I wake up at exactly six a.m. on the nose. The sun is just about to rise over the city of Siem Riep. My alarm isnt supposed to ring until 6:30, but I don't try to fall back asleep.
Have you ever been conscious of the fact that you're showering in the same room as a spider? So you keep an eye on it the whole time, just in case it moves? Yeah, that was me this morning. It was just a daddy long leg. But who wants ANY kind of spider crawling on their skin??
There are a lot of "Engrish" signs at the Angkor Tep guest house. Here are a few examples:
We leave the guest house around nine a.m. Destination: Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat is a temple built around 1100 A.D. It is also the birthplace of prostitution in Cambodia. We get some photos and footage of the structure, which is, in and of itself, very beautiful. Judah points out some engravings and describes how, allegedly, they depict children being sold as sex slaves to the king. It is a commonly held belief in Cambodia that having sex with a virgin will give you power, veracity, and can cure AIDS. That is why the children are sold so young - the clients want to make sure that they really are virgins.
We make our way to the market, just across the way. Judah knows some people that have a shop here. They give us all coconut water, which we drink through a straw straight from the coconut. The shops here (and I'm not trying to be racist or anything) are EXACTLY like China Town in New York City. If you've never been there, all the shops are the size of the inside of a large van, they're all divided by a single, thin wall, and all the store owners and their families (who work there) are VERY persistent. They will follow you everywhere you go and guilt you into coming into their shop, or into buying whatever merchandise they are carrying around. One kid with big buck teeth that looks like he is ten or twelve starts following Landon around, trying to get him to buy a souvenir magnet with a picture of Angkor Wat on it.
"You buy magnet, only one dollah," he insists.
"No, that's ok," Landon politely replies.
"Three for two dollah?"
"No really, I'm ok." We keep walking away.
"You buy magnet. Only one dollah!"
"No thanks, sorry," apologizes Landon, still walking away. The boy stops dead as we continue to walk away.
"You take your sorry back..." the boy says in his soft voice, trailing off, the tone reminding me of Stuart from Mad TV. Asian Stuart.
At the market, I have offers from three different people, offering to buy my shirt. That was kind of a weird experience.
Judah introduces us to Lei:
Lei is a small-framed girl who looks to be about 14 years old. She claims she's 22. She is also a prostitute. We need to interview her quickly, because she has an appointment with a client in thirty minutes. Judah sits down with her and starts asking her questions. I am floored by her answers. She's been a prostitute since she was ten years old. She does it because her family is poor and she needs to help make money for them. In spite of everything, she never stops smiling. My heart breaks for her situation.
We have to stop the interview, because a police officer and a large crowd has gathered. They don't like the idea of a bunch of Americans exploiting Lei's situation. The seven of us get out of there fast.
Later, we pass these two adorable kids sitting on the ruins.
"Can I take your picture?" I ask. Even if it's a child, it is polite here to ask for permission, rather than to just assume it's ok. They excitedly oblige. When I've finished taking the picture, one boy speaks up.
"You give us one dollah?" he asks with a hopeful smile. Uhhh...I hadn't expected to pay the kid for the picture! Then he noticed I was carrying a bag with all of our empty water bottles (garbage cans here aren't all that common, and I'd been looking for one for a while). The boy points to a bag on the ground in front of me that I hadn't noticed. It was a small bag with only a few bottles in it. As I kneel down to put my empty bottles in their bag, I realize that these kids are here to attract tourists. Their parents coach them to ask for money if someone takes their picture. They sit in the hot sun all day and wait for people to come along so they can collect their empty water bottles.
I guess my childhood wasn't so bad.
We finish touring the grounds of Angkor Wat, and get back in the tuk-tuks we've rented for the day. They take us back to our guest house, where our luggage is. We eat lunch at the restaurant there, inviting our two tuk-tuk drivers to join us, which they do.. Mike points out that it is probably the biggest meal they've had in a long time. When we finish, it is time to gather our belongings and leave again. It is going to be another long day of traveling from this point on. Our tuk-tuk drivers take us to the bus station, where we are to board a bus to Phnom Penh. We are told it will be another five and a half hour ride.
I guess there'd been some miscommunication between Judah and the tuk-tuk drivers as to the amount we'd be paying them for renting their services for the day. He's given them each $7 dollars.
"Too cheap," one argues. He holds out his hand for more. Judah doesn't budge.
"That was our deal," he says. Something tells me that the details of this "deal" have gotten lost in translation. The drivers look pissed. I tell Mike of what's going on and he finds the drivers and gives them each an extra $5. They seem a little more satisfied with this arrangement.
Part II: Satan's Bus
We board a bus. Destination: Phnom Penh. It departs at 4:45 p.m. It is scheduled to arrive at our destination at 10:15 p.m.. It soon gets dark. There are no street lights, or lights of any kind to light our way, aside from the bus' headlights. It then becomes ice cold aboard Satan's bus - the air conditioning is relentless. There is no way of turning it off or even redirecting it. We try to get some sleep in spite of this. This effort is futile.
We can't possibly sleep, because the ride is so bumpy. It is more than bumpy. It's like we're traveling the road into the depths of Hell. The road has so many potholes and inexplicable mounds. Why are the mounds there? How did they come to be? I would like to know. Suddenly the road construction that seems to be ongoing in Utah doesn't seem to be that much of an inconvenience. Most of the roads we travel on are unpaved, here aboard Satan's bus. It feels as though we've traveled back through time, to when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Each giant dip and mound are just dried up footprints of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
It is pitch black. We can't see a thing outside the bus. All we know is that inside the bus, there are knuckle marks on the seats in front of us where the handles are, from people that have come before, holding on so tight. We wonder if the last bus had had any survivors, or if they just removed the bodies with a shovel. It's almost like we're in a crappy Universal Studios ride, where the seats are moving and jolting you all over the place, but the screen projector is broken, so you can't see a single thing that is going on.
9:00 p.m: We stop in the middle of a Cambodian ghetto where the driver fills up on gas and the passengers have the chance to use the bathroom. I exit the bus and stretch my legs. I don't really have to pee all that bad, but I figure it's probably a good idea, since I don't know when will be the next chance I'll get.
The bathroom is dimly lit, with only one small, flickering florescent light in the far edge of the room. There are ten stalls. I look in each one...there is no toilet paper. Instead, there is a spray hose next to each toilet - the ghetto version of a beday. I rack my brain for ideas. Paper towels perhaps? But there aren't any. I get back on the bus without "going". I'm sure we'll be there soon enough, I think.
10:15 p.m: This is when we were supposed to arrive at our destination. The word on the street is that it'll be another two more hours. At this point, I can't feel the lower half of my body.
12:15 a.m: It is now two hours later. We have been on this bus for seven and a half hours. Judah gets up to ask our estimated arrival time.
"One more hour," the driver assures him. Yeah, right.
12:45 a.m: I have to pee. Reeeally bad.
1:00 a.m: We arrive at the bus station. And I'm in a pissy mood. Just as taxi drivers in New York wait at train stations for trains to come so they can be the first to bid for potential passengers needing a ride home, the tuk-tuk drivers wait at the bus station doing the same thing. I step off the bus and am immediately bombarded by three different drivers, each asking me where I'm going, how many people are with me, and if I need a tuk-tuk. The LAST thing I want right now is for someone to talk to me, let alone pester me about giving them business. The offers keep coming, and I blow them off. We've already reserved our own tuk-tuks. Leave me alone.
1:30 a.m: We arrive at the team house, a block away from the orphanage.
2:00 a.m: It's the second day in a row where we haven't had access to the Internet. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't be that big of a deal. But I'd been promised that we'd have Internet tonight. I'd been counting on it. Andrea and I agree to go to the internet cafe tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment