everywhere. After
settling into my room, I left the hotel and walked around a pile of garbage and
headed towards the river. I was staying on the river front, and I wanted to get
my bearings before the sun set.
There were an incredible amount of Cambodians out and about
along the river. Some were just sitting in the park, others were playing card
games, others a game that is like hacky sack but involves a badminton
shuttlecock. There were food vendors,
naked children, people selling sunglasses and photocopied books, tuk-tuk and
moto drivers, and people begging. Motorcycles passed with entire families
clinging to the back, bags of groceries, rice, melting ice blocks, and any
number of commercial items. It was intense, but I was no stranger to much of
the commotion and grateful I had come to Cambodia
after having lived in Thailand
for a year.
I had a lovely dinner of a peanut curry and sticky rice
before retiring for the evening. I had come to Cambodia to volunteer, but I had a
few days before I was meeting up with my group, and was excited to get out and
explore the city on my own for the next few days.
