The Pixie Dust Chronicle: Like a minivan out of hell -- with photos

Laying on the horn to scatter -- or not -- the motos and carts and cows from the middle of the road, we blasted down the road, swerving past any vehicle going slower than us, that is, all of them. The huge tourist buses, vans like ours, normal passenger cars, motos. More often than not, laying on the brakes as a pothole reared its ugly head, or the driver realized that he wasn't going to be able to pass the slow-moving truck before the oncoming traffic hit.

I was very tired, and a little sick, probably from the grand adventure biking in several monsoons last night (worthy of another blog post -- I've been slacking because I've been really busy and my google accounts have been strangely messed up, I think my network somehow decided to block googleusercontent.com or something. In any case, I have a lot to catch up on.) The long and the short of that story is that I spent the majority of the evening in cold, wet clothes, and was already a bit sniffly, so, well...

Anyway. Of the fourteen passengers in the van, including the driver, there were two females, both expat, and the rest male, I think mostly Khmer but with a couple of non Khmer. I slept a bit, amazingly, later on in the journey, which took about five and a half hours, though it seemed much longer. The first two hours were interminable, though it got better later on. But for the most part, I looked out the window and thought, as I currently have a lot to think about.

Besides, there was a lot to look at.

At the beginning, it's all the same shops, little hole in the wall places, people sitting in plastic chairs and waiting for the world to arrive. Every few minutes, reliably, a car parked and its occupants peeing off the side of the road -- for all guys complain it's the girls who go all the time, well, it's a lot easier for you!!! But besides that, the houses, all built on stilts of course with laundry hanging, little shanty shack houses. Children running around, people living.

I wanted to take pictures of it all, the shops and how they vanished as we headed down the road, the crazily laden carts, but I couldn't have captured it all, not even close. What one instant the camera captured changed as swiftly as the van was going, always something else, something I'd never seen before. Lakes filled with lotus, houses just barely holding back the jungle, people waist-deep in water with huge nets.

The further we got, the shops vanished into endless landscapes full of water, a few high palm trees; or maybe the jungle creeping up to the side of the road, a narrow strip of pavement parting the green sea. Small villages were scattered along the route, a gathering of houses and the same shops, selling water and noodle soup and shampoo and every other knick knack anyone might need.

The cows are white, or light brown, and big boned, but skinny. I thought they were statues at first until I saw one of them moving, as they are that statuesque and odd, their skin hanging limply from their jutting hip bones and wide ribs. Some are less skinny, but none of the fat black and white variety in your ideal vision with the white picket fence.

We stopped a couple times, once at a market on the side of the road with hole-in-the-floor bathrooms and an army of little girls selling bananas and mangoes, ice cream, what-have-you. They ran towards us as we exited the vehicle, shouting to be noticed, and clambered at the van's open door. I was thinking about buying something, but changed my mind, despite the pleas of the young girl at my side. "What do you want, sister?" she asked. "I have it."

I looked at her eyes, sincere and fierce, and shook my head. "No," I said, "I'm sorry."

The second stop, at the biggest city between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap -- Kampong Thom, I think -- was at a restaurant, and the passengers ordered noodle soups and ate while I wandered, bought an ice cream and chatted up the other woman in the van, an Irish woman living just outside of Siem Reap. Her sandwich, a baguette with pate, some kind of sauce, and pickled veggies, looked so good I had to get one for myself.

By the time we arrived in Siem Reap, a mess of hotels and restaurants and lights, even more crazy than Phnom Penh, I was dragging. I had been warned that the van would try to make the foreigners get out way out of town, and they did, but they said it was the last stop for everybody and I didn't have the energy to fight. A very friendly Khmer was waiting to set me up with a tuk tuk.

He chatted amiably, wanting to know how long I was staying, if I was going to see Angkor Wat, and if I was volunteering. No, I said, teaching dance. "Oh! You are a dancer!" he said, very impressed, and it warmed my heart a little. Always nice to get someone who thinks what you do is cool.

He instructed the tuk tuk driver, who headed off and naturally got lost, but thankfully I was able to call my contact in Phnom Penh and have him talk to the driver. As it turns out we were just around the corner, and I was shown into this beautiful little inn, where I am now staying. It is a single room, and very close to the Old Market Area, which is where all the restaurants are.

I found the bike waiting for me, a tiny little thing and a total piece of ----, but hey, it will function and I took it off to the nearest possible restaurant for a pizza. Since then, I've been unpacking, enjoying having a hot shower for the first time in two months, and generally zoning out. It will be an early bed, for sure...

Check out the pics below. I may have to resurrect my photobucket for this trip...