Runnin' with the Buddha

We're blaring down a dusty road in a packed van at what looks like 100 mph and a Cambodian child keeps poking me. This was my morning bus/van ride from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, wedged in a tight minibus with a very nice German doctor and two or three Cambodian families, the children of which all decided to scream for most of the ride. The countryside roared by and I slept, at least as well as I could with my knees pulled to my chin. 

The previous afternoon I had spent wandering around Phnom Penh and walking along the Mekong. The riverside seemed like an area that combined all different facets of Cambodia culture and I could have walked its banks for hours. Monks in orange robes walked alongside children. Teenagers played soccer on the tiled walks. The ledge along the river was lined with people relaxing, smoking cigarettes, selling foods and spices, and the scent of incense from a communal wat hung in the air. Laughter and shouts mixed with the everpresent rumble of motorbikes and music played from boom boxes. After about 20 minutes I was hailed down by a man named Palong (I think) who sat down with me and asked me questions about America. His daughter was actually heading to Washington, D.C. to study nursing, and when I told him I had lived there (and previously worked in healthcare) he called her on the phone to speak with me. There was a muffled shout, followed by Palong explaining that she was on the toilet and we laughed and parted ways.

I had a few drinks at the Foreign Correspondents Club, a cream-white Victorian building sticking out from the main road with a beautiful view of the river and the streets below. I imagined the place packed with journalists in the 70s, covering the history of the Khmer Rouge which I had learned in greater detail that morning, but the place seemed to be more of a tourist destination now. 

I journeyed onward, seeing what I could of the city while I was there. Phnom Penh is gritty and real. This is a place where people over 40 years old or so witnessed first hand the single greatest devastation their country had ever seen. You can walk a single road and see sadness, anger, optimism, and disregard in the people who live here. I'm not a poverty tourist, and I don't ever intend to become one, but I appreciated seeing the honesty of the people and culture of Cambodia. There were very few neon-drenched roadside stands selling "I (heart) PP" tee shirts and visors like you see in Bangkok or Koh Phi Phi. In Phnom Penh you see people actually living their lives. 

When I arrived at Siem Reap I walked for a bit with my German friend then parted ways to find a hostel. I wandered into one called "The Backpackers Hostel" which seemed fitting enough, and was greeted by a very eager tuk tuk driver and his friend shoving a shot of whiskey into my face. I sat with them and another German tourist for an hour or so, eating lunch and having a few drinks at the persistence of the driver, and booked a tour of Angkor Wat for 5am the next morning. When I went up to my room later in the afternoon, one of the drivers was vomiting on the tile of the second floor, screaming what I can only assume were curses at the top of his lungs. He slept there for most of the day. This is an odd place.

I wandered through town for a bit in the afternoon, then went out for my first run since I began traveling. Whenever I'm in a strange place, I always like to go for a long run with no destination as a way to see new things and get lost in weird places. My hostel sits alongside a river, so I ran along its bank until I got to the end, looped around, then ran down the other side for about a mile or two before turning back (as some pretty serious storm clouds were fast approaching). It was dangerously hot and I had to juke out a few motorbikes as I crossed intersections, but that only added to the thrill and it certainly beat my multiple loops around the reservoir in Richmond. 

It was a lonely day. The past couple days have been since I parted ways with my friends in Bangkok. I've passed the two-week point and am starting to feel a bit exhausted and overwhelmed, but the thrill at each corner continues and that pushes me forward. I'm off for my sunrise Angkor Wat tour tomorrow morning, then catching a night bus back to Phnom Penh for a flight to Hanoi the following afternoon, so the next couple days will be a bit of a whirlwind, but that's what I signed up for.