Indelible Roots

I’m in need of a good swing set in a quiet room. Bangkok is just plain madness after four months in Khmer Country. There is constant noise, cars/buses/motos whizzing by at high speed, the rumble of the train overhead, skyscrapers towering overhead, motos and bicycles driving down the sidewalk. The shear amount of auditory and visual information is very tiring. Luckily I have my mp3 player with earplug style headphones.

Phnom Penh has one million residents. There is constant beeping of horns at every little thing; hey I’m going to pass, hey I’m not stopping, hey don’t cut me off… Here in Bangkok the drivers is very considerate, only bliping the horn rarely, but there are just so many of them. In Phnom Penh rush hour is just madness of jammed vehicles trying to twist themselves around each other. Here it’s rows of cars as far as the eye can see, stopping and going in an orderly fashion. But here everything is at high speed. In Phnom Penh you can get to forty miles per hour max due to the poor traffic control and driving methods.

I spend my time walking around trying to not get lost. It’s just row after row of high rises behind high rises. The skytrain towers about thirty or forty feet overhead. You have to crane your neck to see the skyline. No fixing on the horizon here.

I went to Pattaya for a few days. The beach there is also busy. The sand is nothing like Kampong Som and there are boats docked on the beach, jet skis racing around, a dozen parasailers being towed behind fast boats, and constant car, moto, and truck traffic. Drinking here is not as expensive as Bangkok, but still at three dollars a piece or more. A lot of nice looking Thai girls walking around with older men.

Two more days and I’m off to the old capital/ancient Khmer outpost of Ayuthya. Before I run out of money by staying here in Bangkok.

I’ve been in Thailand a couple of days now and as the heading states, it’s different, but the same.

Different: Traffic flows in an orderly fashion, if on the wrong side of the road. There are people everywhere and the city is chock full of multistory buildings, neon signs, 7/11s, McDonalds. Cops are around, but individually, not clustered four to six at major intersections lounging around. They also write a lot of tickets, as opposed to sticking their hands out for a bribe.  There are moto taxis here, but they all seem to be licensed, wearing a green vest with numbers on them and you don’t run into the constant “sir tuk tuk, moto” as in Cambodia.
This reminds me of my next to last day in Phnom Penh. I had my large backpack on my back leaving the hotel for my uncle’s place. I waved at a guy wearing a ball cap and sitting on his moto on the side of the street and said “moto?” He nodded and I got on. He then proceeded to nearly drop the bike every time we stopped moving. He drove like I did my first two or three times with a passenger. Really I think he was just a regular guy with nothing to do who decided to make some cash money.

And things are much more expensive here, but that may be due to the fact that I am now a tourist looking to enjoy my short time here instead of being occupied with work and saving money. My good old $5 per day hotel room is gone for a $20 a day room that’s only marginally better. I’m sure there are cheaper places to stay and I’ll end up moving to those on the road.  And at night this place comes alive. There are a lot more tourists around from all over the world, Indians, Russians, US, UK, etc…

Same: Most of the sewage is underground, but there are a lot of open grating, thus the waft of sewage I so dearly enjoy catches my attention often. There are open stands selling all sorts of clothing and pirated movies and music. There are street vendors selling things out of their push carts. Extremely poor people begging on the streets, though no where near as aggressively.

We’ll see how long I last before hitting the road for less populated, greener pastures.

I purchased a ticket to BKK the other day and will be arriving in Thailand Monday morning. I sent an email to Dr. Jim noting my last week of work and received a nice and terse as usual reply. As I hate goodbyes, I have been telling only a few people at work that I was leaving this week.

On Monday night, Ath invited me to his home for dinner. I expected to eat with everyone in the house, but as usual, it was just Ath and me who ate. His wife quietly sat nearby with the youngest baby while the 2 year old tried to kick a soccer ball onto our plates. The two other people there also just sat out of the way. After eating Ath drove me to the mall near my place with his 2 year old standing in between us on the motorbike. I remember saying to my self, “I’m not OK with this.” They both seemed to really enjoy it and it appeared that they did that often before bedtime.

As it were, I’m having a pretty busy week. I’ve got three hand patients who formerly went to Calmet Hospital for various hand injuries. All of them got sewn back up and sent home. Now three months later x-rays show that their hands are still fractured and they are stiff and contracted. And today another one showed up with electrical burns to both wrists, adhesions of the flexor tendons at both wrists, and contracting fingers. He also went to Calmet three months ago right after the injury and after a couple of weeks there and three surgeries of which he did not know what was done, was sent home without further instructions. I’ll remind you that my aunt is there now getting “treatment” for her Lupus.

Prior to dining with Ath I did go visit my aunt. My uncle said they were going to keep her at this hospital “until she was cured.” I think she may well die here. She had been getting better and is now, finally on a steroid. But today she is having severe abdominal pains and I found out that she had not been eating anything this whole time except runny rice soup. The hospital itself has not given her any liquid foods or any advice at all. No one seems to know what she’s being given or why and no one is asking but me. This is supposedly one of the better hospitals in Cambodia. And from what I’ve seen, I could do a better job with internet access and a willingness to learn. As mentioned in the Lonely Planet guidebook, coming here without medical evacuation insurance would be suicidal.

Having seen all of my patients and seeing that there were no others awaiting consultations who would need OT, I left work at about 3:30 yesterday. I was low on cash so the thought of stopping at the Canadia bank which doesn’t charge me a fee occurred to me. But I decided to just head home At my usual left turn I passed it up because the bus behind me was honking its insanely loud horn. I could have gone around the New Market at this point and cut a section of busy road out of the trip, but I decided to double back and get on the main road. At the intersection of a two large streets I made the right turn as usual with the light red just like everyone else.

As soon as I rounded the corner a cop steps out about twenty meters ahead and waves me to the curb and onto it. He then walked to the wall fifteen feet away from the street and motioned me over. He and his cronies, two of them, then go on to read me the riot act about making an illegal turn on red, blah blah blah. He threatened to take my piece of crap, though reliable, moto into impound and one of the other cops prodded me for a bribe.

I held my ground for several minutes telling them I was volunteering at CSC, which they recognized. They congratulated me for my kindness and asked how much I would be giving them. Having opened my wallet to show them my uncle’s far out of date driver’s license my measly ten bucks was showing. I took advantage of this to say I didn’t have much money and needed it for the rest of the month. One of them said “you have money, it’s in the hidden compartment.” So I unzipped the extra compartment and showed them it’s lack of contents.

We actually had a pleasant conversation. They told me the details of why the license was out of date, what the new license looks like (showing me a stack of about thirty they had confiscated,) when the turn would be legal (green light,) and how much it would cost to go apply for a real bonafide license ($25.) The funny thing is they never brought up the fact that the registration sticker on the moto is six years out of date or that the license plate is rusted and held together with baling wire.

They asked for six bucks, two for each. I tried to talk them down to five, an exorbitant some in this place so that I would have five left. But to no avail. I actually wanted to laugh when I handed over the money and we both thanked each other. If not for my absolute disgust at public corruption, corruption by those whose purpose it is to serve their people, it would have been a rather pleasant experience. Certainly it isn’t their fault that those above them keep their wages low just for the reason of being able to easily bribe them. As always, the rot comes from the top and its stench is overpowering at times.

To use a saying my friend James coined, my give-a-damn is busted. I’m not excited to go to work anymore, but rather find myself leaving the guesthouse later and later and wanting to leave earlier and earlier. I don’t even attend rounds anymore in search of possible patients, but only attend if I have a patient I’m interested in hearing from or telling the docs about. I don’t eat lunch anymore as I am so sick of the same five recipes at the kitchen. My one joy of surfing the internet before work and at lunch got canned when I found out that we are paying by the amount downloaded, not by the month. I’ve met some great people here and will definitely meet up with some of them again in the future. But meeting new people every month and then seeing them go has become quite tiresome and a bit depressing.

Work wise, it’s just not very rewarding. I think I can help more people in the States where therapy is an established part of treatment and I can see patients on a regular basis. Seeing a toddler with CP once and then sending them home with instructions for daily treatment is not very rewarding. Especially when I see kids come back a month after surgery and therapy only to have the same contractures again because they didn’t continue stretching as I instructed them to do.

The team approach seems nearly non-existent here and people aren’t really interested in learning new things, most anyways. Just punch in at 8 and punch out at 5 seems to be the general consensus. I saw a kid come back for a one month follow up the other day and his hand had already re-contracted. The reason being that the wrist was pinned at the end of surgery (to correct a long standing burn contracture to the palm and wrist,) so we didn’t splint him, but only worked on his fingers. The day he got the pins pulled, he was sent home, not to therapy. So now he’s waiting for another surgery.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this place performs some very good surgeries, at a standard far higher than most other places in the country, much better than the “best” hospital in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately many of the locals think that any medical problem should be able to be resolved with a single surgery or a pill, whether it is CP or a fractured bone. When I tell the parents of CP kids that in the US I would see them twice or three times a week for years, they are astonished. I think that at times we are perpetuating that belief here.

I went to the Russian market this past weekend with one of the therapists and Fi, an English OT working for the acid burn charity in Bangladesh. She was here for a week to train our acid charity therapist. Anyways, we spent hours at the market, and the only thing I bought was a copy of the Lonely Planet: Loas. I should have it read and a plan in mind in a couple of weeks if not sooner. Or maybe I’ll just take off with it and read it as necessary. I actually thought about putting my splinting shears in my backpack today. If I do that I wouldn’t have to go back to work at all if I decided to just leave.

So perhaps I’ll make it to the end of the month. I’ve been checking flights out and it appears that it’s just as cheap to buy one week in advance as it is to buy two months in advance. The time in between is considerably more expensive. Now should I take my leather hiking boots or go with the much lighter tennis shoes? My main pair will be the flip flops of course. I also need to pick up a notebook of some kind to jot down my thoughts sans laptop. We’ll see.

A couple of weeks ago this little guy shows up in the therapy room with his left hand bandaged. He started pulling on the pulleys and in general making himself a nuisance. Busy at the time I told him to go away and come back later to no avail. So I then picked him up, placed him outside, and closed the door, obtaining about an hour of respite.

Chalk, his nick name (it means bald though he has a full head of hair) turned out to have polydactily and amniotic band problems on all of his extremities. The index to the ring finger of his left hand were one finger and they had recently separated the index from the other two. He is very compliant with gentle ROM and will sit when told to for therapy. But at any other time he is here to play and give orders.

If I am working on another patient he constantly tells that patient what to do as if he were the therapist. I had a hand contracture gal picking up and lifting items from one chair to another once when he came in. He then started to tell her “faster faster!” and then placed other items on the chair for her to pick up. She almost smacked him.

Wanting to see what his surgery site looked like I followed him to the nursing room once to see them remove, clean, and re-bandage him. It took two people to hold him down and I left. At a later cleaning I observed the nurses again telling him not to cry and threatening to cut off his fingers as usual. Having had enough I sat him on my lap and did the wound cleaning myself to minimal complaints at a slow speed and needing only minimal reassurances.

Chalk shows up all the time in the therapy room to goof off. He’s a very bright six years old, knows almost the entire English alphabet, and is really a lot of fun to have around. I saw him outside the main patient bay the other day and started poking him in the ribs. He then poked me in the groin to the collective exclamation of the dozen people sitting outside the doors. He ran off and I walked away only mildly embarrassed to have been shown up by a six year old.

Another time he showed up at noon and started goofing off. I was tired and told him to leave, to come back at 1. He left and came back ten seconds later. So I tossed him out and locked the door from the inside. He then started yelling through the door, but I didn’t respond. After a few minutes he took the wheelchair from outside the door and started ramming it into the door. I wondered if he would end up breaking the glass. About fifteen minutes later he gave up and stopped. Until I opened the door again that is and found him ten feet away.

2/06/2008

Happy Chinese New Year! Colorful posters are on the walls and store fronts. Fireworks are being lit here and there. Roasted pigs are on display. The city is quiet as many people are off for the holidays and have gone to visit family in the countryside. This marks the end of the Year of the Pig and the beginning of the Year of the Rat.

The Year of the Rat started off badly. My aunt who had been having GI problems for the past several months was at the hospital in ICU. Getting to the bottom of the story was difficult with my limited language skills and their limited medical education. I know she has had GI problems for about eight or nine months, had very little energy because she wasn’t eating well, and had recently gone to Thailand for an evaluation. She had recently returned from Thailand with a large bagful of medications and I couldn’t decipher what the diagnosis was from the family members.

Last Friday night she decided to go to a traditional healer because the one week she spent in Thailand didn’t cure her. By Sunday evening she was having tremors and what was described as fits of total body muscle contractions. It sounded like she was having seizures, but I was not made aware of the situation.

Some family members urged her to go to the hospital, but the traditional healers told them to wait. So they waited, and they waited. About 5am in the morning someone finally gets up the nerve to throw her on the back of a moto and drive her to the hospital where she was admitted into the ICU with a diagnosis of metabolic coma.

There I found her unresponsive, intubated, edematous, and her urine the color of beets. I talked to one of the doctors who spoke English and he stated that her organs were shutting down. I again asked the family what the docs told her in Thailand and strongly suggested they give him a call and explain the situation. I then talked to Chris, a medical student from Australia, but originally from the New York area, about the situation. He offered to come take a look at her.

With Chris there the family finally decided to tell us that she had been diagnosed with SLE in Thailand, Lupus. Why they didn’t mention this every other time I had asked is beyond me. We look at her blood tests and find her levels well out of whack, especially her Potassium. I’m told that this is life threatening if it should drop much further. Chris then goes to research the issue and we discuss the situation the next day.

Chris gives me a packet with drug studies on this exacerbation of Lupus. One in particular shows that after two years, those who have gone through this life threatening nephritis and not taken certain levels of a particular drug, have all died. I make a copy of this and give it to the aunt’s daughter as the English speaking doctor was not there. I also again explained to them that she needs to go to Thailand for follow up as soon as she is able.

One of my cousins states that she wants her to go to a healer in Siem Reap that she had personally gone to in the past. If she hadn’t been a family member I would have slapped her. The level of ignorance was stifling and I repeat my suggestion almost every time I see them.

I saw my aunt recently and she appears to be doing much better. Her urine is still abnormal suggestion continued kidney or liver disease and she still has edema in her legs, suggesting a protein deficit. She is now lucid though and is able to stand and walk for short periods of time. The funny thing is, the first time I saw her where she was able to recognize me, the first words out of her mouth were ‘have you eaten rice yet?’

1-27-2008

At 5:15am on the 27^th I rode out to Meggie’s place to pick her up. Coming to a red light on one of the major streets, I came to a stop, only to be passed by the few motorists behind me. So I went through the light also, having a better chance of getting nailed from behind and on the side by cross traffic in the night.

The trip to the dock saw us nearly run over by a Camry passing us against oncoming traffic. The bastard was no more than an inch or two of hitting us before I saw him, Meggie exclaimed “shit” and grabbed my shoulders, and I hit the brakes. I beeped my ridiculous horn and mentally cursed at him or her as he pulled away.

Two hours later we had crossed the Mekong and arrived. Quickly dressing at an adjacent house we walked to the wedding house and the proceedings started just minutes later. I’m not sure if they had waited on us or not, but earlier I was told 7am was the latest they would start and it was 7:30.

The wedding was fun and eventful, incorporating two days worth of ceremonies into a half of a day. It was hot as hell though and I was sweating like crazy, discarding my tie except for the important ceremonies of which I was actually involved. We had about a two hour break at noon before the reception at which time I was told I couldn’t use the moto to return to Phnom Penh, but would have to wait on the little bus which wasn’t leaving until after dark. Meggie was OK with this as she was having a good time, so I didn’t bother trying to bribe my cousin T to use his moto.

We finally left around 7pm, the bus loaded and everyone else telling us we should stay longer. Arriving at the smaller of the two ports we parked behind a large work truck, the only two vehicles there. As the boat pulled up forty-five minutes later though, a slew of cars passed us and got right up to the bank. Furious Meggie and I kept looking at the bus, which didn’t start up until after a half dozen cars had passed it. Needless to say, we didn’t make it on the boat.

I talked to the truck drivers during the second intermission to see if by chance they were going to Phnom Penh, thinking about hitching a ride with them as the boat definitely would not be able to accommodate both the truck and the bus. The drivers were going the opposite direction though and the driver then asked me what day it was.

Forty-five minutes later the boat comes back, but three cars pass our sad little bus. Meggie was about to cry and I was ready to smash some heads, swearing to not attend another wedding in country no matter what. One of my uncles then directed the bus forward and we cut two of the cars off, but one of them still squeezed by onto the boat. The truck was left on the bank by itself as we left, but as I expected, the drivers didn’t care. We then haggled over price with the boat operators who wanted one thousand riel, twenty-five cents per person on the bus. The large ferry costs two hundred riel per person though I don’t know how much they charge for a bus.

Exhausted we arrived in Phnom Penh at 10pm and Meggie and I left in search of a tuk tuk with nary a goodbye to the other passengers. A cold shower and clean clothes later the stress and frustration from our odyssey home melted away and I fell asleep to the Cartoon Network.

1-26-2008

This morning I was told to come to uncle Chheang’s so that we can all go to the province together to prepare for my cousin Samrith’s marriage to La. Samrith wanted me to spend the night, but I adamantly declined as usual, seeing absolutely no benefit to the idea and knowing full well that the likelihood of us leaving on time was zilch. Told to be there by 7:30am, I leisurely left my guesthouse at 7:30 for the seven blocks walk over, stopping by USA Donuts on the way.

I had never been to USA Donuts, but had wanted to check it out for some time now. I found a small selection of nice looking pastries inside to include what appeared to be a turnover of some kind. I asked what if anything was inside and the gentleman went to the fridge and stated “custard” and two other things curiously enough. I asked for one with custard and he picks one up with a tong and not his bare hands amazingly. Putting it onto a plate he then slices it in half and spoons the custard in. Not exactly what I expected, but it turned out very nicely no less.

Leaving USA Donuts with my backpack on my back, my helmet in my right hand, and my sack of pastries in the left I was immediately approached by a man in his forties or fifties. He yelled excitedly and grabbed at my left arm several times. I kept telling him no and elbowed him away, on the verge of bashing his head in with my helmet. Only then did his words sink in. He was asking for food. This jackass was completely clean and nicely dressed, not some street child. I wanted to go back and kick his ass, but let it go instead.

As expected we didn’t leave uncle Chheang’s place until 9am. Then it was to go to a breakfast place and eat, where I just sat and reminded people that they told me we would leave at 8. Then we had to go to the market so that Sopheap could buy some sunglasses for the moto ride out to La’s parents’ place out in the sticks. After that we stopped for gas. So really we didn’t hit the road until about 10:30 as I had expected.

It was almost an hour ride on motos to the dock where we caught a ferry across the Mekong. It was another thirty minutes on unpaved roads to the house. Here we sat, played cards, ate, and slept. I reminded people that we were supposed to be there to assist in the wedding preparations and everyone just laughed.

After dinner I borrowed Samrith’s moto to ride back to Phnom Penh as I needed to pick Meggie up to bring her to the wedding. Leaving at around 5:30pm, it was getting dusk much more rapidly than I expected. Uncle Chheang wanted me to stay until after dinner, but then the local family said I shouldn’t go as it was getting dark and I might get robbed. I left anyways.

Halfway to the dock I started to get peppered in the face and eyes by small insects. Putting my tinted shield down made it very dark on the unlit streets so I constantly went from not being able to see because of the dark shield and not being able to see because there were bug guts on my eye ball. Getting to the darkened dock I saw that there was no one selling tickets at the desk and asked a girl on a bicycle about it. She said the ferry stops at 6pm and won’t start up again until 4am. Now I had specifically asked Sopheap when the ferry stops and he had told me it ran 24/7.

Fortunately the girl told me there was another dock about one half kilometers down the road and that there would be a sign for it. The ferry here supposedly runs all night. Thanking her profusely I got on my way down the dark, rutted road and made a right at about ½ kilometers at the first sign I came to with an arrow. Of course I don’t read or write Khmer so I had no idea what the sign actually said.

This road took me into some houses and banana trees. I asked a couple of people where the dock as and was directed farther down the river. Alone in the dark with only fair language skills I was a bit nervous and made a mental note to what turns I was taking so that I could retrace my steps and at least make it back to La’s parents’ house. Fortunately the narrow road opened up onto the docking area soon after. I had apparently taken the turn too soon and had not made it to the actual road to this place.

The area was lit only by the car battery operated florescent lamps of food vendors on the sides. The road led right to the river and I waited there with a half dozen other motos, keeping quiet. A wooden boat arrived and we boarded first, followed by about six cars. It didn’t look overloaded, but the many news casts I’ve seen over the years about overloaded transports sinking in lesser developed nations kept surfacing.

As it were we made it safely across and I paid my five hundred riel, about thirteen cents to the attendant. I then took the dirt road away from the river, following other traffic until it came to a paved surface. Here I took it left, hoping that it was the correct road to Phnom Penh. It wasn’t until about thirty minutes later that I recognized the area outside of Phnom Penh and was relieved.

Overall it was a grand adventure and well worth it for the memories.

1/18/2008

Early on Friday I get a moto taxi to Meggie’s place for the trip to Kratie (pronounced Kra Ches) to see the few remaining Irriwadi fresh water dolphins. Arriving at 7am I walk about to try to find some breakfast to no avail, but got some cereal and yogurt from Meggie. It wasn’t bad actually. The transfer bus was to take us from here to the bus station at 7:20. It arrived at 7:50 as I had expected and hurriedly took us and a half dozen other westerners to this company’s bus terminal.

Seven hours later we arrived in Kratie, a small provincial town on the Mekong River several hundred kilometers north and west of Phnom Penh. Immediately the bus was mobbed by locals selling guest house services. One actually got on the bus and gave his spiel to the blond couple one row ahead of us. Getting off the bus we were hammered on all sides with promises of nice views and cheap rooms. We had already decided on one and went with the guy from that guesthouse.

The Heng Heng II guesthouse is one block south of the bus terminal as are the vast majority of the guesthouses here. The single market is also one block away and this constitutes down town Kratie. At the guesthouse we were shown two rooms on the third floor, but were told that only one of them was available for the entire weekend. No problem, I would take the one nighter and find a different room tomorrow.

We then proceeded to search for food, a late lunch, and wander the down town area. We ate at the guesthouse restaurant which provided the blandest and one of the worst services I’ve had at a restaurant in the country. Walking the downtown area and checking out the market took all of thirty minutes as it encompasses only about four square blocks near the river front.

The next day we hired two motos and drivers to take us out for the day. Our first stop was at Sombak Mountain, a surprisingly peaceful mediation center consisting of many huts up a couple of hundred concrete steps where monks and nuns come to meditate. It was one of the most serene and peaceful spots I’ve encountered here.

After a side trip to a many pillared wat, we ended up at the dolphin boat tours area and paid our fees for the boat. Since no one else was there at the same time, we got the little boat to ourselves at only a slightly higher cost, seven dollars apiece. The boat took us and one of the moto drivers about two hundred meters into the Mekong where we immediately encountered a trio of grey dolphins surfacing here and there, batting fish out of the water, and even waving at us once (it laid on its side and rolled.) Multiple attempts at capturing them on film proved fairly unsuccessful for my little digital camera.

We then got suckered into going swimming up river a few hundred yards. The boat landed on one of many sandbars in the river and let us off. The water was surprisingly clear and appeared quite clean. And after hours of walking and riding in the hot hot sun, we were glad to have brought our bathing suits. It wasn’t until we had reached the dock again that the driver asked us for more money for the swimming portion. I’m sure the moto driver was complicit in the scam as he had mentioned it would cost more to swim and we made it clear to him that we didn’t want to do that. Rather, we had agreed to go up river a few hundred yards and swim off the bank afterwards prior to getting on the boats.

Returning to the guesthouse we are met by another man at the desk who goes on to tell us that neither of our rooms was available for the rest of the weekend. He tells me to just move to the lower floor rooms which I then went to check out. The first one had a window that looked through the store next door. The other two had windows that looked onto the building next door, all of twelve inches away. I told him no and Meggie went on a tirade that got her another room on the top floor. We then go off to find dinner and a new room for me.

The next morning I awoke in the other guesthouse down the block to find the lights out and the water absent. It took me a few minutes to realize that there wasn’t going to be any water coming out of the showerhead. A call to Meggie proved the power outage to be widespread, but the water problem wasn’t, so I headed over there for a shower.

Upon entering I was accosted by the guesthouse desk guy who kept asking me why I didn’t sleep here last night. Not yet awake I wave him off and went up stairs. But upon exiting for breakfast he again asks us why I didn’t sleep there. It turned out that he thought I had agreed to one of the nasty rooms on the first floor and was rather mad that that was not the case. I left him fuming as he wasn’t being very pleasant and had no desire to settle things nicely. Needless to say that would be the last time I would ever enter the Heng Heng group of guesthouses or restaurant.

After breakfast we walked a few blocks to a bicycle rental shop and obtained two rather old bikes for two dollars for the day. The guesthouse had wanted double that amount. With our pack lunches in the backpack, we rode down the same narrow, tree lined road meandering along the river. Almost every child we rode by waved and yelled “hello” to us. I felt like I was cruising in the Tour de France.

About halfway to our destination we passed a local on a bicycle who also said “hello.” A few minutes later he pulled alongside me and started to talk in English. He said he was an English teacher and was going to meet his students at the dolphin dock to practice English. Talking with him was like pulling to a tree that echoed. His responses were invariable “yes…I’m sorry I don’t understand…can you say it slower.” My joyful ride turned into an excruciating exercise in self control and diplomacy. About fifteen minutes later a moto pulled alongside Meggie and started talking to her. Misery loves company and I was elated for a few minutes that she was having to go through what I was going through.

Finally we passed the dolphin dock and my English deficient English teacher let his hooks out and left. But the moto driver continued alongside Meggie until we reached our swimming area several hundred meters down the road. He asked if he could swim with us and then declined saying he didn’t have his swimming suit.

By this time a young boy had come down to see us on the dirt bank, introducing himself as Suknow and saying he wanted to practice his English as expected. He had been taking English classes for about two years now, but his comprehension and articulation were folds above the “English teacher” earlier. He was full of information on the area and was pleasant to talk with, never pushing stupid personal questions like so many others.

The three of us crossed the first finger of water waist deep and we left the backpack on the other side and went swimming in the cool, clear waters. Meggie pointed out that the sand looked like it was full of gold specs and sure enough it did. Suknow however said it wasn’t and I would imagine that the area would have been raped decades ago if it truly were gold. We decided to take some back with us at the end of the day, but due to my poor short term memory, our get rich quick idea was doomed to failure.

On the way out I was pretty tired and Meggie quickly pulled ahead of me. I handed a couple of dollars to Suknow for his English lessons and tried to catch up to no avail. It then occurred to me that I might have a flat and this was confirmed by multiple people I passed. But by this time Meggie was out of sight and I hadn’t passed a repair shop yet, so I pedaled on, hoping it wouldn’t exacerbate the problem.

It finally got too hard to pedal and I started to walk. As it turned out, the second house I came to a minute later was a moto and bicycle repair shop. Two middle aged men were working on a moto while a woman and a three toothed grandfather watched. Shortly the moto was on its way and I told them my problem. The younger of the men started to work on my bicycle while I texted Meggie my situation.

The younger man then asked me where I was from and I told them Alaska, but born in Battambang. This was like a revelation to him and he exclaimed that it now made sense why I didn’t speak exactly clearly. The conversation with him and the hospitable grandfather was rather pleasant and really made my day. About fifteen minutes later I was on the road again.

About five minutes down the road I met up with Meggie coming the other direction with a quizzical expression. “Obviously you didn’t get my message” I said and about sixty seconds later her phone rang with it. She had made it half way back to town before realizing I was missing and turning around.

Early the next morning we caught the fast bus back to Phnom Penh. This one was supposed to take six hours because it would follow the dirt road along the river instead of taking the circuitous, but paved route around. The road was actually in good shape with only short sections out of whack and we made it to Phnom Penh in about five hours. While it wasn’t all that pleasant of a ride in the older bus, it made up for it in the time saved.

Kratie is a very pleasant place. The water there is fairly clean and the air definitely so. I didn’t realize that later part until getting off the bus and being hit with wafts of raw sewage that is so common in Phnom Penh. And I had thought all water in this country was either mud brown or dirty green until now. It is also a fairly low stress place, Kratie, with not a single person coming up to me to sell books or begging and not a single moto taxi driver yelling out “moto” as I pass by. My only complaint would be in the very poor quality of mixed drinks. I actually had to show the bar tender how to put salt on the lip of margarita glasses and he exclaimed that he had never seen that done before.