trekking

brand new

boy in kampot




still wet from being born




sunsets never get old




kind of wish we could sit here all day every day too




we went on a five hour bumpy ride in a camry to get here




bokor hill abandoned casino turned hotel turned khmer rouge headquarters




same same




we think we see ghosts




we went to church. nobody showed.

a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose

We weren't really ready to come to Phnom Penh, but somehow we're here and it isn't bad at all. Leslie and Noel and I are walking down the street and it's hot and dusty and there are no sidewalks. Every few steps, a moto nearly knocks one of us over, but somehow we're having a good time. We go to the largest market I've ever been to, but it's too hot and I can't breathe through my nose there, so we leave. Men on their motor bikes follow us to see if we want a ride, and we don't but they keep asking and following. Tuk tuks inch up to us and stop in front of our path because how could we possibly want to walk in a city with no sidewalks? We don't want a ride, we can find our way. Except somehow we can't, and we end up outside of central Phnom Penh. We have to step over piles of garbage as we make our way back to the main city and to the restaurant we've picked from our Lonely Planet. Our water is gone and our shirts are wet with sweat, but we're still having fun. We walk all the way to the restaurant and a sign says it's closed for a few days. So we find a restaurant next door and all is well. We eat and we're too full to walk back, so we find a tuk tuk and when I point on the map where we want to go, the driver doesn't know and says 'do you know' and I do know but don't know if I can instruct him over both of our shoulders, so finally I point some more and he nods that he knows where to go. So we drive but he doesn't know, we end up at a restaurant and he hops out and the three of us smile at each other because it's pretty funny. The driver disappears and then comes back and takes my Lonely Planet and brings it to a big group of Khmers at a table. They all look at the book, eight or nine of them, and Leslie and Noel and I are laughing, and finally they realize where to go and the driver is yelled at by the group of people. He gets back in, and the three of us don't care if the ride takes an hour, but it doesn't and we're back at our hotel in ten minutes and we spend a few hours in the room, but it's not at all boring and somehow we've had a very excellent day.

tuk tuk me to the bathroom

sweat is cascading down my back and my arm brushes against the boy next to me. i smile an apology and change my rhythm to mimic his movements. he smiles back mischievously, changing his dance to something quicker and more complicated. i'm not sure what's more surreal, the fact that i've been invited to an engagement party in rural cambodia or the eight sub-woofers that are blasting a new beat for what feels like the entire village.
a large group of onlookers are leaning against mango trees content to watch an even larger mass of dancers. leslie's pigtail braids bounce against her shoulders as she dances next to ali in front of a crowd of eager children. something happens and a handful of girls slow to a halt. there is some whispered conversation and a shy girl in a yellow shirt is pushed to the front. she blushes and in a moment finds the courage to move her hands from in front of her face to behind her back. she stretches her neck skyward.
"are you happy?"
somehow leslie and ali both manage to make their already large grins bigger as they nod vigorously.
"yes. very happy."
the posse of girls shriek and their grins somehow grow as well. the dancing continues with renewed energy. behind the group and off to the side, bryce is towering over our khmer host. twenty four year old, chet is the picture of cool in his black wife beater and black pants. he is a good dancer. his movements are relaxed and smooth in the same easy manner he exudes at night, talking story with us on the porch of our bungalow. if he knew that our presence at the party would encourage so many stares, he doesn't let on. he is the only one here who acts like this is completely normal. we do our best to dance and fit in but many locals follow us around staring. many approach and practice a few lines of english, the children have attached themselves to the girls and the men want bryce to drink rice wine and play cards. we've even captured the attention of the town drunk who is always close by.
chet works at the guesthouse we are staying at and, since our arrival a week ago, has quickly become our friend. when he mentioned tonight's party, none of us knew what to expect. but now the four of us are across the street from his current, and childhood home in a village eight kilometers outside of kampot. rocking out, immersed in a cambodian block party.
The music slows and most of the dancers move to the sides. eager for a breath all of us end up on the edge of the dance floor. we've been here for a few hours and just like every other break we've tried to take, it's interrupted by another local asking us to dance. the invitations are too good to pass up. there is a folding table in the middle of the dance floor with two vases full of fake magenta flowers. we join everyone slowly making their way around it as they walk in a circle, taking four steps forward, and then four slow steps back in a traditional dance. lightning occasionally brightens the night sky providing strobe lights for anyone relaxed enough to look. after a few songs, we opt for another break on the sidelines. an old woman with a hard face approaches chet. she leans in and says something that sounds serious. he tells us we've been invited into her home for refreshments. we smile agreement, and her deep wrinkles rearrange into a heartfelt smile. we take off our shoes at her doorstep and enter a one room house. there is a bed and and a floor mat full of sleeping children. another mat has nine school age boys crowded around a handheld sega game. they are all eagerly watching the screen but impressively not fighting over it. the four of us follow chet and the woman and sit cross legged around another floor mat. i notice for the first time that the old woman is already in her bubblegum pink silk pajamas and my eyes meet her gaze. i place my hands together in front of my chest and bow towards her saying the only khmer words i know au khon 'thank you.' she bows back and points to plates of cookies and a customary holiday food of candied bananas wrapped in sticky rice and banana leafs. after some tea cools, it is passed around as well. we sit, comfortably smiling and completely content, forgetting even, that there is a language barrier. after a bowl of water is passed around to wash our hands in, we are invited to once again dance.
we start again with the traditional dance but after a while a song from the black eyed peas that has been dubbed into khmer takes over. it's almost midnight, the night has passed all too quickly and this is our last dance. as we exit the dance floor everyone seems to know that we are leaving. the crowd of our new friends stop moving. our waves are returned with smiles and shining faces. herman hesse has a short story where he basically says he is forced to travel, to be a wanderer because so much love gushes out of him. he says every tree he passes, every coffee shop he steps into, even the strangers across the room engaged in a lively conversation with someone else pull more and more out of him. if i thought i understood his sentiments before, they have grown tenfold to a point that is almost painful. i'm overjoyed with the fake flowers, the tea, and even more with the faces that are familiar after just a few hours of dancing. khmer hospitality is not just a rumor. and i hope that the man i bow to just before ducking under the fence, understands that i'm not just saying thank you as i utter au khon.

Cambodia

Prior to a cooking class in Battambang...

The next morning, we're in the market- Noel, Leslie, and I- and it's ten in the morning and there's blood everywhere. To my right there's a woman with purple painted nails and diamond ring and she's taking the scales off a fish, and gutting a fish, and there's blood on her manicure and her ring. Behind me there are white frogs, their skin pulled off prior to their market arrival. I can't keep my eyes off the frogs (that look absolutely similar to the ones we dissected in my biology class) and the bucket of live turtles and the catfish flopping in a centimeter of water and the fish already dead and dried and pried apart and hung up for shoppers to ogle. Everywhere there are people and they laugh at me, a white girl with blue eyes, who's maybe never seen a fish being gutted (though I have) or chunks of red meat being squeezed like a fat baby cheek. I stare at the foods, and they stare at me, but there is a kindness in their eyes, too, and I don't feel embarrassed. It reminds me of being a little kid, when my parents would take my sisters and me to Chinatown in New York. I would be terrifed at the strange foods and smells: the black snails in barrel, the pork buns, the Chinese characters I couldn't being to decipher. Then, I couldn't wait to get back in the car and drive home to what was familiar to me. Here, now, in Cambodia, there isn't another place I'd rather be than this market, with the noisy bursts of Khmer, the putrid smells, and the blood of somebody's dinner underfoot.