Crossing the Line

It was only when I sat down after crossing the dust-filled Thai-Khmer border that I began seeing my surroundings. I craned my neck for a better view of the busy commotion that irked the driver, the latter honking on end. Jumbled tuk tuks, motos and bicycles, I’m sure the hubbub makes more sense to the driver than to me. The steady buzz, occasional hum and the periodic cracking noise should jolt everyone to attention but not in that vehicle full of tourists. Everyone was preoccupied inside their heads: of when the bus journey will end, how long it will take, of their jobs in their nifty offices abandoned, of what to have for dinner. And my head falling prey to theirs was rabidly eaten by their thoughts and just as instanly jumped on cue. I thought about London, I thought about the pending fellowship applications I need to complete in the course of a month, of a dusty yellow bicycle sashaying through the flat expanse of Angkor. And then it hit me how I have no idea how to get to Siem Reap to begin with. My last week in Bangkok was spent drinking at night and eating during the day. I might have reached my quota of fried chicken wings and Beerlao (the best beer in the world, well after Red Horse!) for the next year. My friend who gave me temporary shelter was deluded into thinking that I will do tourism instead of the sloth I turned out to be. Well, at least I cleaned and scrubbed her entire place down - once. And managed to cook two traditional meals she sorely missed from home. That's not even enough to pay for rent, bless her sweet soul. I sprung to action and looked around for a possible information source. 

  

My seatmate definitely looked Cambodian, I started with the sincerest smile I can muster and asked her where she was headed to. Phnom Penh, wrong answer. After quizzing her further I managed to squeeze out where I can take my bus, she even pointed to me the station where I took it from. Nifty. Her english was suprisingly good, I have survived the last few days with a handful of body gestures, nods, grunts, barks, hiss and a bit of purring when bargaining so this talk is nothing short of emancipating. The standard question has been asked, Where do you come from? Philippines. She said something about my smile, I didn’t catch it. Do Filipinos have a distinct smile? She talked me through her experience and by now I can only hear a certain buzzing in my ear until it came to a point when she was discussing her job. Of how she flitted from one career to the other not wanting the livelihood to be her life. Now the girl is becoming more interesting. Life is short, why spend it getting money you can’t even take to your grave? Very romanticised version of existence, but worth a point of merit. The americans from the backseat fell silent (how rare!) and I had a feeling that the vicinity turned into a group of eavesdroppers. It was  carnivalesque to see two Cambodian-looking people (yes, because I am Pan-Asian) talking in fluent English about existentialism nonetheless. 

The rest of the journey went by with constant visions of a never-ending flat horizon dotted with perfectly round sugar palm trees like upright swab sticks. The rice paddies were the shade of drab brown with dried up rice stalks and weeds listlessly occupying every inch of flaky muck. The harvest season may just have been a month earlier, all the granaries are now not empty and people are in a satiated state, and even celebratory had the harvest been ample. 


I found it easier to breathe once I stepped out of the airconditioned bus. The air isn’t exactly pure and refreshing but its better than the recycled and cooled variety you get stuck with in a moving vehicle. From the farfetched bus station, I rode a tuktuk to meet my Khmer friend who drove me around to find the best accommodations in town that fitted requirements: cheap and cheap. 

Note to self: last cigarette box - ever. 

Hit the Road

My pores had all closed down. Bangkok simmers at 34 degrees celsius, in this humid tropical heat no one is spared from sweating profusely and yet I find myself basking jubilantly under the heat of the noon day sun while genially appraising the lack of oozing salt water from my body, congratulations to me! I am now summer-proof! London winter may have done pleasant alterations, all the freezing walks and thawing once you step inside heated buildings may have done the trick akin to the Japanese tradition of stripping butt naked in the snow and immediately dipping into hot mineral springs to minimise pore openings. I hate it when I sweat, I had to carry with me a hanky all the time to wipe off the perspiration. Just imagine the bacteria that accumulates in between the cloth fibers. eck. Had I been a hypochondriac, the stress of this news can highly likely be the cause of death rather than actually dying from a disease. 

There’s a sense of renewed vigour that pulsates from my calloused soles to the tip of my twitchy ears. The unsteady rhythm from walking on unpaved roads and the cacophony of sounds that permeate the humid air realigns me to the beat, humdrum and smell typical of the Asian mega cities. Manila is not much different, peeling the veneer of tangible cultural variances, Bangkok and my home city may well be the same. London, another home in the other side of the world offers to me a different sense of being- of someone lost in the vastness of space, opportunities, liberty and choices. It dumbs me down, waters down my senses to near asceticism and the comfort brought by the absence of thoughts was fiercely seductive and I willingly gave in without any consequent regrets. It was exceedingly comfortable to the point of laziness, and if you’re fortunate enough surrounded with fantastic people who brings merriment and reason in generous helpings every single time, the curse of lethargy will slowly creep in. This momentary pause however is not meant to last. While engrossed in the daily grind, a mind which has always been accustomed to flitting and a perennial victim to wanderlust, will break away from the constancy of senses to try looking for something different, anything but different. Before I know it I was set on going to Cambodia. My mind regressed through a time when the fascination to Angkorean culture was the only thing that drove me to attend design history classes, when the clippings that hang on my wall were black and white photocopies of temple images juxtaposed with maps and aerial shots. The thought of going around these temples on my very own yellow bicycle is becoming more and more real, and as if on priory drugs I heaved from one deja vus to the next heralding a season of fantastic discoveries. Of temples. Of bicycles. Of people. Of self. 


The practicalities of travel hassles me. Coming out of a stupor, more like a state of dependency, it takes time to stretch the mental limbs and take stock of things. My mind is still myopic and it can only see the choices for the next meal. Delightfully simplistic. My concern right now, at this very moment on a sidebar in my mind while writing is how to survive the 5 hour train to the Thai-Khmer border village of Aranya Prathet without my ipod, having lost it to the rabid pickpocket gangs of Barcelona.