Saturday, July 09, 2011

Road to Phnom Pehn


December 2009

...The distended belly of a child playing with friends. Another boy slides naked down the rough wooden steps of his home. Yet another throws fruit to a monkey tied to a tree, the monkey nearly his size. Many homes have ads for tobacco or for political parties. Two men soak up to their necks in brown muddy water. Women sit under netting and pick tea. Heavy stares in a rural roadside market. A smile to an old woman in the market isn't returned. A French man buys a huge spider as a snack. Miki chooses rice mashed with banana. Motorcycles in the bus's luggage hold. The karaoke videos on the bus share a common theme: poor country/city boy pursues glamorous girl of obviously higher social status. The karaoke vids are eventually replaced by noisy Cambodian manzai routines. Heading south into a landscape that is lakes and streams, then rice fields lined with palms, then forests laden with banana trees...



On the turntable: Pink Floyd, "Meddle"

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