Cambodia

The taste of plum candy still lingered on my tongue as I wandered the dim hallways of Bangkok International. I wanted to make something of my overnight layover. This was Thailand, after all. No sense in waiting to begin the journey.

The quiet of the terminal seemed exacerbated by the fact that there were other living beings around me. I found it curious that any of the cafes and shops would even be open in the wee hours of the ink-black Bangkok morning. Then again I’d never actually spent the night in an airport, so what should I expect? A short, plump woman was working one of those spinning floor cleaner things. She looked more bored than tired. As she swung her machine absently in the direction of my shoes I jumped and did a quick dance for her. She gave me a smile, the real genuine type, and I figured the Thais must be a friendly breed.

My blue JanSport knapsack bounced lazily on my shoulder. It was all the luggage I had. At the feet of a gilded temple, an appropriate size for an airport terminal I decided, young people talked and laughed and passed the time. I looked up at the ornamented roof, corners stretched like twisted daggers, reaching for the ceiling. This was nothing like the temples I’d seen in Japan. Through a narrow window I gazed at a glowing neon line of Thai script, Christmas red against the black night sky. Bangkok International Airport, I figured. A man approached as I walked lazily past a gilded portrait of a king. 'You are traveling!' His eyes and his teeth were faintly yellowed. 'I am from Bangladesh!' I picked up my step and he fell away.

In a glass-enclosed room a large group of older men dressed in white and maroon robes slept, some still wearing their distinctive Muslim headwear. I tried to snap a picture; a simple scene, yet exotic and new for this nascent explorer. A pair of eyes popped open, staring straight at me as if he’d noticed me right through his eyelids. I slipped my camera back into my bag as I moved on in vague shame. I found a bookstore and paid 35 bucks for a Lonely Planet Cambodia. I stretched out on a profoundly uncomfortable row of plastic chairs. I felt my interest in the airport waning.

I leaned my forehead against the window and peered down at the landscape. My breath, stained with airline egg and vegetable, spread a warm fog over the plastic. Far below, dark green trees resembling hairy lollipops lent depth and contrast to the dusty brown land. Neat lines cut geometric shapes in the dirt. I suspected they ran clear over the flat horizon, obscured on this day by a semi-secretive haze. Tidy ovals of green further hinted at man's fragile agreement with the earth. A narrow band of trees, dense as a rainforest against the barren plain, told me there was water down there.

As a collection of individual aspects, the scenery held no experiential value. I'd seen such things before. Viewed as a whole, the land seemed somehow unknowable. The scattered dots of vegetation were spread out over the grid of fields and dirt paths like points on a correlation graph - though what sort of correlations one might find in Cambodia I had no idea. My stores of knowledge were comprised solely of postcard pictures of Ankor and foggy stories of a land overflowing with mines and disfigured people.

I wiped a palm over my window and let my gaze wander. The land stared back up at me, open and aloof. The empty paths, the fields of desolation, the sparse bits of life sticking up out of the ground, rooted in determination and spite - it was all right there for my eyes to drink in. Yet I felt ignorant of even this.

My heart raced as we began our descent.

Trucks rumbled past our shoulders. Dust swirled and burned my eyes. The road was straight and flat and dissipated into a whitish gray cloud that edged away as we bounced intrepidly forward, exposing Cambodia's soul. To the right and left, people with brown faces and mismatched clothes carried baskets and tinkered with dead machines and tended to the business of living in routine squalor. Our arrival in Phnom Penh proper was punctuated with Sokom's brave, unhesitating nosedive into the stream of traffic pouring through the dust-coated rotary in front of us. I leaned with the bike as he threw it side to side. He began throwing glances at me over his shoulder. 'Can you just drive around a little?' I yelled in his ear. Maniacal a driver as he was, he was my only friend in town. I had to stick with him. 'Okay!' he shouted back, so glib I don't know if he even heard me. How many people ask him to just drive around for a while? Maybe more than I thought. The idea was to simply happen upon Jamie and Garryck in this mess of concrete buildings and crowded dusty streets. (Why not?)  After twenty minutes of dwindling hope I had Sokom let me off.

The crowd of young moto drivers that had materialized around us seemed inordinately interested in me. For what I did not know. Sokom scribbled his name and cell phone number on a piece of scrap paper. ‘You need a ride, you call me! Okay?’ He thought I was a pretty decent guy, I figured. Either that or a sucker. He drove away and the other moto guys started pelting me with eager faces and dire words. ‘You need a ride? You need a ride? I take you, come on.’ What are you clowns talking about? I just got off your friend’s bike…

So there I was, with no local currency, not a lick of the language and nary a clue what to do next. I looked around at the rushing crowds, doing nothing much as far as I could tell. I felt a sweaty hopelessness dripping down my face. Not even the map in my guide book was making any sense as I spun it back and forth in countless quarter-turns. What was my next move? There had to be a million possible answers, and I couldn't guess any of them. I smiled to myself. I was traveling.

The sweat dripped down my back and my legs. I searched for bits of shade to escape the sun, if only for a few seconds. I heard a beep behind me. I turned around. A man with dark glasses asked me with his hands if I wanted a ride. I politely waved him off. A solid seven or eight seconds later I heard another beep. A much younger man on a cleaner moto waved to me from across the street, pointing at the seat behind him. I shook my head and threw my hand in a lazy arc and continued on. Literally three seconds later another beep. I shook my head at the cement in front of my feet and kept walking. So the guy pulls up next to me. His shoulder-length hair and long wispy moustache made me think he had just decided on the spot to try his hand at this taxi thing. He waited until I looked at him. ‘…Okay?’ I stared back. That’s your sales pitch? I barely had it in me to shake my head as I walked away. I ignored the next beep as it came whining at me from the far curb. I had yet to reach the end of the block. The kid throttled through a u-turn and cruised up next to me, beeping again. Christ…

I carried my pack at my side as I walked the streets looking for something I could relate to: a supermarket, a gas station, even a crosswalk. The city seemed wholly comprised of cement and trash and oily machines. What was not crumbling wore the permeating dust of slow ruin. The sun drove my eyes toward the ground. I felt my middle finger rising a little higher each time I waved off another serial beeper.

The yellow sign caught my eye like a beacon in the dark. Western Union. Which meant, I wanted to assume, a bank. At the corner I looked both ways. Traffic seemed to flow in anarchical currents. To my left, a swirling mob of motos and cars and people beneath a massive yellow dome; to my right, a shaded street with a neatly-manicured median, large, polished homes behind walls on either side. A collision of two different worlds, with me in the middle feeling very, very small.

The woman behind me on line inside the bank had neatly-combed black hair and a knee-knocking sweetness in her voice. She spoke nice English. I wanted her by my side for the rest of the week. ‘I’d like to exchange some traveler’s checks,’ I said to the woman behind the glass as if she’d never heard such a request. With a smile she spread out an array of alien bills in the half-circle hole between us, counting them for me in practiced efficiency. As I walked away from the teller’s window, fingering my stack of money, I realized I still didn’t know what the currency was called. The girl in line smiled and wished me a pleasant journey. I really, really wanted to take her with me.

I’d had it all wrong. Heading for the US Embassy got me nothing but sweaty and tired. In the other direction lie the park on the river, the eateries with the menus in English and, to my great surprise, a sprinkling of Internet cafes. Why didn’t that white guy say so? I jumped on a computer for something like a nickel and punched up Jamie and Garryck’s address. ‘I’ll go to the park every two hours and look around for you guys.’ As I walked back out into the sunshine I thought about my stupid note hanging on a nail in a wooden shack behind the embassy.

So I had some time and a pocket stuffed with Cambodian cash. The town showed some promise; the disoriented traveler was slowly getting his bearings. It was time to take a leisurely gander at the lighter side of Phnom Penh. In the park a wedding party, clad in white and fronted by a row of kneeling, giggling children, posed for a few pictures. Across the street the exquisitely-carved stupas and gateways of Wat Ounalom rose toward the sky, bright yellow flowers at their feet and healthy palms and rich deciduous trees all around. A stroll up the sidewalk brought me to the stately burnt-red National Museum, layered roof adorned with spires that rose like dancing flames of fire. I paused to peer down a shady side street, an old building painted a proud yellow standing like a guardian over another richly sculpted gateway, the tents and crowds of a market buzzing away on the other side. Back to where Boulevard Samdach Sothearos meets Preah Sisovath in a sweeping triangular intersection I furtively snapped a photo of a man sitting on his empty tricycle taxi and staring up at one of the stupas rising up over the walls of Wat Ounalom. A honking blew through my ears as the film in my camera advanced; I spun around and clicked my shutter as a group of kids waved to me from the top of one way overloaded scooter and trailer set-up. This would turn out to be one of my favorite shots of the day. Three moto drivers invited me to take their picture; oddly none of them offered me a ride somewhere. I walked the long long block along the Boulevard where the Royal Palace Grounds stood behind a high yellow wall. The portrait of a man dressed in gold looked out over the street from the front of a golden-roofed pavilion. Guards with gray uniforms, stiff limbs and rifles put on a marching display for themselves. People lounged at a sidewalk café along a dusty, shaded street lined with more tricycle taxis. A young girl watched over her naked baby brother in a swath of dead grass and litter. Back at the neatly-trimmed waterfront park two little girls smiled for me and my camera, as beautiful as two kids’ faces could possibly be. That moment when I stepped off Sokom’s moto and fell into that sea of confusion seemed a world and a lifetime away.

He spoke a fair bit of English. I wanted to get to know him, to get a glimpse of life beyond his moto. But I didn’t know what to say. I asked him a bit about his childhood, what he liked to do as a boy and how Phnom Penh had changed since then, if indeed it had changed at all. A lot can happen in thirty years, I thought, even in the middle of Indochina. ‘I’m seventeen years old,’ he said. I began to laugh at the joke, but there was no laughter in his eyes. He turned his soda can in slow circles. I moved the conversation along. ‘So, does your family live here in Phnom Penh?’ I sipped my 7-Up in silence as he told me his father and sister were killed by the Khmer Rouge. For some cynical reason I wasn’t sure I should believe him. We spoke slowly of more inconsequential things. His voice had become noticably quieter. I sucked down my coconut milk and stretched my legs and asked him if he could take me to a decent hotel. Standing on the first step of a maroon five-story building clinging desperately to its pride I looked into Sareth's melancholy expression. Five dollars was more than he would have asked for but at that moment it just seemed right. A hint of emotion rose up in his eyes as I handed him a Lincoln. He scribbled his cell phone number on a torn-off piece of paper, we shook hands, and I watched him drive off into the graying Phnom Penh evening. I'd never see him again.

With Garryck’s vague directions and the dubious map in my guidebook I somehow managed to stumble upon the street I was looking for. The hand-painted murals advertising pizza and laundry service and good times in English were hard to miss. I noticed also the word guesthouse. Garryck had used the same term the day before. Following the arrows pointing me down the crumbling road toward the Café Freedom and Lodge and a place called Chippy Pub I imagined an aging Cambodian woman shuffling me into a spare room in her home. The idea was intriguing. I hoped the sheets would be clean. Guesthouse, it soon became apparent, was simply another term for youth hostel. I was a little disappointed. I would have liked to stay in someone’s spare room. The wicker lounge chairs on the neat wooden deck looking out over Boeng Kak Lake were fair consolation, as was breakfast for a dollar, served right to me and my propped-up feet.

Jamie and Christine were also eating. Garryck system was still dealing with last night’s dinner. Darren from England and Nick from Australia rounded out the group. Sitting in the warm morning, watching clumps of lily and grass float by, filling my belly with rice and eggs and listening to my fellow travelers’ stories, I felt at ease with Phnom Penh.

Sanctuary, though, was not what I’d come here for, and I felt my comfort turning to ennui.

I came upon three girls seated in a doorway. The one in the middle was strikingly attractive. She smiled at me. I smiled cautiously back and reached for my camera – and her smile faded. I thought about Nick. ‘It’s like stealing,’ he’d said. He never carried a camera when he traveled – and he traveled quite a bit. ‘You and I have this moment of humanity to share, and you go ahead and stick a machine between us.’ I understood what he meant. I had turned a few faces away that morning in the market. Here I was doing it again. But for the woman and her little daughter at Wat Phnom the day before, and for others on this walk, it did not take away from whatever we were sharing. One woman, sitting on her rough wooden porch, dressed in a satiny blue shirt and a beautiful patterned skirt and holding her baby on her knee, could not have slimed any wider for me. The same went for her older little boy, standing barefoot in the dirt in front of their wood slat front door and grinning up at me. And for the two teenage boys drawing things in the dirt with rocks who could have burned holes in the film in my camera their eyes were so piercing and proud. Memories, like all things, fade with time. Taking photographs, while impersonal to some, remains an invaluable way to remember not only sights and moments, but in many cases the emotions you felt in that sliver of time and the thoughts that might have compelled you to take that picture in the first place.

For some, having their picture taken is an honor, and a form of immortalization in a moment that can never return.

I was quickly falling into a love-hate relationship with the concept of the guesthouse. A place like Phnom Penh can drown your senses like a tidal wave, and the island of calm is a relief and perhaps a necessary reprieve from the perceptual onslaught. Still, the idea that I need to escape the world I came here to see is an unwelcome one.

Meeting an attractive girl helps the pain go away.

Back on the deck, lounging and watching the day slowly slip away, I noticed a girl flipping through a guidebook printed in Japanese. I leaned over the armrest of the empty chair between us. ‘Nihon kara desu ka?’ She looked up, nothing but confusion on her face. I pointed at her book. She giggled, as Japanese girls will when they don’t know what else to do. I spent the next several hours with Masae, chatting easily on the deck watching the world grow dark and then at dinner at a quiet place around the corner. As the food on our plates slowly disappeared the thought rose up in my head like a parade coming down the street: Here I am in Cambodia, on a date with a pretty girl, conversing in Japanese. Man of the world I am! Then on the way back to the guesthouse that skinny, insecure little kid from New Jersey decided to show up and Masae and I never made it up to the rooftop for a romantic moonlit view of the lake.

As poor and dirty as most of Phnom Penh is, there are still places of brilliant wealth. That there are money and resources floating around the fingers of some of the more fortunate hands of the country is all too obvious. And sad, considering the circumstances a seemingly inordinate percentage of the people of Cambodia are forced to endure. Inside the walls of the Royal Palace one can see and even touch some of the most glittering, gilded treasures to be found anywhere along this wide dusty stretch of land that separates Thailand from the Mekong River. Paintings, statues and pillars adorn the buildings that hold even greater fortunes. Gardens are tended to as if in preparation for the coming of God Himself. Temples and halls are kept in ornate perfection in case they are ever to be used by the privileged few who have these luxuries at their disposal. Life is good, if yours is the picture hanging in one of the great gaudy frames looking over the crumbling sidewalks and the old women dragging wooden carts down streets no one has the time or the will to clean.

The day after I took this picture, the painting was gone, leaving a square of sky visible through the frame that remained.

The prisoners were taken from all parts of the country and from all walks of life. They were different nationalities though the vast majority were Cambodian. They were workers, farmers, engineers, technicians, intellectuals, professors, teachers, students, even diplomats and ministers. Moreover, whole families of prisoners, including newborn babies, were taken to Tuol Sleng to be exterminated.

According to KR reports found at Tuol Sleng Archive, there were a total of 10,499 prisoners between 1975 and 1978, not including the number of children killed by the KR at S-21, estimated in the same documents at 2,000.

All the classrooms in the school were converted into prison cells, windows enclosed by iron bars and covered with tangled barbed wire. The classrooms on the ground floor were divided into small 2m x .8m cells for single prisoners. The rooms on the top floors of the four buildings, measuring 6m x 8m, were used as mass prison cells. On the middle floors, cells were built to hold female prisoners.

At first the interrogations were conducted in the houses around the prison. However, because women taken to the interrogation rooms were often raped by the interrogators, one of the school buildings was converted into an interrogation office.

Before the prisoners were placed in their cells they were photographed, and detailed biographies of their childhood up to the dates of their arrests were recorded. Then they were stripped to their underwear. Everything was taken away from them. They slept directly on the floor, without mats, mosquito nets or blankets.

Prisoners in the small cells were shackled with chains fixed to the walls or the concrete floor. Prisoners held in the large mass cells had their legs shackled to iron bars, four to each 1m bar, 20 to 30 prisoners fixed to 6m bars, bodies placed on alternating sides.

Choeung Ek is better known as the Killing Fields. Here too are hundreds of human skulls, stacked in a glass-encased tower, reminding those who come here of the horrors that took place – as if anyone could forget. On the floor below the shelves of skulls lies a mess of torn, dirty clothes, in any other context nothing more than a pile of laundry if not trash. In the fields also, among the holes in the ground and the signs recounting how many headless bodies were found, bits of tattered clothing can be seen rotting away in the dirt. In time these poignant reminders will disappear completely.

I stepped slowly, silently along the worn dirt paths, looking down into the holes in the ground at my feet, remembering the photographs taken when they were muddy pools of decaying human beings. Nearby a group of four young boys languished under large shade trees, striking up conversations with those not of this place. Jamie and Christine sat with them, legs resting on the edge of a small depression in the earth. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about. The four boys wore faces that were neither happy nor sad. As I snapped a picture of the scene Christine smiled at one of the boys, unaware. In a different setting I would have loved to sit down with them. But here I wasn’t able. How to set aside emotionally the meaning of this place and simply chat with a group of children? Chat isn’t even the right word. Children aren’t inclined toward small talk, in any language. Nor, I suppose, can they comprehend the gravity of the world that they so nearly missed. Choeung Ek has no barber wire, no fences; children run and play as if they are blind to the holes in the ground around them where masses of people were killed and buried in the not-too-distant past. They laugh and run in the shadow of a stupa filled with victims' skulls, seemingly oblivious.

And maybe they need to be. Perhaps for now it is best if they are allowed to be children, playing in these fields.

Tonight I was presented with the chance to test Nick’s theory on carrying a camera.

An angelic group of young children was putting on a dance performance in one corner of the small restaurant. The girls wore pink satin blouses and purple skirts; the boys had light blue shirts and dark blue pants, contrasted with bright yellow sashes around their waists. They held shell-shaped instruments in their hands and had a seriousness in their steps. Children have an incredible power to tug at my heartstrings. And these kids were no exception. I practically melted through my wicker chair and right onto the floor when one of the smallest girls came up and invited me to join their dance. It shames me now that I passed, not wanting to be a part of the scene. I’d never been good with the spotlight.

The flash on my camera popped, like one of those old jobs with the black velvet shade the photographer drapes over his head. Fortunately I had decided to take a picture of the children and not of Nick or Jamie shoveling a pile of noodles into his mouth, as this would be my only picture of the night. A hopeful dash through the neighborhood got me nothing but a fresh film of sweat; I would have to burnish the evening into my memory. This, it seems, is easier for Nick than it is for me. I’ve already forgotten the face of the engaging woman with the red shirt who came over to talk to me for a while. Unlike a guy with a face full of dinner, she was wholly worth remembering.

I agree with Nick that a camera can be intrusive. Certain moments can not be captured without degrading them. But places we see, we may never return to; moments by and large can never be relived. To have an image of a slice of time, or a tiny piece of the Earth we have walked; to be able to see with a clarity that does not fade; to bring back the details, or even notice new ones, of the paths we have traveled – these can rekindle the thoughts and emotions and the magic we travel for.

March 17 – 10:00pm: This morning seems weeks ago. I am lying on my bed, listening to the quiet of this place. An uninterrupted chirping floats in from somewhere out in the darkness. I imagine a hundred thousand crickets among the tall grass and the trees that, though consisting of roots and trunk and branches and leaves, are markedly different from those back home. I’ll use a mosquito net tonight. I have no remedy for malaria.

Six o’clock in the morning is a beautiful time to be out on the road. The anticipation of the day ahead mixed with the adrenalin stirred up by the driving motion of my legs created an energy I was not familiar with. I drank in the cool morning air, yet to be sullied by the day’s inevitable pollution. We pedaled harder as we circled through the rotary that would put us on the road out of town, plenty of people already up and tending to their business. Some simply stared as we rolled by. Some cracked smiles, shy or unsure or amused. Many more showered us with cries of laughter and amazement and surprise and elation as we passed by. ‘Ooooohhhh! Woo-oooooo! Haaaa! Yaaaaaah!’ We yelped and howled in return. For Jamie and Garryck, this had to have been the hundredth morning to begin like this. As the chorus of excited voices rang in my ears I wondered if it was still as amazing to them as the first.

Phnom Penh rolled away behind us. Buildings and power lines were replaced by wide open land. Cars and motos gave way to wooden carts loaded with hay and pottery, pulled by bony oxen the color of sandy sea water. The dirt beneath our wheels was tinted orange. Scattered across the barren fields were tall, skinny trees with thick tufted tops. I thought back to my first glimpse of Cambodia, five miles above where I was now. On a sensory level, only the angle had changed. But the two couldn’t have felt any further apart. It was the difference between being an astronomer and an astronaut.

An hour along we pulled over at a roadside stand for breakfast. A man and a woman were serving rice and what I surmised to be a sort of vegetable dish with no specific recipe. The tables and chairs were weathered and cracking; the dishes were something less than spotless. A few flies buzzed around our sweaty bodies and our food. It was perfect. We wolfed down our food, Jamie and Garryck offering smiles and gestures of encouragement to the grown-ups and children gathering around the tandems. They edged slowly forward, peering at our unusual machines while maintaining a polite if not unsure distance. Jamie and Garryck added powdered electrolytes to their purified bottled water. I did not.

We covered 90 kilometers today, long flat stretches interspersed with gentle undulations. Men with tough brown skin eyed us from their ox carts as we passed. I watched them with equal intrigue. Two extremely different worlds, intersecting for a fleeting moment. I kept staring, back over my shoulder, watching them continue down the road of their life. I wanted to stay. I wanted to drink in the picture. I wished I could take just one photograph. As the sun rose higher in the bright clear sky we took a breather where the land dipped down a bit from the road. In a watery field a young boy walked slowly behind a quacking mess of ducks, a single lotus flower in his hands. He seemed to be pretending not to notice as Garryck took his picture.

We rolled on across the dry landscape. I continued to fill my system with purified water.

Catherine was a hale and hearty one. Her list of Asian countries she had cycled solo through was longer perhaps than the list of European countries I’d ever had a beer in. With her straight brown pony tail, fair Swiss complexion and easy demeanor, she didn’t strike me as the type to undertake such an adventure. Testament to my underdeveloped view of the world, not to mention a good kick in the ass. True, I was living in Japan, assuming the culture and learning the language as best I could. And now here I was squeezing an eight-day trip to Cambodia in between teaching assignments. This, I was beginning to realize, was at best a beginning. An intense, incredible, wonderful beginning, but a beginning just the same. As a teenager I viewed going to New York City as stepping out into the great unknown. I remember spitting on the sidewalk and congratulating myself for leaving my mark on the world. A month in Germany during high school made me a conqueror of faraway lands. Never mind I was one of a group of eighteen, chaperoned and subsidized from start to finish. I’d lived and spoken and drank beer like a German. Eight weeks in Europe after college without killing myself meant I could tackle even greater adventures. Once I landed in Japan the likes of Scott and Amundsen had nothing on me. Now suddenly I was being schooled by this girl with the Swiss Alps in her cheeks.

It was noon when we rolled into a small town that resembled Phnom Penh only in the lotus-shaped monument standing in the middle of a wide dirt rotary. Trees overshadowed the angled rooftops and modest shops along the road. An occasional whine of a single moto would rise up through the air, rather calming after the ongoing collective ruckus I’d grown accustomed to hearing in the city. Corrugated metal and thatch hung over piles of pottery for sale, unidentifiable wares spilling into each other, all identical in color to the earth they rested on. Signs were scripted solely in Khmer. There was the sense that the town might or might not exist next week.

Garryck and Jamie found the guesthouse. I still had no idea what I was doing. As we dumped our gear in our rooms my head began to feel light and empty. I looked at myself in the mirror and my stomach started to ache. I was hungry; this much I knew. But the thought of eating only made me feel worse. I laid in a hammock in the common café area and held my arms over my eyes and my gut, wondering what the hell was going on.

Two hours and a liter of electrolyte-loaded water later I could stand up without feeling like I was about to tumble off the edge of the world. Another hour’s worth of reverse osmosis and I was able to put down a plate of spicy sausage things with tangy sauce on the side.

'Ahy! Ahy!' they were shouting. One of them might have been yelling 'Okay!' In college such a scenario would suck me in for hours. I walked slowly toward them, mirroring their smiles as best i could. 'Okay! Ahy!' One of them held out a plastic cup half-filled with something that looked like skim milk and water. I took it and swished the liquid around. It smelled nothing like anything I had ever poured on my corn flakes. 'Ahy! Hah!' I wondered just how distilled it was as I took a sip. More cheers and laughter. I waited for my nausea from earlier in the day to come storming back. Nothing happened. Another sip and an exaggerated smack of my lips and the guys were howling. Easy crowd, I thought to myself. The cup in my hands was only half full. This lent added comfort. I downed it, shuddered and gave the empty cup back to the kid with no shirt and motioned my sincere thanks. A few handshakes and I continued on my way, disregarding my shadowy suspicions that I'd be passed out in the dirt in ten minutes.

March 19: By the time I figured I should open my eyes Garryck was already dressed and milling around. It was 4:15am. I was excited about the day ahead. I just wished it didn’t have to begin so early. Truth be told, though, Angkor could wait. The temples have been sitting there for a thousand years; they’re not going anywhere too soon. I was the one with limited time. I would say good-bye to Cambodia tomorrow. This was my only shot – certainly on this trip, perhaps in my life – to see the sky slowly lighten over Angkor. I crawled out of bed and groped around for a pair of shorts. Garryck unplugged his headphones so I could listen to a recording of a prank phone call about a Chinese chicken. What a perfect way to prepare my soul for Angkor.

As we were leaving Angkor, bodies spent and senses drained, a group of young men gathered around Garryck’s bike. I got on the front seat, one guy jumped on back and a third climbed onto the rear rack. The others stood by, enjoying the novelty. After Garryck snapped a picture for me I asked him if he wanted one too. He smiled and patted me on the shoulder. ‘Got a million of them, dude.’

Back at the guesthouse, chowing on some dinner and thinking back on my time in Cambodia – a time that was coming to an end much too quickly – I decided to skip the return to Phnom Penh for my flight back to Bangkok in favor of a van ride direct from Siem Reap. I wanted to give Cambodia one more chance to amaze me.

March 20, 5:30am: I shouldn’t feel this chipper, but I do. Nick is already up and at ‘em, talking to a few people out in the café area. In a few minutes I will offer Jamie and Garryck hearty handshakes and all the gratitude in me for making this trip possible for a guy who has just begun to find his way through the world. I’m sad to leave Cambodia behind. I feel like I’ve experienced a lifetime of adventures since hopping on the back of Sokom’s moto outside of Phnom Penh International. Still, I don’t know if I will feel the urge to come back any time soon. There is a great big world waiting out there. And I’ve only got so much time on this planet.

The woman sitting on the side of the road outside the guesthouse certainly knew what she was doing. I had no idea a person could grill up a sandwich that good on a bucket of coals. I grabbed another one from her before it was time for our dusty white van to head for the border. Along for the ride were two Japanese guys and a family of three. I had the back seat all to myself. The A/C was barely able to push a cool draft through the vents – which was a surprise to none of us. What was a bit of a shock was that virtually the entire way was paved. Still, it was too bumpy to be able to write. So I sat back and took in the monotony of the passing scenery.

Suddenly we took a hard right. There were no signs suggesting the place we were headed had a name, nor were there buildings, cars or anything else out on the wide open, endless, land-of-no-return spread out ahead of us. Our driver roared ahead, down the dirt road leading away from the perfectly accommodating paved river flowing to the Thai border, and into a grassy expanse that held nothing but the hidden bodies of the backpackers that had come before us. Ten mintues into our surprise adventure we bounced into a patch of scattered, scraggly trees. We rolled through lazy clusters of houses built of planks and scraps of plywood, people out front waving in disinterest or staring in boredom. What were they doing, living out here, I wondered. I kept my eyes peeled for wild animals, hoping that would not prove to mean the machete-wielding, Uzi-toting type. The couple sitting in front of me kept eyeing each other warily, afraid to speak or perhaps not needing to. The Japanese guys didn't seem to have an opinion on the situation. Then the trees and houses disappeared, and after plowing across another stretch of grassland we bounced back up onto the blacktop. The driver pushed the pedal back to the floor, and we resumed breathing.