RETURN TO PHNOM PENH

On Friday I took the bus back to Phnom Penh. It was a luxury bus, with fringed yellow curtains in the windows, and both a guide and hostess to accommodate the passengers, free bottled water and a snack and the obligatory bathroom at the rear of the bus. They showed movies along the way, (a delightful film called "Two Brothers" about two tigers, set in the temples of Angkor and a fast moving and fairly violent kick boxing film) although the scenery that was going by merited all our attention.

There is one major road north-south between Phnom Penh and Siem Riep. It has been paved only in the last couple of years, evidently, so trip takes about six hours. However, this is not an interestate highway. It is a two-laned blacktop used by huge trucks hauling logs, busses, cars, tractors, motorcycles, bicycles and tuk-tuks. Right of way seems to belong to the biggest vehicle with the loudest horn. The bus driver used his horn frequently, not in one loud blast, but in a toot-toot-toot-toot kind of staccato. The confusion of traffic on the highway was further complicated by cattle wandering across the road, or just standing in the middle of the highway. (These were very skinny cattle--"gaunt" I think is the word. I began to wonder if they were predicting seven lean years to come.)

We went through village after village, in which there was a stand to sell things in front of every house. I began to appreciate the phrase, "a nation of shopkeepers." In more rural areas the countryside looked as though it had been pressed with a giant waffle iron, as there was a depression in front each house, some with water and some dry. Evidently the grow water crops in these areas, such as lotus, which they eat as a vegetable. The rice fields behind the houses in this area were mostly brown, the latest crop having been harvested. The houses are built along the road and the fields are set back from the highway.

As we got closer to Phnom Penh, the rice fields were brilliant green with a crop on a different schedule. We passed the "Killing Fields" which the guide pointed out to us. The anguish of the national tragedy is never far below the surface of anyone's consciousness. How much this country needs a deep healing!

As we got closer to Phnom Penh the traffic became even slower and more congested. When we got to the bus station, we were surrounded by tuk-tuk drivers vying with one another to solicit business. Such confusion! We were really were back in town!