Thai and His Tuk Tuk
I had already turned down about 50 eager tuk tuk offers in the interest of walking slowly and to nowhere in particular. Then I met Thai. He won me over with his excellent English and ideas for my day that I lacked. Because of both of these things, I now know so much more about this place than I would have otherwise.
Thai’s story: Thai is a 37 year old born in Cambodia. He survived the Khmer Rouge’s bloody ruling, but lost 5 siblings and a mother in the process. His eyes dash off to the diagonal as he shows me the glass case filled with skulls and talks about the “war that I’ll never understand.” When the war ended, many others were sponsored and left the country; Thai stayed and now owns his tuk tuk, his career, his dreams that he stated matter-of-factly were “impossible in this lifetime.” After I sent back his common question regarding marriage, Thai replies that he doesn’t see this as likely either. “People don’t marry for love in Cambodia. They marry to have someone to depend on, to make income; maybe love comes later. How can I have a wife and kids when I work 7 days a week for 13 hours just to support myself?”
After the depressing Killing Fields and War Museum, Thai takes me to the Floating Village. Amazing. Every structure, true to its name, actually floats. There is a floating school, floating basketball court, floating police station, and two floating Catholic Churches. The village moves with the seasons, but otherwise people live just as the others in the less mobile straw huts on the banks. Makes me think of the houseboats in Cordova, the reed island in South America, and how long that woozy, rocking feeling must last for them when they stand on land. And the day? Makes me think of how much about war is incomprehensible, the undeserved luck I have that any dream can be possible, and that woozy feeling from traveling somewhere so beautiful and so sad.
Tomorrow—I meet my parents in Phnom Phen!! : )
Tags: Cambodia, Floating Village, Siem Reap
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