Being Charmed in Cambodia and turning pink in Bangkok

The boarder crossing into Cambodia was the prettiest boarder crossing i have ever made. It was just a garden full of flowers and some huts, the boarder guard was hilarious. He looked at my passport photo and with a mischievous smile on his face said, "So young so pretty .... is the you?" And then he laughed and laughed. I told him the photo was only taken four years ago and he looked up at me looking said and shook his head and again, but this time mumbled, "so young, so pretty."

The slow boat continued up the Mekong, the further into Cambodia we got the wider the river seemed to get. On the banks you could see wooden tree houses and just about make out Children running up and down waving and shouting, ladies out washing clothes and men fishing. I was listening to my ipod, Johnny Cash was singing, you can run on for a long time, run on for a long time but sooner or later God's going to take you down. Sublime.

Phnom Penh was not at all as I expected. The city is majestic, filled with beautiful building and the prettiest flowers sparkling in the sunshine. The Royal palace is one of the most majestic places I have ever visited. But in a way Phnom Penh was also exactly what I expected. Filth, grinding grinding poverty like the type I have never seen before. Naked children begging on the streets, markets that smelt like rancid corpses and shit, and I mean real shit I'm not speaking metaphorically here.

But now I am, it's almost as if it is a microcosm of what the world is like. Tremendous poverty with a small and lucky few driving around in SUVs. Friendly open people but you daren't go out at night in case you would be mugged or held up at gun point. It's nothing personal but desperate times call for desperate measures. But what I really couldn't get over was the beauty of the people, a kind, good humoured and gentle people. Always smiling, always welcoming. It's hard to leave Cambodia not feeling that you have been blessed to be in the company of such people. On the night that I arrived my tuk tuk driver asked me did I want to go to the Killing Fields and to shoot gun. I said to him that I wasn't really sure but maybe on Saturday, maybe? I told him that if I went I would meet him at 10 outside the hotel but I wasn't sure. I was tired after my long boat journey and didn't really want to do anything but sleep. But on Saturday morning at 10 I walked out of the hotel and there he was, saying "hello lady" and with the most illuminating smile on his face.

Like after visiting Auschwitz, I have nothing to say about the killing fields or S-21. It's just so difficult to believe that such a tragedy could befall such a kind and gentle people.








pehn
I flew out of Phenom Pehn early and arrived into Bangkok, with a 15 hour layover, my flight doesn't leave till midnight. At the airport I went to the pharmacy and asked did they have caffeine pills and I might as well have asked them for cocaine, the look I got. And there's an election on in Thailand today and tourists have been asked not to go into the city, so I have just been wandering the airport. I got my hair done, cut and colour. I thought red would be seasonal, it was pink when they washed it, baby pink. I just smiled and the lady just asked, "you have more time?" now I wasn't cursing my long layover, my hair's now red. I had a massage, a foot massage and a pedicure. Before I started typing i decided to go for a drink in the bar, hmmmmm under Thai law it is illegal to sell alcohol on election day .... it's going to be a long long evening.