CHAUP KHNEA CHAB CHAB! (SEE YOU SOON!)
I’m back at home in beautiful late-Spring Vancouver – a little late with my parting blog from Cambodia. But for the best of reasons as I was busy enough and bouncin’ around enough that there was little time for tickling the ivory.
This visit was 3 months, more or less. Last year’s was 6. I’m thrilled to say that, this go ‘round, in half the time I reached far more than twice the people, and with a real nice split between the clinics and the villages. There’s the old adage that any venture needs a full 2 years before it can hope to become successful; a cliché that proved true in my case. A question of first getting past your early mistakes and learning your chops and cutting through the dross and then finally establishing valid and productive relationships. It came to pass for me just like that and I’m both happy and thankful.
In my last week or so in Phnom Penh I was sitting of an evening on the river with Billy and carping and grousing about the most mundane shit (I’d just survived a particularly brutal bus ride) and he just looked at me dead-pan and said, ‘Dude, you need to leave for awhile.’ Maybe so, but now, of course, I miss it all.
He joined me for a couple-three days in and around Kampot down South on the Gulf of Thailand coast, and it makes the parting sting a little more as this is definitely one of the loveliest regions in the Kingdom. On the river, near the coast, up against bona fide mountains. Softer sweeter breezes; the water itself and that much more jacaranda, frangipani and flame tree. Broken down bridges and salt pine along the river; caramel-colored dirt roads fanning out everywhere and everywhere peopled by charming peeps either padding along or driving/pushing/dragging/riding every kind of funky contraption imaginable… generally makin’ it work and doin’ it with a smile.
