First impression of the City


The feeling of being back is really weird.  Things are so familiar but also strange.  Its almost as if I’m watching through someone else’s eyes.  The world is a much bigger place for me today than it was two days ago. 

I never thought I would come back.  We always talked about it, as sometime in the future…maybe when the kids are older…maybe when we get more financially stable.  But here we are.
We were picked up at the airport by our tour guide, Tree.  

He seems tall to me but I’m not sure.  I always see myself as smaller than I am.  But he probably has a couple of inches in height on me, but I have at least eight inches on him in the belly area…sure he can reach things on a higher shelf, but I win in a not eating contest. For that matter probably an eating contest as well.  As proof, my cycling jersey is a 3X Large… Of course these are Cambodian sizes…and I’m going to stick with that until I lose some mass. 



We stood in the heat and fumes of the airport making small talk, I was just trying to take it all in.  Like I said above, I felt at ease.  I’ve always favored more humid weather; my skin seems to come alive.  It feels less like rhino skin and more something else…most of the time anything is better than rhino skin… in fact besides being a rhino I don’t know when skin like a rhino is good. 
There was so much movement with cars and mopeds, so much sound as well.  I thought, “this must be what bee’s feel like. Disorder, but also controlled.  It was a hazy day with some sun but mostly diffused through the clouds, but the colors and textures are so vibrant, a patchwork of classical materials, with modern. The new over the old, and the old waring through the new to see light again.  Interwoven with these contracts are the effects of age.  Nothing seems too new, and nothing seems out of place.  Everything is organic in its placement, displacement and location.  It is the perfect balance mirrored in the natural world.  

We eventually made it into the van. Driving through the city, the ordered chaos was even more apparent.  Mopeds and motorcycles zipped in and out of traffic.  Car, like large lumbering beasts slowing moved, trying not to step on the smaller among them.  It seems, as I’ve seen in other places, the traffic law is… don’t hit someone and don’t get hit.  This produces is a very biological flow of beings.  No one gets to close to anyone else and no one gets too far either.  If everyone operates on these ideas, things move freely and seemingly without incident. 

(I will have video of this as soon as I figure out how to edit it)

Helmets, seats equaling the number of passengers and legal driving age seem to be optional.  As most of the people don’t wear helmets.  Many mopeds carried three and four people and some of the primary operators were young…like my son Liam, probably eight or nine.  I wouldn’t trust him to walk down the street here, much less ride a moped at twenty miles per hour with two smaller kids as passengers.  



As I watched the people zip back and forth between cars and trucks and other mopeds, I wondered what a learning curve for something like this might be.  It occurs to me that learning to function in an environment like this I probably a lot like learning a language.  The kids are on the mopeds with their skilled parents.  The littlest usually sits in the front and has a perfect view of all that is happening.  They are learning the rules of what to do in different situations.  There really are rules they sit down and learn.  I really can’t see any other way a system like this passed on.

As chaotic as this environment seems I feel a sense of peace as well.  For the past 45 years every day of my life I have been a minority…Then bam! I’m not.  There will be some that read this and feel that these things don’t matter… that in a place like the US we see around that…  That is true in many cases but the fact that the default is to look past or see around something means that it is still there for the people being looked around.

I’m actually going to walk back something I said in an earlier post… I have a strong connection with this place.  It feels home and that’s really weird.   The smells the sounds…Even the calls of the frogs and other animals make at night are comforting.  I know its early, and I probably shouldn’t rush into this but I am totally in love with this place and her people. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to the project

Image
Welcome to my new blog.  I hope this will be interesting to you and that by reading this you will find something you can relate to.  I'm not sure how to start this but I think maybe the beginning would be a good place.  My name is Anthony Sok-Heng Tessandori.  I grew up in a town named Arcadia, just north and east of Los Angeles.  I had a fairly normal upbringing, with my brother and two sisters.  My father was a doctor and my mother was at home for most of my childhood.  All things considered I had a good life.  You might be asking now, what is so interesting about this...the answer is nothing.  There is nothing about this that is out of the norm and in a lot of ways was maybe like your life.  This is actually the ending of my story...that got dark.  Let's say the end of my origin first story.  My true beginning is a mystery. I was born sometime in the early 70's in Cambodia.  No one knows the year...it was bef...
Read more

Last Day in Phnom Penh

Image
Today was our last day in Phnom Penh.  After riding about 325k or 200 miles throughout this country, I'm exhausted physically, mentally and emotionally.  I've seen so many sides of the daily lives of people at a level I would have only dreamt.  Even still I know that there are so many more sides to see. The red line indicated our travels not our biking.  We drove a bunch too.  As one of my last goals for this trip, I wrestled with the idea of visiting the World Vision Offices. They still have a large presents here with focuses on child welfare, health and education.  I have a lot of respect for what this organization has done for the people of my country and for me individually and would like in some way to make contact with them.   At the same time, I have been hesitant to do this as well.  I recognize that my involvement with World Vision was a long time ago, and in the grand scheme of things was not a major "mission," it was bare...
Read more

Khmer Empire

Image
We spent most of the day at the Angkor temples.  The most recognizable of these is Angkor Wat (which roughly means city with Buddhist Monasteries).  Images of the five towers (meant to represent the Meru Mountains - the home of the gods) is on everything, from the nations flag to the beer to half the trinkets sold at gift shops.  It is the largest and in many ways it is the most impressive.  But there are many others.  There are currently fifty recognized but with the possibility that other could be found, that number will likely go up.  I've heard estimates of over 100.  www.pointsmd.com/angkor-wat-and-5-must-see-temples-around-siem-reap/ Many of the temples and buildings are dedicated to one or more of the Hindu gods Shiva, Vishnu and Brahma  Some of the buildings are burial chambers others have no known purpose.  Each is a masterpiece of art and design.  These building were first produced during the 9th century through the 14th ...
Read more