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Published: December 18th 2006
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"Kampuchea" Like "Laos", "Cambodia" is another western bastardization of what the people call their own country. The Khmer's call theirs Kampuchea.
After my previous experiences in Laos, I resolved to take quite a different trip into Cambodia. I found the places to be vastly different from one another, but my loner approach was definitely rewarding.
To Be a Loner in Kampuchea I didn't literally throw out my guidebook, but I stopped looking at it. The thing stayed locked in my backpack for most of my 15 days in Kampuchea, so I feel proud enough.
By avoiding backpacker groups and tourist crowds, I managed to spend the entire time with cool people doing genuinely interesting and rare things. I lived with ex-pats in a decidedly unpopular frontier town. I recreated scenes from Mad Max and Easy Rider on the highway with a fellow American loner. I screamed out of Phnom Penh as fast as I could. I crawled through the provinces. I saw more temples than was deemed possible in a day by staying on my own and pumping hard on my rented bike. I camped in the temple with the monks for four nights in
Siem Reap and met some truly amazing children. I made myself sick a few times on local food, but figured out what I liked. I got very few opportunities for a real English conversation, but I made a lot of friends.
And, since I'd already realized the folly of package tours, guidebook-guided party trips, and gun/girl/ganja adventures, I didn't have to go through all those emotional questionings and conflicts again. I tempered my somberness with smiles and I learned a hell of a lot about this torn and tortured nation and it's people.
No More Pictures (Sorta, Maybe...) I think I remember stating in an earlier blog that I would try for less pictures, less blog entries, and shorter ones... yeah right!
I wrote an entry for nearly every day in Kampuchea. And sometime in the vicinity of Angkor, I transformed into something I've always despised: an obsessive photo-taker. And a tourist to boot. I spent hours in internet cafes, uploading hundreds of pictures, and they weren't brilliant. Some of them were good, yeah, but it's a lot like my attempts at filmmaking back home.
At home, I wanted to make films, but I
was different from the rest of Seattle's wannabe filmmakers because I didnt want to have anything to do with most of those people. Every asshole in Seattle thinks he's a rockstar or a DJ or a filmmaker. Hold my crap up against their crap and it's hard to discern who's wasting their time.
And its the same way out here on the road. I came to experience and to write and to take pictures. But every asshole here thinks he's an adventurer, a writer, or a photographer. Everywhere I looked were guys (and gals) just like me, bragging about what they'd seen, jotting down notes, and snapping pictures. Dozens of travel blogs go up every day with pictures and reports from the same cities I visited. And, just like home, I don't have the time, the money, the equipment, or the inclination to engage in constant one-upmanship.
It's not about pictures, anyway. It's about the experience. I do and think interesting things, and writing about them is my strength, not photography. It's exploring and writing that I want to focus on, anyway. So I'm gonna try to avoid taking photos, and at least take a lot less.
Missing Someone I did feel rather lonely in Kampuchea. Alone. Aside from all those people back home that I was missing, I also had someone just over the border for my heart to yearn for.
I managed to call Chelly every other night (every third night in the worst places). The connections were always terrible. I talked into cellphone or computer headsets and waited while the signal transferred up loose wires to homemade antennae, up to Thaksin-owned satelites and was finally beamed down to a tower in Sriracha and to Chelly's phone. She missed me, but the connection was bad, so she'd write an email and talk to me again in a couple of days. "I love you."
I had a bracelet handmade for her in Sihanoukville. It says, "Mpenzi" which is the Swahili word for sweatheart. It's in black over the red/gold/green of independent Africa, conveniently incorporating all those "true colors" that she loves to see and wear.
I couldn't wait to give it to her.
In Thailand Again Crossing the border from Poipet to Aranya Prathet in Thailand was at least as shocking as the Laos border crossing had been. This time, however, I was less frayed and fragile. I got on a bus, called Chelly from a borrowed cellphone, and got as much sleep as I could.
In Kampuchea, there is no infrastructure, so you deal with it. Thailand has an abundance of infrastructure, so it frustrates you every time something doesn't work. My journey home was frustration after frustration with the busses and the ever-present rudeness of many Thais.
I was reminded of how seldom the children here smile. Thai toddlers would rather look at me with scorn than jump up and down yelling "Hello!" with broad grins on their faces. I wondered who taught them to be that way. It scares me.
Anyway, Thailand again, heading home. Already missing the last place. But I had someone here that I just had to see...
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Aaron Brown
non-member comment
yup, always go with your own path- it doesn't need to be compared to anyone elses. Another food related comment: Weston Price took pictures of people eating their traditional diets, and those from the same groups who abandoned them for industrialized diets, and noted that those who abandoned the traditional seemed much less happy (and of course were more prone to dental decay/disease)- maybe that's a factor between Thailand and Cambodia. As you can probably tell, there really is a lot of sociology behind food.