What a Long, Wonderful Trip It's Been...

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We woke up knowing we had only hours left in Cambodia before leaving to begin the trek back home. We had a few tasks to accomplish:

Dylan needed to go pick up his custom-made suit and shoes, so he gathered his receipts and hired a tuktuk to take him around town. His suit wasn’t quite ready yet when they arrived, so he and the tuktuk driver had a chance to sit and chat a bit. The guy was Dylan’s age, and was interested in asking about his life here, his girlfriend, and how much things cost in America.

When the suit was finished, Dylan tried it on and found it fit perfectly. (How rare to put on a pair of pants and have them fit exactly right in every dimension!) From there he went off to pick up his shoes, which fit like a glove as well. Mission accomplished - now Dylan is ready if he has an occasion to wear a suit. He tipped the tuktuk driver twice the fare, in appreciation for the guy’s company and conversation, not to mention in recognition of the disparity in their lives. (Dylan has developed a habit of bargaining with tuktuk drivers, who always ask for a much higher price than they expect, and then he often pays them the amount they asked for to start with. The bargaining is fun, but who needs to hang on to a dollar or two that is easily spared?)

I get the biggest kick out of the fact that my son was running around Siem Reap today in a tuktuk. I am so pleased that he came along on this trip - he’s an excellent traveler, and good company, and I feel like I know him just a little bit better now. I haven't spent this much time with him for many years, and I enjoyed every minute of it. He certainly made the trip infinitely more enjoyable for Jasmine - it was nice to see them enjoying each other, much like they did when they were both much younger and living in the same house.

Jasmine’s plan for the day included a massage and one more trip to the Central Market. She and Dylan went off to the market for an hour or so, then met me downtown where I was dealing with photo CDs and email. Jaz and I chose a spot for massages - she went for the whole body massage and I went for the foot massage, and the hour passed quickly.

(Which reminds me, I forgot to mention the massages we got yesterday. That time, Jaz had a foot massage while Steve and I went for the body massages. Khmer style massage is much less strenuous than Thai massage, so this didn’t involve being contorted into unnatural shapes. It did, however, involve wearing pink satin basketball shorts! They showed us into a room with several mats on the floor and offered us each a pair of pink shorts to put on in place of our pants. We laughed ourselves silly and then had to compose ourselves before the masseuses came back in. The whole time we were laying there, a clock on the wall was ticking loudly, and the two girls were talking softly to each other in Khmer, which sounded like some sort of melodic chanting. While I didn’t find the massage itself to be spectacular - it felt somewhat mechanical and formulaic - the whole experience was quite relaxing and mesmerizing.)

I have really enjoyed watching Jaz’s quiet style of observing and interacting with the world around her. She has proven herself an excellent traveler yet again. She has coped with the heat and a variety of other challenges without a word of complaint. She has learned how to bargain, and tried new foods, and made the entire field trip for the Koh Ker students possible because of her generous donation. She joined in the Songkran festivities with unbridled enthusiasm, she navigated herself around town in Luang Prabang when she was ready to go back to the guesthouse, and she became an expert at filling out Arrival and Departure cards and visa applications as we traveled between countries. She doesn’t always show a lot of emotion, but when asked, she’s clear that she has enjoyed this trip. I feel even more confident than ever in her ability to handle herself well when she goes off to Ecuador this summer.

I managed to edit all the photos from the field trip so I could bring them to a photo shop and burn them onto a CD to give Ponheary. The town is full of internet shops that also offer various phone and photo services, so getting a CD burned from a memory card cost all of $2 and took about two minutes. Later in the afternoon, Ponheary came to the hotel to pick up the CD, and we had fun in the reception area looking at the photos on the computer there. The hotel staff was also interested in seeing the photos and hearing the story of our day.

The biggest project of the day was packing. I had bought an inexpensive duffle bag and with the extra room that it provided, we were able to pack everything without any trouble. The only concerns were the items that were delicate but large and would have to be carried on. Steve had bought some huge star-shaped paper lanterns in Laos, which were wrapped in cardboard and plastic bags. They were light, but cumbersome because of their size. I had bought a tro, a long skinny two-stringed Cambodian instrument from a man at Ta Prohm temple. I had not intended to buy any musical instruments, but once he engaged me in conversation and started the bargaining process all by himself, I got caught in the moment and ended up buying this crazy thing for $12. He could actually play music on it, and when I pointed out in my seventeenth refusal that I wouldn’t know how to play it, he pointed out that I could just hang it on the wall. When I suggested in my twenty-ninth refusal that I wouldn’t be able to get it home in one piece, he assured me that he made it himself out of teak and it was very strong. He started out asking $25, and all I ever did was say no, until he offered it for $23, then $20, then $18, then $15, then $14, and then $12. I figured he must really need to make a sale, so now I own a tro that I cannot play. I think I’ll hang it on the wall.

We spent the afternoon eating one last delicious lunch, and then I sat and read by the pool for a while, trying to savor my last few minutes. This trip lent itself well to having time to read and I very much enjoyed reading books set in the places I was visiting. I read Bangkok 8 (thanks to John Rouleau for that one), The Indochina Chronicles, A Fortuneteller Told Me, and Thirty-Three Teeth. Every one was wonderful, and enhanced my travel experiences in one way or another. I have such admiration for good writers, and Phil Karber, the author of The Indochina Chronicles was particular skillful in his description of people, places and events. I felt I was there on his journey with him without having to take the risks he took.

By 5:00 it was time to drag the bags out to the waiting van and head for the airport. Ahead of us were many hours to be spent in the Twilight Zone of travel...

I’ve never been less ready to go home, less interested in returning to familiar territory and routines. In the past, no matter how wonderful a trip I may have had, by the end I am usually ready to return home, and have begun to miss little things in my daily routine. This is the longest I’ve been away, and the least I’ve thought about home.

This trip has been full of great adventure, amazing luxury, opportunities to witness extraordinarily different places and faces and cultures and food. It has done what travel always does for me to some extent: allowed me to look at my own life and my own culture with some distance and from a somewhat different perspective. It has given me the opportunity to learn a little bit about the hardships and resilience and strengths and vulnerability of other people in the context of their culture and experience. It has made me laugh, and made me squirm. In the past month of travel, I have had more questions than answers, which is just as it should be, and exactly why I travel. I will be digesting my thoughts about this trip for a long time to come.

My thanks to everyone who read the blog. I appreciated every comment and it kept me committed to posting as often as I could. I usually keep a travel journal of one kind or another, but never to this extent, and it really enriched my experience. Writing about each day’s events gave me a chance to reflect on and integrate the experiences in a way I never have before. I often wished I had more time and energy for editing and polishing my posts, but I decided that timeliness trumped quality, so you got the rougher but more up-to-the-minute version. Thanks for reading.

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Photos

Lost in thought...
... or perhaps he's playing Tetris on his cell phone

Comments

[John]

Move over Anthony Bourdain
or whatever his name is. You did a wonderful job Jess - and I am not talking about your wonderful travel journal - I am talking about your engaging with the larger world. I applaud and admire you. John