Flying Solo in Cambodia, Vietnam Adventure, Part 6

The first day I got into Cambodia, I was striding on the main streets of Phnom Penh, alone, camera strung around my neck, Ipod in my ears, and excitement in my step. After walking around for hours and snapping pictures of landscapes and locals, I decided to stop on a ledge in the main pavilion. It was crowded with people sitting and chatting with kids and friends. I scribbled down my impressions, so instead of trying to recite it here and draw up memories of a week before, Ill just transcribe it for you now.

Journal entry, Feb 01, 2010.
It is hot in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
A lot different from the streets of Vietnam and the chaos of Saigon. The streets are wider and the air is clearer. Less beggars confront you and less sales children too. I guess there is more money in this country, and there are more cars on the streets then clusters of motorbikes.

The people here are absolutely beautiful.

The best part of Cambodia is neither the people or place, but the one fact that I am here alone on my own. I am really a lone traveller, a transient being. You cannot be truly alive and truly free it seems until you have walked unaccompanied into a new country. It seems every material good of any importance is on my body right now. Everything else I have are just "things", replaceable goods. All I need is my camera G10 that hangs so light and perfectly around my sweaty and tanned neck; my passport with stamps, proofs of the places Ive touched foot in; my Ipod, my single most favourite companion; my baby pink Moleskin, and I guess money, that which is easily earned and easily spent.




To explore a new land with your own two eyes and two feet just for yourself is a happiness, a simple contentedness I cannot quite explain. Nor would I completely give it justice if I attempted to put it into simple words. Feeling, once again, overrides my ability to speak. All I can say is that I am happy. I am fine. For once in my life I feel real and in the moment. I have control. I want to belong to no one country and be tied down to no one person. Let me live this life, this short meaningful life, a wanderer between time and space, on my own with the thoughts on these pages and my own schedule to abide by.

Its 6:30 pm, and every gland is still bleeding sweat. This terrace in front of the --pagoda?--in downtown Phnom Penh is awaken with city folks sitting on crowded ledges, and hundreds of people, literally, walking laps around the circular grassy courtyard. This dance-walk is none I've seen before. There is jump and rhythm in their step. a purpose, but not really. Its not like going to work, not an activity to be completed quickly. The walk itself is its own purpose with its own individual rewards. Oh those simple pleasures. I would get up and join the solitary crowds in their walk, but I spent my days walking, my feet are truly blistered and I'm more content in watching. Glancing up and seeing faces look at me. Wondering what they're thinking, what worries they have, what memories they made during the day.

I found that when I walked the streets of Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia, I turn heads. Do I look like a foreigner in your eyes even though I'm constantly mistaken for your people? This three week trip, I have been stopped by strangers and been mistaken for Korean, Japanese, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Laotian, Chinese, and Thai. They all say the same thing, "Your face looks like...Cambodian or Vietnamese or Japanese or Thai etc..." I just smile shyly.

[Memory: I remember sitting on the beach in Nha Trang and two very old Japanese men stride by and stop abruptly. Look at me. Exclaim something excitedly in Japanese. They come over. And I think they re talking to me although I cant understand. At first I thought it was Vietnamese but I wasn't picking up on any of the words. I suddenly realized they were Japanese, and being an English teacher, I was able to navigate my way through the conversation quite easily. I pointed at them and said "Japan?" and they nodded and smiled and broke into louder exclamations. I pointed at me and said "Canadian!" This made them happy and they were all cheerful and smiles and old wrinkles. I point to me again and say "Vietnam-Canadian" and they do what is the equivalent of "OH!!!!!!" and more laughter and camaraderie, and then they point at me and say "Face like Japanese. and they say "pretty eyes" and they take a picture.]
Do I have the face of all of Asia? Maybe I am already the daughter of many lands, the face of many countries.

It is obvious every country has something absolutely amazing to offer, even if you have to travel six hours by motorbike into the jungle and endure relentless blood thirsty mosquito bites that will likely scar forever to find it. Other places don't make you work for it, but offer their beauty straight up as soon as you step out of the terminal runway, no bullshit there. --There is this effin adorable toddler smiling at me, I cant help but give him a heads up mention in my journal-- So why on earth spend more than couple years in one country on one continent.
End of Entry.

***

I think i spent an hour tyring to get to my hotel after that. I got lost, but I had taken a picture of the restaurant where I was meeting a new found friend for drinks on my camera. After wandering for a long while, I asked a group of men for help, and a police officer drove me on his motorbike to the place I needed to be. I had delicious Cambodian food and drank 2 dollar cocktails with a 27 year old French journalist I met who was travelling and blogging and freelancing for six months in Indochina.
It was a great first night in Cambodia.

***

The next day, I woke up and took a four hour bus ride to Sihanoukville, the southern coast of Cambodia where there were a variety of beaches in the secluded town. I only had two days to spend there and it definitely wasn't enough. It was a physical battle to pry myself away from the hot sand and return to Saigon in time to catch my flight home.





This concludes my Vietnam adventures.
I have more pictures to post, but I am still laptopless, so until then.