Squatting with Mosquitoes: Welcome to Cambodia

I am in Cambodia.

Cambodia! Just saying this feels even more foreign and perplexing and astonishing than Thailand. Allow me to write you the tale.





"Ough! You are making bicycle too!"

I was outside our last Thailand guesthouse two nights ago, cleaning my chain, and this exclaimation came with a French accent. Mr. French Fixed-Gear Bicycle was staying in the room adjacent. We exchanged the requisite where-are-you-from, where-are-you-going, and he was living in Cambodia temporarily and heading there the next morning.

Just like us.

So Buddy Lissy and I were blessed with the absolute golden gift of a guide with whom to cross the border into that strange land, who'd ridden the roads before and could SPEAK Khmer. Going from Thailand to Cambodia is a bit of a drop-kick, so having Mr. Fixie as a companion was beyond valuable.

We set off in the morning together, three white people on bikes, feeling like a gang. The road along the coast, "The Thinnest Place in Thailand" a sign read at one point, was a series of huge roller hills. Like going from small waves on the lake to tremendous ones on the ocean. Their amplitude was such that gaining momentum going down was lost before going up the next.  Än especially large lump appears in view: "Merde" says Mr. Fixie, and we all rev up stoically. 

Buddy Lissy relishes the opportunity for speaking in French, and so the two of them converse along and I lag beyond, eating a bunch of baby bananas. About the size of my thumb, each banana takes a little fuss to peel while pedaling, and offers enough calories to replace only those expended while peeling the previous, so at best I maintain a balanced caloric reaction.

But one of the joys of bicycling is eating. I have the best food I've ever eaten just about 3 times every day.

We crossed the border into Cambodia with no troubles. The two customs officials were disorganizedly flipping through three people's passports and visas at once, but took no offense to the e-visas that Lissy and I had purchased in Bangkok.

I left Thailand feeling a fond nostalgia, missing already the gorgeous food, the diverse snacks, the bring paint on everything. Just across the border in Cambodia the road changed from smooth black pavement to cement and bits of gravel, and the proportion of cars to motorbikes dropped significantly. Two boy monks padded past, small bare feet slapping along in the dust. They stopped in front of a woman and prayed under (not over) her. Another little boy, this one in white school shirt and blue shorts, on a bicycle, saw me and eagerly called out: "Hello-what-is-your-name!"

Maybe this is what you learn to say when you first see a white person.

The Cardamom Mountains rose into view through the heat-heavy dusty air. We were not going to ride them, not with the state of Buddy Lissy's gears. Thanks to Mr. Fixie, who negotiated us bus tickets, we saved ourselves liters of sweat. The bus tickets began at $70 dollars each, but through Mr. Fixie's Khmer they came down to $10 each. "There are three prices for everything here," he explained, "the price the tourists pay, the price the tourists who speak the language pay, and the price the locals pay."

A group of Cambodian men were ready to stuff our bicycles under the bus for us. I stood over my bike and said "no" a lot, but finally got it loaded without the mirror being ripped off. Although by the end of the journey and the slam of bags applied to it after loading, my mirror dangled like a 7-year-old's tooth upon arrival at our destination. But at least my gears and breaks were undamaged.

The air-conditioned bus was decorated with blue, yellow, and white curtains with pagodas on them, and the speakers played Khmer music: high-pitched male and female singers keening about the traumas of love.

Our bus took us through the empty mountain roads (not very steep) and out into the rural flatness. We drove through the wind-ravaged dry landscape, red rocks and soil, battered wooden structures with frays of blue tarp flapping in the wind. Garbage was everywhere, tossed without care by the people and blown without destination by the wind. The landscape reminded me of  "out west"--low trees and shrubs, little shade, expansive  burned agriculture fields waiting for the next crop. Pigs, chickens, cows, and water buffalo ranged fence-less. Tiny shacks--boards missing, corrugated iron rusting-- on stilts stood in cleared places, families underneath, watching the bus with interest.

I was in a completely foreign world and the poorest country I've ever visited.

The bus stopped for a rest-break and I piled out with everybody for the block of toilets. Squatting with mosquitoes. I dipped the plastic bowl into the small pool of water under each stall and dumped it into the porcelain hole: that's how you flush.

The bus dropped us at the corner of Small road and No-where road, and we had 40 more kilometers to travel to find a guest house. Once again I was tingling with gratitude for Mr. Fixie--his Khmer sent us in the correct guest house direction. In Thailand we were honked at in a rather cheering-on manner, but on this road in Cambodia (National Road 3) the trucks blared at us in a I'm-bigger-get-outa-my-way manner.

Children, out underneath their houses, saw us ride past and began screeching and hopping and running, "hello! hello! hello!"  "Look three white monkeys on bicycles!"  I have never seen so many children made so enthralled and ecstatic by simply my presence. Their enthusiasm helped negate the trucks. 

This day in Cambodia I felt that intensity of The First Day Somewhere New, with smells and sights and feelings electrified. I felt guarded and questioning and overwhelmed, but also eager to be traveling somewhere so different from what I've known. So far the people have been very curious about us, very helpful, smiling and engaging. 

...........

We are now in Kampot (for you Mappers, we stayed in Veal Renh last night): a town with obvious French-architecture influences. English signs are around, as are tourists and lemon-meringue pie, and Buddy Lissy and I are comforted by this. Our room cost $7 dollars (interestingly they deal in dollars as well as Khmer riel here) and has tall airy ceilings and wood furnishings, and I payed with a $20 bill. This sent Mrs. Hotel running to both neighbors, trying to get change to break it. I'm also carrying riel in notes of 100 to 10,000--which feels extraordinary:"I just paid 20,000 for something"--but really 10,000 riel is $2.50.

.........

I've been writing for some time now, but I am still seething with things to say. Like: I've seen people wearing pajamas (the matched-set top-and-bottoms with flowers and teddy bears) around. Why? Maybe because they don't care or they're what is comfortable?

Also, please do not worry (Mom) if I can't post every day: internets may be fewer and farther between here. I feel safe and more comfortable here, even after that first day feeling a bit guarded. Adaptation is an amazing thing.