The Road to Phnom Penh

Vietnam uses the Latin alphabet but add a hundred diacritic marks to it. So you get all these familiar letters with tons of  apostrophes and tails and horns slapped on there. It seemed in line, really, with the way they stack things on their bikes and how piled and coiled and twisty the powerlines are. They take what they have, and they max it out.

It probably has something to do with an inconsistency in the way city names are listed. Some maps say Ha Noi for Hanoi and Sa Pa for Sapa. I have to imagine it has something to do with those marks.

They get a lot more use out of those 26 letters than we do, and that seems in line with how generally wasteful we are.

Cambodia uses its own alphabet. It's snaky and sort of crampy and, I think, very pretty even when it's warning you of the dangers of road work or electric shock. A bunch of sweet little inchworms have a message for you.

Mentioning this, because being in Cambodia felt even more like I was "away" than the wildness of Hanoi did. Strange letters will do that. And because I wanted to continue chasing that feeling, instead of flying to Saigon, I decided to take a bus to Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital.

Quickly arranged an airbnb to stay in, found a bus ticket on something called Giant Ibis and got dear old Mitchell to take me down to the depot. I was happy to have an opportunity to say goodbye to him, I gave him my email address.

Bus was comfortable. I was a little worried because I'd seen some minivans that looked like old action figure carrying cases, just crammed with people like in a newspaper strip about India or something. But, Giant Ibis was a big old bird with a mighty fine wingspan.

I was seated next to a tech worker from Oakland who wore a t-shirt that said Ipho in the Iphone font. There was a picture of a steaming bowl of pho. I figured, like me, he had just bought a three-dollar t-shirt, since, like me, most of his were soaked in sweat.

I bought one in the Night Market that showed an elephant using his trunk to take a selfie. It was cute, but it fell apart. I had also bought one in Hanoi that showed a bunch of crazy scribbles and said Hanoi Traffic, but it gave me a rash.

I was finishing Tar Baby and he was tackling Pynchon (tech workers!), so we didn't speak too much. The view outside the window got very rural very quickly, Cambodia is a little rustic. The roads were dirt or had seen better days. The villages were pretty run down but all had immaculate temples in the middle of them.

Easy, pleasant scenes of those skinny white cows with the goofy hunch on their necks. Clear, cool pools with pink flowers on lily pads, naked children paddling around, women farming, men smoking.

One town was all taken up by an enormous statue of an elephant fighting two tigers. The elephant was winning.

I saw four monks crossing a metal bridge. They walked in single file (to hide their numbers) and each wore a differently colored robewrap wraprobe. Orange and blue and deep red and yellow. It was like a beautiful advertisement for popsicles.

At a roadside noodle stand, the techie told me about his experiences and I shared mine. He laughed at the story of my having been scammed by the Milk Powder Conwoman. He was like, "I'm traveling with a Chilean and a Guatemalan, and my friends can spot a liar at once. They grew up with that shit."

As we got closer to the Big City, the roads got a little less goofy, and most of us were able to sleep. I didn't want to miss any of the things I was sure I would never have the chance to see again, but.. so... sleepy.

The bus didn't have a restroom, but we'd stopped frequently enough that it wasn't an issue. Apparently the fish amok-related illness from the previous evening wasn't an issue either. It worked its way through my system and vanished forever. Au revoir, le poisson amok.

At one of these roadside WC breaks, there was a little table with some amazing paper-mache masks. Golden monkeys mostly. I loved them but was certain they would crack in my bag. A little square of flypaper was on the table with them and displayed its many still-twitching victims.

A dog was nosing around, but the woman at the fruit stand flapped her arms at him like a banana stork. I'm sure they fed him later. It looked more like something she was doing for show. I bought some brown berries from her. They had a very thin skin and a sweet, lychee-like flesh inside. Also an enormous seed that seemed bigger than the berry. An anomaly of physics!

What I thought was a decoration in the men's room was, in fact, an active hornet's nest. It hung on the door at face level, the little tunnels were like the holes in a microphone. Speak to the wasps, invite them out. Is this thing on?

We arrived and were immediately surrounded by tuk tuk drivers. None of your touristtown soft sell Siem Reap smiles here, this was the big city. You need a tuk tuk sir, it is not safe to walk.

They use US dollars here, so it's much easier to tell if you're being messed with. A guy told me he'd take me where I wanted to go for three bucks and I accepted his bid. Simple little ride down long, crowded boulevards. Monuments loomed over empty parks.

He, the tuk tuk driver, was named Liam, and he wore a baseball hat with a fanged Pac-Man on it. Kind of cute. He wanted to know how long I was staying and where I would be going and would I be interested in having him be my man for any and all of it.

I told him I wasn't sure yet, but he could pick me up in the morning and he could be my guy. He was very happy. I made a man happy. He told me not to go out at night tonight because the place was crawling with crooks for the last day of the Water or Moon festival.

The apartment was behind a hotel, so I had asked Liam to take me to the front since it was an easy landmark. I figured I would then just walk around it and find my host. But Liam didn't like this. Hadn't he just warned me? "Why behind hotel?"

I'm staying in an apartment here.

Hotel is here!

Then the host came out, and he was a slim little Japanese guy named Yuma. Liam did not like this at all. He actually said, "What are you?"

Meaning, "You aren't one of me, and you're not a Great White Whale, so back off. I don't know what you're selling pal, but have this guy under contract for tomorrow."

I was able to get him to understand, though, and Yuma was spared any more glares. I wonder what was up there. Is there animosity between those countries? My guess is it had more to do with Liam wanting to protect me from a stranger in an alley behind the hotel. He may have been thinking about those Last-Day-of-the-Festival Con Men.

The room was cool but in a heavily guarded fortress with a series of heavy padlocks and iron bars and the narrowest stairs I've ever climbed. Like, I had to turn sideways to climb them and I had to take my pack off. It was almost like the place was built with ropes in mind. Swiss Family Robinson house. 

Yuma was friendly but noticeably lost his cool when I walked in without taking my shoes off. I never think about that. He really blanched like it was a deep insult. Otherwise, all cool. Good shower. Good wireless signal. 

He left, and I decided I would nap a little before I went out for dinner. It was late afternoon. I watched a line of ants crawling on the ceiling. I followed them to their source, an outlet in the wall. Electric ants. 

They hypnotized me to sleep, but I could still hear club music from the hotel. It was nice, somehow, and I slept through it. Slept all through dinner and more. Yuma had stocked the place with ramen noodles, though, so I boiled some water.

The noodle packages were crawling with ants. I think I found them all before I put the noodles in the water. I'm sure of it. I'm sure I didn't eat any ants.