Mrs. Pineapple and Mrs. Bread: a bus ride

I write this from the very loud capitol city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Sitting in a substantial red arm chair, the hilariously out of place seating option here in this internet cafe: hilarious considering how this chair contrasts with the litter of candy wrappers and half-drunk bottles and irksome techno music around.

We came here on more than 2 wheels each: thanks to a bus. The road between Siem Reap and the capitol city was appalling: pot holes like toilet bowls, the road more like a weathered tarp than a road it was patched so much, the asphalt edges frayed and dropping to a stony red dirt shoulder, in places more than a foot drop down. The air was dull and thick with dust, heat, and fumes. And this was National Highway 6, which is Cambodia's equivalent to Route 80 in the states. We only have 2 months to ride this trip, and we might as well ride in conditions which aren't so harrassing.

At the bus station this morning: the ticket company advised us to get there at 7am for a 7:30 departure and the bus left Cambodia style right on time, at 8:10. While waiting for this departure I watched Mrs. Pineapple cutting her fruit for sale to passengers. She skinned the pineapples, and cut them into strips that fanned out from the bottom like the spokes of an upturned umbrella. Finally she dunked the cut pineapples into a bucket of standing water. I cringed watching this; that water was most likely not the potable water we see in blue drinking jugs, but instead water from the taps, which is untreated and unsanitary. The guidebooks warn tourists to prepare with typhoid, Hepatitis A, and cholera shots before coming here AND to only ever, forever amen, drink bottled or filtered water.

I prefer to buy my own fruit and peal it myself. And let me digress for a minute and say, even through the rubbishy mess and polluted water and exhausty air in this country, eating papayas and mangoes and bananas here is an absolute joy. Every papaya I messily peal with my pocket knife, getting sticky everywhere, and then eat far too much of, is The Most Delicious Papaya of My Life. 

Mrs. Bread was also plying the bus waiting area, a wide circle of bread basket balanced on her head. Even though I barely looked at her, she must of tuned into my wave-band of baked-goods love; she took down her load and showed me the white fluffy bodies of baguettes and buns. Ok....fine.....I asked the price of the buns. $1 (4,000 riel). Too much! In my deliberating pause she changed this to 3,000 riel. "2,000 riel" I replied, and this time she paused for a moment and then, "yes!" We'd come to a price we were both happy with. I'm learning to bargain here and feel that I am becoming more assertive, both in getting what I'd like and turning away (tuk-tuks) what I don't. The bun was a cloud and tasted of memories of Polish Easter breads of family-times past.

We had the very front seat of the bus, sitting above the driver, watching the endless brown, wizened, flat landscape roll by. The bus bucked and swayed and honked the 8 hour journey and we arrived with intact bicycles and corrugated bums.

Men around bus loading areas are spitting, smoking cigarettes, bothering us to take their tuk-tuk taxis. I dislike riding buses because I feel no longer the helmsman of my trip, also unproductive, stiff, and on someone else's time-line but it's a good practice in Patience. And also, decidedly, preferable to bicycling these roads. "The worst road conditions I have ever seen" said Lay-DEE Elise, and she's been in Cameroon, Alaska, New Zealand....and is not prone to exaggeration. I agreed with her.

*********

Speaking of: I must alert my dear readers. "Buddy Lissy" has requested a name change on the blog; she is now "Lay-DEE Elise." Because when in the tourist areas this is what we hear: "Hello lay-DEE you want cold drink lay-DEE you come to my table ok lay-DEE?" This hawking aggravates us; if we want a cold drink we can see you have a cooler, and we'll come over ourselves. You don't need to walk with us for 10 feet brandishing your drink bottles in our faces and repeating yourself, especially after we've said "no thanks."

So she is now Lay-DEE Elise. My absolutely stalwart and good-humored travel buddy.

No words

The largest Hindu temple in the world

"Enchanting" said Buddy Lissy, then apologized for using the cliche. But really, enchanting was indeed true: there was no better way to describe the experience of walking around the complex of the 10th century temples at Angkor Wat. This place is a UNESCO site and draws 2 million tourists a year to Cambodia.

And I could see why.

Ancient temples, built a thousand years ago, out of stone. The carving was intricate and had me agape; the amount of work and talent needed to chip away such intricate designs was incredible. The temples were built not by slave labour, as I had dreaded, but by local people who wanted to improve their karma and would take a year to donate to work on the temples.

I was in awe of the stone, of the dedicated work to create this, of the elephants which would have transported the massive stone blocks; horrified by the bullet holes from the Khmer Rouge but given hope by how this country has begun mending itself after that tragedy.

There are one thousand temples in the expansive Angkor Wat area, the most famous being Angkor Wat itself, with the famous five peaks that are printed on Cambodia money. Now a Buddhist temple, it was built as a Hindu temple and is the largest Hindu temple in the world. 

Temples with moats, towers, endless levels and passageways; I was back in that fanciful world of childhood structures: sand castles and crayon castle drawings, but these were far more awe-inspiring and fantastic. And what was amazing; we climb over most of it. Had this been the states gates and ropes would have blocked off most of everything. But I picked my way up impossibly steep stone steps, jumped around fallen stone blocks, and could trace my fingers in the ancient stone carvings. I wonder how many years it will take them to close it up for preservation, if they ever do. This is Cambodia, not Yellowstone.


I couldn't even try capturing the magnificence of the Angkor Wat temple or any of the other grand temples in a photograph; instead these photographs grasp at a few of the details. 

Buddha smiles.

The girl on the far right is not actually a traditional Apsara dancing girl, if you couldn't tell. But at least she's not in stone.

A crumbling temple split apart by strangling figs. I found compelling the interweaving of ancient holy stone with the disregardingly powerful tree and steal human intervention.

Probably the oldest horse I've ever seen. All day I kept repeating to myself "a thousand years old" but I still struggled to wrap my mind around this.

Tourists, pooled from all over the world, gather in this one unbelievable place in.....Cambodia.

                                         

Eating crickets and other photos

Have added crickets to my list of Weird Foods Tried. Deep fried and with a bit of salt; mostly crunch without taste, but remove the legs because this girl didn't shave.

The winners of the Cambodia Coffee Championships: a little coffee shop on 1 1/2 street in Battambang. Treated self to a cappuccino there and I flew back to Seattle for a few minutes. Heaven in froth and aromatic form. 

Bicycles in Mr. Camry's trunk.

Scene in Mr. Camry's packed backseat.

Deep fried whole pigeons and snakes. Did not partake in these ones however.

Typical Cambodia internet cafe. 50 cents an hour; I'm generally the only foreigner, the only female, and the only one over 21 years old.

Yes, Toto, we are in Cambodia. Believe it or not. This is the glittering everything-is-available Siem Reap, the support town around the UNESCO site Angkor Wat. It feels like Disney World: all full of bright lights, things you want (in this case, yogurt, cute dresses, and fruit shakes), and people of all nationalities.

 

Yes, this is Cambodia, Part II. The courtyard of our $10 a night hotel. The difference between the tourist centers and rural towns is astounding.

A wedding last night; I gleaned some "trash" from it to decorate the bicycle.

Monkey see, monkey do, monkey pick some tasty nits.

Planes Trains and Automobiles

The road between Battambang and Siem Reap we'd heard was appalling. Dusty, bad traffic, in places slowed by construction, with large jolting passages of gravel to navigate. Buddy Lissy and I have thoroughly enough experienced the Cambodian highways already--a plentiful helping of honking, bad shoulders, pot-holes, and dusty hot wind to last us for some time--that we've decided to "cheat" and bus us to our destination of Siem Reap. We can save our bicycling energy for hopefully better roads to come.

We'd stopped a few days before at a bus company and were told that a bus left at 9am for the 3 hour ride to Siem Reap. We rolled up there this morning, 15 minutes early, to load the bikes. The young Mr. Bus told us, smackingly through a mouth of rice, that there was actually no bus going to Siem Reap.

Oh.

So we crossed the road to another bus company. A slurry of people pushed against the long ticket counter, and I wasn't sure where to get "in line", as it were, but as I stepped closer, the fog of people cleared and suddenly I had three ticket girls helping me. Oh, to be tall and foreign. (speaking of being tall, I've bumped my head twice today, which is about average for me around here)

It was unclear whether their bus would fit our bikes or not; people tend to answer most questions with "yes", so "will the bus fit our bikes?" brings "yes" and also "is the bus to small to fit our bikes?" also is "yes." So we decided to thread the few twisted blocks over to the bus itself to find out, which was parked and waiting "nearby the market."

We couldn't find the bus. Markets are packed and swarming and disorienting, and so we stopped and asked a man for directions. "You go Siem Reap?" he asked expectantly. Then he indicated not a bus, but a small lorry, and said he would take us and our bikes for $30. But before we could barter this down, however, we were swarmed by expectant men. We'd arrived in the "Where You Go?" part of town, as such, and they were typing prices into their Nokia phones to display to us, the long claw-like fingernails of pinky fingers making me cringe. Then we became an auction and the men were negotiating among themselves who would earn money by driving us to Siem Reap. Finally a Mr. White Camry won us with $20 for all, and we liked that he was leaving "now"--how convenient!

"Now" is a much wider span of time in Cambodia than it is in the USA.

A full hour passed before we finally left. In this time, Mr. Camry ranged about, adding passengers to his load, tying down boxes, convincing our bikes into the trunk. Two bikes in the trunk of a Toyota Camry: this is like pushing Christmas trees backwards through a doorway. I hovered, concerned, as he got out lengths of filthy ropes and began tying it all down. His tie job I hoped was serviceable, though I was appalled when he tried to tie through a spoke. But my Dad showed up for a moment and helped fix this. I jiggled ties and put cardboard in key places and hoped my dear darling bicycle would be alright.

Our camry was in a parking lot all of camrys in varying states of dustiness. They were not marked as taxis; but they seemed to be serving as informal taxis in a way, transporting people and goods between Battambang and other cities. I watched a new arrival camry roll in, and instantly four men appeared from the shade, putting their hands on the windows and jogging alongside. These were tuk-tuk and motorcycle drivers, staking their claims if the new arrivals needed a further ride.

Our camry was a tin of sardines: we had five people in the back-seat, four adults and a child, and a young man in the front with a cane and an unsavory sore on his ankle. I had my bags on my lap and it was hot and Mr. Camry had to push Buddy Lissy in a bit to get the back door to shut. I unlaced an arm from the tangle of bodies and wiped the perspiration off my upper lip. I felt lucky I'm not prone to car-sickness or claustrophobia.

I wasn't sure if I were more or less concerned that the knocking sound was coming from the engine rather than from the bicycles. But here we were, traveling in true Cambodia style: a jammed car and a stuffed trunk, people wringing the most out of those petrol-powered vehicles. And it was our turn now to be the in the place of the honkers rather than the honkees. Mr. Camry drove in top form, tail-gating, passing, horning at transportation smaller than himself. The whole time he was absolutely unperturbed, never impatient seeming.

On the road to Siem Reap, I sure was grateful not to be fighting it on a bicycle. There were places that had no pavement, and this created so much dust that the trees near the road had not green leaves, but brown.

We arrived all present and accounted for, with no more than a generous coating of dust on the bicycles. What an experience!

Battambang City, Cambodia: Photographs

Our hotel. At least it's not Easter already.

$8 a night. $6 a night places don't have the art.

This could be Seattle, though we are in Battambang Cambodia. So pleasing to be in this space, especially when contrasted with the Pile Place where we lunched once. Went to the bathroom in the back there to find 50-some dirty dishes, a smashed fish on the floor, and a mountain of plastic bottles. THIS cafe, however, had hand towels, cool colored lighting, AND chocolate cakes.

Halloween costume (toaster?) or medical practice? Photograph of sign outside a clinic.

Regarding Khmer food, the first part is arguable, but the second is for sure and certain no understatement.

In the mornings this country always smells like burning garbage.

The esoteric and enchanting flowers of the Cannonball tree. It's seeds are literally cannonballs which drop from the tree and roll to a reasonable distance for sprouting.

School bus parking lot, as it were, Cambodia style.

Breakfast: delicious egg-in-a-baguette with topping of Friendly Cat.

Bike ride for fun: truckless paved roads led me to views like this.

Aloe vera in a frenzy.

Reading in a hammock, with latte, is the antithesis of bicycling on honking dusty heated roads. Both activities necessary to my well-being.

Soap AND Toilet Paper

Today in the city of Battambang: I walked happily for hours, did not even touch the bicycle, was not stared at incessantly, ate things that I knew what they were, used toilet facilities with BOTH toilet paper AND soap, ate fresh vegetables from trust-worthy restaurants (usually I must rely on cooked greens, if there are any), admired shade-giving trees and colorful flowers, and drank a bowl of dark hot chocolate.

All of these were supremely rare during the past days of bicycling rural Cambodia. Especially the chocolate.

Oh, the absolutely delectable pleasures of development and a city.


Being in Cambodia has utterly made me see my safe-water, clean-conscious United States life with new eyes and stunned gratitude.

Hugeness and other photos

Self-portrait, Battambang City along the river walk.

I love how people transport things here.

This tree had Buddy Lissy and I in raptures, especially after endless desolate dried rice paddies.

This chair illustrates how truly huge I am here. ;)

Peace at long last

"You realize you'll stand out if you visit there, you know" I'd been told by previous travelers about this trip to southeast Asia. I expected to garner a few curious stares here, which I thought I was mentally prepared for. All of us are curious about curiosities, and I am indeed a curiosity here, a massively tall girl with weird short hair wearing funny butt-enlarging tight shorts. 

But I had no idea the staring would be this intense. It was apparent but short-lived in Thailand, but in the rural areas of Cambodia it is acute. I feel like I am absolutely being drilled into anytime I leave the guest house. My hair. My face. My body. My clothes. My sandals. Stared at when browsing food stalls. Followed around little shops as I read ingredients (there's only so much MSG I'm willing to knowingly ingest). Stared at while I'm eating (and this is especially intense because I am stationery and can thus draw a crowd). Waved at and hello'd repetitively while passing by.

Some of the "hello hello hello!" is simply outgoing and friendly, while other times it is like children tapping the glass of the aquarium and worrying the fish: you want to see that strange creature respond to you. This I do not appreciate.

I grew up in a culture where staring was thoroughly taboo; if there was someone funny looking you wanted to check out, you did so as discreetly as possible and satiated yourself with that.

I find myself exhausted and like a leaf wanting to close up while being out and about in Cambodia. It's just a sort of exposure, like sun burn. Stare burn. Call me overly sensitive, or simply call me human; I don't know, but it is certainly part of the experience here.

So, yesterday evening, when I wandered off the staring blaring street and under the arch of a temple complex, into sudden silence and relative emptiness, I felt extraordinarily expansive and grateful. There were a few others, tooling quietly around on bicycles or walking circuits around the pond but I received only one quiet "hello."  

I had a break from the drilling, in one of the most beautiful locations I'd been in for days. 

 

There is something delicious, truly delicious, to me about being all alone and not having felt this for weeks and now finally feeling it, in such a hallowed location, this was glorious. And the sun was setting, playing orange streamers on the clouds. And there was, relatively, little trash. And there were colorful and beautiful statues to wander amongst.

Here was the setting:

  

Trying foods

I just had one of those this is so Cambodia moments, where all these little events conspire to create a perfectly apt snapshot of a place.

I was sitting in the stagnant mid-day heat, eating a lunch: something I didn't know what it was. The TV was on, loudly, in the large and nearly empty restaurant. A truck rampages past, honking in its speed so loud I cover my ears. A woman sedately rides by in its dusty wake, wearing pink floral pajamas.

Oh, Cambodia.

Yesterday was a note-worthy day: my trip odometer clicked over to 1000.0 kilometers! My legs are fine with all this riding; Cambodia has been as flat as Texas. The circumstances of riding in Cambodia are actually more wearying than the physical effort itself: the dust, heat, bad roads, and impossible traffic.

We've been riding a number of days now in this country, and I've finally put a pedal on what has been rather unsettling. There are no trees. The spaces along the roadside are almost all entirely bald. I suppose if one grows up in this landscape there is no concern, but trees have been such a part of my world that I miss them. Cambodians have cut down the majority of their forests, for slash-and-burn agriculture and also for fire-wood (which is the main source of cooking fuel). When we do ride through an area with a few trees along the roadside, the whole atmosphere becomes richer for me, and I certainly appreciate the shade.

We are staying the night in Muong Ruessi, and tomorrow we bike the short 40 kilometers to Battambang. Buddy Lissy and I are both looking forward to this city--an urbane French influence supposedly still exists there, with more of a tourist support system (meaning good food where we might know what we're eating!). We've spent a lot of time in small towns, where every single local stares ceaselessly at us, with few services or compelling food options.

I do enjoy eating things that-I-don't-know-what-they-are. I have endless curiosity for tasting new things: "what comes in that shape?" "what kind of fruit might be in this?"  The other day I had Birds Nest White Fungus Drink, which I tried simply because of the name, which came in a little brown can with a (guess what) bird on it. It was cloyingly sweet, but cold and fuel for bicycling, and had little white chunks of gooey tapioca-like-things. Those, I assumed, where the birds nests. :)

I also tried a bag of cold white liquid (into which I poked a hole and slurped out), also with little uniform tiny chunks in it. Also cloyingly sweet. I think a lot of the white-based things are with sweetened condensed milk. There seems to be two categories of snacks here: the insipidly sweet, and the savory, doubtlessly flavored with fishy, something (I've avoided those entirely).

Then there were the neon green smiles. I assumed they were a sort of candied peel of citrus, because they were sour and chewy, shaped in gentle curves, and very lovely.

The local style of coffee is served mixed with sweetened condensed milk, over ice. This is thick and rich and just-right-dark, like a melted coffee icecream. I relish these so much half-way through a biking day.

Good luck! Forever.

Most people simply yell "hello! hello!" at us as we ride, but occasionally someone on a motorbike will slow to our speed and have a little conversation.

A few days ago, a young man named Din drove with me for some time. He was eager to practice his English, and I was impressed by his ambitiousness and was happy to oblige. Riding along the rural road, the elephant mountains in view to the west, he asked me questions about America. He dreamily said he wanted to travel the world. "How many people live in your country?" "How many mountains are in your country?" "How many seasons are in your country?" I relished explaining about winter, happy that I was  not in it.

He bought me a glass of cold sugar cane juice on the roadside; Mrs. Sugarcane drove the sugar cane stalks through a grinder, and poured the light green liquid over ice for me. Din parted ways on his motorbike, wishing me: "Good luck. Forever!"

Today, an older man with glasses (how rare to see a pair of spectacles here!) on a motorbike, slowed and asked me, "where you go?" 

"Siem Reap," I said.  Then he asked me something I didn't hear properly, so I offered what I thought might be an appropriate response, "yes by bike!" I said.

He looked a little surprised, "Ok bye-bye!" he said, and quickly zoomed off.

By bike.....bye bye. 

Hahaha ooops.

A Floating Village

Got off the highway for a bumpy and dusty diversion down this dirt way, heading to the floating village on the Tonle Sap lake.

The floating village in the background. Due to land rights issues, some people opt out by living on boats in the lake, a "floating village." Floating police stations, floating restaurants. The surrounding area was absolutely trashed: plastic bags, bottles, broken toys, dying plant material. The water around the boats was gray and brown, both a toilet and the children's swimming pool. The life expectancy in floating villages is 60 years old. This place was so appallingly filthy it made the rest of Cambodia look like tidy civilization (astonishing).

We were as curious about the village as these boys were of us.

The Sandwich Calcium Cracker and other photos

Country-side section of the National Road 3 south of Phnom Penh. Cows munch in the waiting rice paddies during the dry season.

 

 

The sun rises through it all in capitol city Phnom Penh Sunday morning.

Doggedly making it through traffic, with some exhaust protection, in Phnom Penh.

Her Nia. I'm assuming it treats His Nia too.

Our bikes are behaving like cats here, nosing up in the ironing. "Let's just lock the bikes to this big table," we'd said in the ground floor of our guest house, returning later to find this scene. Turned out to be their ironing board!

Mmmmmm Calcium Cracker. Made by Lexus, too. We are staying tonight in the town of "Krakor", which I am sure is not at all related.

Very classic roadside scene. Motorbikes and burning garbage, with the less common loveliness from golden creatures and flowers (these were more common in Thailand).

Buddha goes for a ride.

I laughed out loud watching this balloon guy sway all billowy through traffic.

The only sign needed for Cambodian roads.

Cambodians load their vehicles beyond imaginable capacity. And check out that motorbike at the very back.

Surely not vanilla

We woke this morning under the full golden moon still in the sky, so that we might brave the mess of the capitol city of Phnom Penh with a chance of it being less appalling. We'd been hoping to avoid the city entirely, but all roads going around it were unpaved. And that would mean jostly, gritty, bouncy, with everything coated in red dust afterward.

So we rode in on National Road 3 and out on National Road 5.

I thought, marveling, how it was all my parents could do to get me to go with them, as a child, on bikes on the main road outside our house. Just one mile down. For icecream. Once there I would eat one and only one flavor: vanilla. Because I was too scared to try anything new.

Now I was smoothly dodging motorbikes, weaving around bathtub sized potholes, and unfazedly being roared past by trucks. Exhaust, noise, and dust, but we made it! We made our one necessary left-hand turn, blessedly, in a rare traffic-free window. Even at 6:30am the traffic was zoomy, and market stalls and umbrellas bled onto the street. The city had an entirely different feel than the small towns we've ridden through: more tall buildings, a KFC (?), plenty of imposing looking banks. Lots of billboards, advertising obvious things like beer and less-obvious things, like maybe face-whitening cream.

In a way I enjoy the mash of humanity, the concentration and flow needed to smoothly move along with it all, being a part of something so wildly different from "my" normal.

We put in 96 kilometers today; credit goes to the wind at our backs. Buddy Lissy and I rejoiced in this wind at every rest break. We are staying in another high-ceiling guest house (built during the time of the French protectorate we reckon) near the south end of the lake Tonle Sap. We continue in our journey north towards Siem Reap!

But then there will be five

A mango, a shower, and a hot afternoon. We bicycled 65 k today to stay outside Phnom Penh, somewhere near the airport. Starting at first light in the morning gives us a couple hours of riding in reasonable temperatures, instead of scorching and parboiling in the sun. The road today was dusty, busy with ever-honking traffic, and the shoulders were uneven and jouncy. The last of my Thai baht coins jangled irritatingly over the bumps and Buddy Lissy and I put earplugs in our left ears to block out the honks.

We pass a large bakery coming into this town, signed in English even, with beguiling baked goods all laid out. Because Buddy Lissy does not eat wheat, I sometimes help manifest her wheat-wanting by eating the stuff myself, and so with little convincing I went over to explore. How rare and lovely to find a bakery! I bought a slice of something that looked like a browned cinnamon twist cake.

How deceived was I.

The cunning thing was, in fact, full of ground pork and alarmingly colored processed meat pieces. Also some shreds of a cheese like thing. And onions and eggs. The dough was rich and lovely and I was exceedingly happy to be eating it.

Then we bicycled past 2 more, very similar-looking, large bakeries with English signs. And then 3 more! This makes me laugh, how when there is a particular establishment you're looking for, you go some time without finding it. But when you do, there are 5 of them. This has also happened with fruit-drink stands, bicycle shops, and clothing stalls. It would be like clustering all of Seattle's coffee shops in Fremont, rather than sprinkled helpfully about the city.

....................

How to baffle Cambodians
While pedaling, I was creating a mental list of some American Saturday Activities that might baffle a Cambodian woman--in the same way that I am sometimes thoroughly baffled here.

Your American woman wakes up, puts on expensive bright clothes used only for a single purpose, and goes running. Then she takes a hot shower in a little space that does not comprise the entire bathroom. She changes into other clothes (not pajamas), wearing only one patterned piece at a time (not two!). Then she drives her car (not motorbike) to the nature preserve and volunteers to pick up trash (what??!). She then meets her girlfriends for lunch with a menu and lots of choices, where she doesn't eat any rice because she is on a low-carb diet. After, she stops to relax by the outdoor community pool and lays in the sun to work on her tan. Finally, driving home, she slows down when passing a police officer to avoid getting a speeding ticket.

Actually, what is it like bike touring in Cambodia?

Roads, sleeping, and food and water, are the main and daily dishes of bicycle touring.

What are these like in Cambodia?

Cambodian roads?
Unlike Thailand, where we had probably at least one dog menacingly bark and gallop after us each day, we have not crossed a single frightening dog here in Cambodia. In fact, the dogs generally look much sleeker, more content, and decidedly more unmotivated than in Thailand, and there are certainly more puppies. We're wondering if Cambodians aren't in fact eating the mean and mangy ones, or maybe dogs are simply just nicer here.

Lately we are riding National Highway 3. You may think 4 lanes and marked rest-stops but this is not the case. A bumpy 2-lane program, with by far the most numerous travelers being ancient cruiser-type bicycles and motor-scooters. Loaded trucks, loaded vans (the tailgates down, packages hanging out over the road, strapped to the open rear door), and the rare and unexpectedly fancy Lexi and Land rovers (corruption money I reckon, from my reading) do zoom past. When these bigger vehicles roar through, their drivers heave-ho on the horns, blaring and honking--irritating noise pollution--alerting the minions "I am big and coming through and you'd better move it."

Someone had asked in a comment whether Cambodians drive on the left or the right. I can answer, yes: at any given time they are driving on the left or the right. This is a new driving culture, people are making up rules as they go; it's like a bunch of toddlers playing with canons. There is no concept of passing distance. I watched in horror a sedan passing a coconut truck passing a motor-bike. Somehow the oncoming cement truck managed to be out of the way of all this. I keep very alert in this mess and am ready to jump into the shoulder as needed.

Even though this is a National Highway, we enjoy times of peace and space, pedaling past cows grazing in dry rice paddies and those small huts on stilts.



Sleeping? 
We are not sleeping on a brick anymore. The Cambodians, unlike the Thais, have a penchant for obligingly soft beds. Guest houses have been in the range of $5 to $10 per night for us both. Rooms have been mostly clean, sometimes with pleasing little details like bright blue satiny sheets or towels folded like flowers. If the rooms are stocked with toilet paper we shout in rejoicing--this is rare--but they often do have sinks which drain directly onto the bathroom floor, us stamping about in a puddle to brush teeth. They do supply free toothbrushes and two sealed bottles of water. Showers are usually cold, which is good and welcome and refreshing. 

After checking into our room, soon every jut-like fixture becomes a hook or hanging rack for hand-washed bike clothing.


Food? 
No standardized 7-Elevens--and certainly no super-markets--exist like in Thailand for easy snacks. Not that I want to be eating packaged food from chain-stores, but buying a yogurt--knowing it was refrigerated, heck, even knowing that it was a yogurt--was certainly comforting amongst all the confusing food items.

At restaurants there are rarely menus. Because we don't have words for the foods we happen to prefer, we're taken back to the kitchen area to point at the bowls of uncooked food, and hope for the best. I ate beef soup for breakfast this morning. The beef I'm sure was local and grass-fed and free-range, ranging far and wide definitely, I could tell from the chewing. Chicken also perplexes us; the meat is often served without discernible "pieces" (no legs, thighs, etc), instead it has been whaled at heedlessly with a cleaver so that every bite might include a bone shard.

But this is a country that has only recently come out of a desperate and despicable tragedy; there should be no expectation of a nuanced and complex food culture. People have food; being a fussy American preferring something like beef rather than pork is not something that people understand. This is a good lesson in acceptance and release for me. I have eaten very well here, for even $2, enjoying the sweet-spicy sauces and fresh green vegetables and doing my best with the perplexing meat. I enjoy the adventures of trying new cuisines, buying incomprehensible snacks, and tackling exotic fruits.

At almost every establishment, Mrs. Cook wheels us out a veritable wheelbarrow of white rice. Buddy Lissy and I watch it approaching in horror, and do our best to gesture that we only want a little rice. We split a "small" rice between the two of us, which is plenty and leaves us both stuffed.

Just as the chicken shards surprised me, I was likewise surprised by a baggy of squat little cakes I purchased roadside today. But in a good way. Eating it, I was 10 years old again at my birthday party, with my mother's angel food cake. Light and spongy and not too sweet. Delicious. I had another one with some Khmer-style coffee: which is melted coffee ice cream essentially. Dark coffee with more-sweetened-condensed-milk-than-I-care-to-know-about. But oo-weee yum.

Full moon and good legs

I just came back in from being out on display, which is: White Girl Walking, Carrying a Bag.

I'd gone out to wander the market of the town Ang Ta Som, where we stay tonight. The number of people waving at me, calling "hello!", and smiling, you'd think I was back again living in one of my Small Towns USA, as if everybody knew me. I performed Exhibit White Girl Adjusting Pant Legs, and also the engrossing performance White Girl Using Foreign Currency.

Indeed, paying for things here is no small task. I often am simultaneously using two currencies, the dollar and the riel. I find it almost comical to give someone a dollar for some snacks, to be given in change 1000 riel. Trying to think in thousands and ten thousands reminds me I did not inherit my mother's mathability. I stand there, holding a veritable bouquet of bills, befuddled, as a growing crowd of onlookers helpfully point to applicable bills in my fist.

The market was just closing up, which was fine with me, because it was one of the more repugnant markets I've visited. This probably also was because it was nearing the end of the day and goods weren't so fresh. Wads of trash littered the paths, snack stores offered boxes of dusty wearied looking products, and raw meat was black with flies. I had been hungry, but the half-dead fish in water-less pans and the pile of pinkly oozing chicken heads dissuaded my appetite.

But I'm learning I can eat well in this dirty disorganized country, with some care. I found a girl frying ducks and I watched as she stuck duck legs in the hot oil; yes, please, I'll eat that fresh and hot. I relished these good legs with lime and a bottle of Anchor Extra Stout (meaning more like a brown ale than a proper stout here) sitting watching the golden perfectly round full moon. I waved at it for you, so when it rotates your way, I highly recommend the duck legs.

Cambodian babies are well loved

Bath time. This was happening on the front porch where we were eating lunch.

"Whoa, grandpa! Funny girls on bikes!"