Traveling with ghosts

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To Ulf and Linn.

The two years since we explored Battembang together has melted away to become just yesterday.

I keep waiting for Ulf to bound up the stairs of the Royal Hotel and enter the rooftop patio, where we spent much time together relaxing with cold beers after a day on the motorbikes in the hot sun.

You must be the tallest man to ever visit this province and you tried so hard to painfully decapitate yourself manytimes on the low doorways and beams! I tried not to laugh, to show concern, but the sheer repetition became comical to me and my warped sense of humour.

So now you are far away in Sweden with your baby daughter, and thankfully I can no longer upset you Linn with my jaded philosophy about heterosexual relationships (I've yet to try the alternatives).

I miss you both, I miss Linn's leg burn from the bike's hot exhaust pipe (did it scar?), our visit to the fish fermentation village where you both tried your hardest not to vomit because of the smell. I remember that fish lunch with "Jerry", swimming in the lake and teaching the mute novice siblings, about eight years old and living in the monastery on the mountaintop, how to take pictures with our cameras. It was difficult to take the cameras back, and for the joy they gave I so wished we could make a present of them.

It was Ulf again who made me laugh by placing his mesh baseball cap over his face to fend off the insects that smashed against us during that night ride back from 'God knows where' on the bamboo 'Norry' train (that's one sentence? Wow!).

It's not the same walking around here with your ghosts instead of with you. We made some of my best memories together!

Right then! There's nothing for it but for me to travel to Sweden for a reunion, and an introduction to the newest member of your family. Meanwhile, I'll sip cold Angkor beer and pretend you are here and about to join me on this rooftop, looking out over Battembang. Cheers!
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

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