April 11th, 2008- I think I just stepped back in time.  I arrived in Cambodia this morning.   That is just wierd to say, I’m in Cambodia! Who would have thought. The Siem Reap airport is brand spanking new, cut out of the Cambodian Jungle but as soon as you get off the main “highway” its back in time you go.

My chariot, literally a moped pulling a cart, picked me up from the airport curtsey of my guesthouse.  I think he said his name was “Long-D” so that’s what I’ve been calling him.  He made small talk in broken English and is very nice.  He’s also a decent driver from what I can tell.  Long-D drops me off at my $12 a night guesthouse. I check in and he shows me to my room.  My guesthouse is more like a hotel, for $12 / night its amazing.  It would easily pull $100 plus back in NC.

I talked to Long-D about driving me around Angkor tomorrow which is the norm. You have to have a driver otherwise it would takes forever to go b/t temples b/c of the size of the area.   Long story short, he’s picking me up at 5am tomorrow morning and driving me around for the whole day for $10.

While I’m checking in the Guesthouse explains to me the bar, free internet, free coffee, tea and fruit and 20min free massage.  More on that later .  My room is a Khmer (Cambodian) decorated beauty.  Bright colors, authentic decorations, large bathroom and wicked cool light fixtures, I’m impressed.   So much that I want to add this style to my room at home, especially the 4-post platform bed and the tube shaped lights.

*Just a sidenote, Khmer is the Cambodian culture.  Its pronounced Ka-Mer when you are talking about people and culture but ka-my in other circumstances.  Its hard to figure out.

I’m about to head downstairs for my 20 min free massage when there is a knock on my door.  One other perk is ice cold lemon tea drink daily.  It was tasty and very refreshing. I walked out to the communal balcony and try to take it all in.

I head downstairs to find out more about the massage when I see this large sign “Khmer Massage $3/hr.”   Yes that says 3$ per hour!  I’ve never had a massage before but figured I couldn’t go wrong for $3 for the whole hour.  The guy at the front desk informs me that I dont get an hour for 3$, I get an hour plus 20 minutes, it just gets better and better. 

He brings me to this dimly lit room where there are 3 mats on the floor 2 already occupied by a German couple (sounded like German).   The young lady hands me some funky looking and stretchy PJs and shows me to the changing room.  When she first handed them to me, she didnt say anything soI was about to start changing there on the spot.   She saw this and laughed and then pointed me towards the bathroom where I slipped on my new checkered outfit.  They were actually extremely comfortable.  She and I stumbled a bit before I figured out what she wanted me to do.  We settled on “sleep” meaning lie down on my back, “turn” meaning to flip over and lie on my stomach, along with a few other commands she whispered kindly as to not make me feel like one of the mangy mutts roaming the streets.

Lying on my back she went to the mini fridge and go some fruit peels or leafs of some sort.  Smelled good whatever they were, but being as she started putting them on my face they kept falling off b/c of my pseudo-beard (which just means funky red facial hair after going10 days w/o shaving.

*I was going to get a shave in BKK but the shop closed before I got there yesterday and I haven’t found a bic yet.

She started giggling and rubbing my beard which made me smile and the rest of the peels fall off.  She’d start laughing again, and demand “No Smile!” soon followed by a giggle which made the whole process go in circles for 5 minutes until we both could keep a straight face.

The rest of the massage went off without incident.   She grabbed, pulled, and kneaded whatever she wanted and she was surprisingly strong for 110lb Cambodian girl.  I left feeling fantastic, loose and energetic. I want to get a massage everyday.  * Editor Note*  I heard some crazy horror stories from some others who got “massages” in Cambodia, so I feel lucky.

I walked into town that evening and went to the Temple bar for dinner, seemed like a decent place in the middle of town and it had a good balcony to see the area from.  As I was eating dinner I watched the kids perform a New Years Dance ritual in the street since it was the Khmer New Year.  It was pretty awesome to see but I couldn’t get my new camera out fast enough to take a video, and frankly I just wanted to watch it anyway.

While I was sitting on the balcony having a beer, I noticed a girl walking to and from each place looking at the menus. She looked lonely.  I kept thinking about talking to her but she turned the corner and I still had to pay.

20 minutes later I hit the streets to hopefully run into her on my way home. I really was just looking for someone to talk with and she looked like she needed the same.  Being alone in Cambodia is a strange feeling so I kinda know what she was feeling.  I found her down some small alley of restaurants just about to sit down and eat at Klick.  I walked past.  Not sure if I should disturb her or approach her, I just kept going.   After about 100yards I said to myself, what is the harm in saying hello, so I turned around and said Hi.  I told her I saw her walking from upstairs and thought she could use someone to chat with so I introduced myself and to my surprise, another American!  She invited me to sit down and I obliged.  I drank while she ate.  She shared her spring rolls with me and they were damn good.

Her name was Meredith and American who lives in a small town (Mae Sot) in Thailand on the Burmese/Thai border.  She works in public health in the area at a local hospital.  She’s from Memphis but has been in Thailand for 3 years and living abroad for the last 8.   She talked about her job, her town and told me a lot about Burma, some of which is very hard to believe that a Gov. could do those things to its people.

We left  Klick and headed to another bar with a balcony and chatted some more.  We had a good time and she taught me some Thai:

Poot Thai Mai Dai = I don’t speak Thai
Poot Thai dai Mai = Do you Speak Thai
Poot Ang-Grit dai Mai? = do you speak English?

And a few other sayings that I probably won’t remember.  We walked back to her place which was a few blocks past mine and my dumbass didnt ask her if she wanted to hang out tomorrow night.  Maybe I’ll run into her again tomorrow.

I am really glad I went to talk to her.  I didn’t want to seem like I was hitting on her or any of that, but I guess thats different when you are traveling, you can talk to people and not have another motive.  Its little things like this which really make you learn about yourself and what you are capable of.