The Pixie Dust Chronicle: A moto ride to the middle of nowhere

It's been a challenging week, for a lot of reasons. I was never intending this to be a vacation but it's been more of a struggle than anticipated, part of that for reasons I can do absolutely nothing about. Either way, I'm pretty happy to see the weekend, and have decided to take it completely as a vacation.

My workshop finished at five. At six, the organizer of the club here came by the guesthouse on his moto to take me to see this stage where he wants to do the showing next week -- something I hadn't really thought about, but it is better than the huge, hot room on the second floor of the hotel we've been using.

Dusk was gathering as we headed out, the crescent moon high in the sky. I, as I have said already on this blog, adore riding on the back of motos, and I sat back to enjoy as we left the main town. Heading to where cars stop for cows crossing the road and sometimes the concrete cuts out into small lakes from all the rain. Where the shanties line the street and the jungle creeps up to the side of the road, insatiable green.

We went even past the local restaurants, the markets filled with Khmer people getting food for dinner, soups in two plastic bags and sitting in those colorful plastic chairs, big open houses and restaurants. We turned down a side road, and then onto a dirt road, fine red dirt.

The place was just there, in the middle of nowhere. A few friendly children opened the gate for us. It was a small collection of huts, with tin sides and roofs. In one, a small stage, painted green, with a few large amplifiers and maybe five small lights arranged at the front of the stage. A couple other buildings, and on the right, built on stilts, what must have been a dormitory, where the children were gathered. Steep steps -- more of a ladder -- led to the ground, now flooded, and they splashed through ankle deep water to investigate us.

Across the way, a tiny playground -- a seesaw, and a slide, in teetering, rusty blue metal. A pile of logs, and then the gate. A few of the mean, rangy dogs that are everywhere were running around.

"What is this NGO?" I asked, turning around, and finding a sign. "Cambodia Orphan Family Center Organization." Suddenly, it made sense that the kids were gathered there so late, and the dormitories. Oh, I thought, suddenly speechless. They teach traditional arts here, my friend explained. Every Saturday and Sunday during the high season -- not now -- they have shows.

The kids happily bid us goodbye, and the night was good and truly falling, the sky the shade of blue I can't ever get enough of. The frogs were singing their hearts out, and I sat on the back of the moto, in just absolute peace.

I had dinner at a place called Butterflies Garden, though the butterflies are only around in the daytime. Either way, I had a traditional Khmer dish -- yellow beans and pork wrapped in sticky rice and steamed in a banana leaf, a shrimp salad -- which was excellent, and I'm not usually a shrimp fan -- and some fresh veggies. I had a fresh coconut to drink.

I treated myself to ice cream at Swensen's afterwards, and decided to splurge and get whipped cream with, not really realizing I was going to be giving a full mountain of the stuff. But it was lovely, anyway, and now I'm so full I can barely move. But --- it was so worth it.

Check out the pics and a bonus vid from the back of the moto...