Mar 08
When a Cambodian speaks of their family, they don’t usually mean the immediate family. They consider aunts, uncles and cousins to be family and stay very close, often all living under the same roof. Won’s family lived in a village that sits sixty five kilometers from the Vietnam border. In 1970 the neighboring war was raging and Vietcong were crossing into Cambodia to hide in the many border villages, including Won’s. When the US government learned of this they started bombing villages in Cambodia.
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Mar 07
We had just set our bags down in our hotel room in Phnom Phen when the phone rang. Not expecting a call, the sound took a moment to register. Stacey and I looked at each other then back at the phone. I wonder who’s calling us I said realizing I should answer before it was too late to find out. I listened to the calm, soft voice and searched for comprehension through a thick Khmer accent. After enticing the man to repeat himself a few times, I got the gist of his English. Won was his name, or at least how I pronounced it. Later we the spelling to be Nget Vannarith, but decided it best we keep calling him Won.
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Feb 25
We’re in Cambodia. I didn’t realize there was a time change between here and Thailand, but there is. It’s about 100 years. Between Bangkok traffic and the roads on the southern islands in Thailand, I thought i’d seen the worst of driving conditions in the world, but the ride from the Phnom Phen airport into the city was the craziest yet. Getting through the city felt like trying to make it of a field turned unmarked parking lot after the blue angels finale at an airshow, but with people on bikes and motorcycles wizzing around you like flies.
We’re only in Cambodia three days, so we’ve really got to rush to see the major sights. Our driver should be arriving any minute to take us to see the Killing Fields. I might end up coming back after seeing Stacey off in Bangkok. With so much to see, I always feel rushed though.
Oh yea…they use US currency here. Kind of. It’s accepted everywhere and most places advertise prices in it as opposed to the Cambodian Riel. Weird huh? We paid the airport toll in Thai Baht, got half our change in US dollars and the rest in Riels. It can’t be good for the ecomony for three different currencies to be floating around. They just got ATMs in the country like last month, so who knows, maybe the Riel will make a comeback.
