Cambodia

My blog writing continues to get delayed … even when friends and relatives gently remind me I haven’t made a post since September.  Life is what happens when we’re busy making other plans (not an original thought, but I just learned, courtesy of the internet, John Lennon was not the first to write such an idea). 

  

October break was spent in Cambodia.  Like most of my Southeast Asian adventures, it was moving, emotional and an indication that I am ever so grateful for all that I have experienced.

I took a bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh.  It was a really comfortable bus with reclining seats and only 3 seats per row, talk about accommodating Western hips!  I was in PP long enough to change to a different bus station and proceed to Battambang.  This was the pre-determined destination so I could take a boat up river/across the lake to Siem Reap.  It also provided a day to adjust to the poverty of Cambodia (a land-locked country that uses the U.S. dollar as their main currency), 

the spaghetti bowl of power lines,

the various means of transport, 

  

 

 

the essence of what it means to be a truly developing country,

(textile industry workers going home from a long day's work)

the shrines (big and small),

the presence of non-governmental organizations, 

and the innovative means of existence.

 

The trip up the Sangker River took me just outside Siem Reap, home of Angkor Wat.  

 

Started as a Hindu temple complex for the Khmer Empire, Angkor Wat is the largest religious monument in the world, dating from the 12^th century.  With a rented bicycle, I rode to the specific temples I wanted to see.

  

As I stood there, marveling at the architecture, 

the incredible length of the bas-reliefs,

the enormous trees growing in, around and through parts of these buildings,

I slowed my breathing to make sure I absorbed as much of the experience as I could.  I’ve seen A LOT of incredible things in my life … is it possible I have become jaded?  I felt like I was casually checking this off some list rather than recognizing the cultural gift this is to humanity.  It was a time to stand, look, listen, touch, feel, breathe.  

From Siem Reap, the travels continued in a mini-van across the country to Kratie, 

 (15 seats occupied by 19 people)

a town nestled in one of the many crooks of the Mekong River, but this one is close to an area of the river where a pod of the endangered Irawaddy dolphins live.  The World Wildlife Fund works with people in the area to protect the dolphins while allowing the community to benefit from the economic presence of tourists.  Given the ease of using Booking.com and TripAdvisor.com, I suspect it hasn’t taken long for the community to see the immediate benefits.   

Yes, I floated down the Mekong in a kayak, with a guide.   

 

Yes, I managed to float/hover and watch these dolphins surface.  Yes, I listened to their clicks as they communicated with each other, probably about us.  Yet another life moment that prompts me to say to myself, “I am so lucky.”

It was a bus ride day back to Phnom Penh, connecting to a bus back to Saigon and home to my own bed.  At times, I feel guilty for not visiting a museum about The Killing Fields, the genocide of Cambodia; or the museum that educates one about the statistics of all the unexploded bombs the U.S. government left behind.   

Sometimes, I like to think about the good in the world, rather than the … less good.