Once again, it is so hard to say goodbye. I fell in love with Bangkok and the people I met there. I love those girls that became a part of my life. I wonder where they are and whom they are with. Are they thinking about The Well? Will they give it a chance? Do they think at all about the Jesus we talked about?
The bus ride to Phnom Penh took a lot longer than I thought it was going to. We left in the morning and did not arrive until about midnight. It was an interesting ride. The scenery outside the windows was so different than what I had seen in Thailand.
The rice paddies look the same, but the roads are muddy and full of potholes. The houses are either, fairly nice and modern looking or they are little wooden shacks on stilts.
Motorcycles zipped by with multiple passengers, splattered with mud. I got a little concerned as our bus slid around in the thick mud. Would we get stuck and have to push? Is it possible to push a bug tour bus out of the mud, or would we have to wait for assistance?
My concerns proved to be unnecessary as our driver seamed to know what he was doing. He drove straight through it without any noticeable trouble at all.
We did not bring food, so we were planning to stop along the way for dinner. As the hours ticked on, we were still in the middle of nowhere with no food in sight. There were not even any roadside stands. If there were vendors in the area, they undoubtedly shut down after dark.
A few hours later than hoped, we pulled into a roadside restaurant. Our driver had called ahead and had them prepare some food for us so that it would be ready when we arrived. It could take a while to prepare food for 50 people, so it was really nice to have that arranged.
When we stepped off the bus, we were immediately assaulted by swarms of insects. They circled the lights in clouds, and bounced off of our foreheads and arms. The bus quickly filled with them as well. Our driver and the cooks seemed rather amused at our response. Perhaps we did overreact a little, but it was kind of gross.
We sat down at the tables and they served us each a bowl of rice and then three different dishes of meat and vegetables were placed on the table for us to share. One was beef with shredded ginger, the other was barbequed something with peanuts, and the other was some kind of stewed meat.
They also poured us glasses of something faintly colored. It looked like dirty water, and some who tried it said it tasted like water. Then they brought out bottled water and quickly poured all of the other stuff back into the pitchers. I’m not going to lie; it looked a little suspicious. I asked somebody later about it, and was told it was probably tea. I don’t know why they poured it back, but I was felt safer drinking the bottled water anyhow.
We still had a few hours ahead of us, so we hurried back on the busses and made our way further down the bumpy, muddy road. I settled in for another nap, and woke up a few hours later when we pulled into the alley by our new home. The streets were dark, but it was obvious that this city has been devastated by war.
There are many buildings that show evidence that it was once a prosperous city, but they are all warn down and past their glory. Our building is pretty nice and in relatively good condition. I don’t know if it is part of the new re-construction or if it actually survived from days past. There are many newer buildings scattered around, but the progress is slow and will take a long time to recover.
After sleeping in the next day, we had our orientation that included a good bit of Cambodian history. We learned about the involvement of the French, the Vietnamese, the Americans, and the Khmer Rouge and other freedom fighters. It is quite a history.
Later in the evening, we gathered around the TV and watched “The Killing Fields” for a more visual picture of what happened here. It is unfathomable to us who have not known the terrors of war. It makes me very thankful for the freedom and protection we have been blessed with in America. It also makes me thankful for the people who fight to preserve it. But then I look at our involvement and wonder what the cost of our freedom is to others. How many innocent people have died at the hands of our military in the efforts to secure our nation? I have a lot going through my mind, and I have only been here for one day.
