December 2009
...out of Bangkok, early Sunday morning. A driver's ed course on the outskirts of town, a simple layout of tires and cones rather than the miniature manicured streets of Japan. Eastern Thailand is flat, reforested, but for the large lurking Maurice Sendak trees seen occasionally between the rows. Lots of people as work in the fields, or manning the stalls alongside the roads. There are no Sundays for the rural poor...
...Aranya Pratet, a dusty, featureless border town. Poipet across the way, the white-tile razzle dazzle of casinos. The countryside is merely rice fields, stretching away to both horizons. Dusty paths bisect them, sometimes traversed by bicycle or motorbike. The odd village pops up now and again. We stop awhile in one, talk with some kids selling bracelets. They speak good English, and a couple even speak basic Japanese. One girl asks for a coin, and we give her five yen that she can make into a necklace. She in return gives us bananas. Another girl looks hurt when I give her one yen. They seem happy despite the rural poverty out here, the houses simple and built upon stilts. The wall of one house has been recently repaired and painted with the 'trois colouers.' After dark, I notice that there is no electricity out here, single candles break the darkness within. There is a bizarre light in the sky above the fields, probably a far-off tower, but there is something otherworldly about it...
...Siem Reap has plenty of lights, Xmas decorations hanging around most of the large hotels. (I remember too seeing Santa out there somewhere, a bizarre sight in rural Cambodia.) Many of these big hotels are Korean, one with a sign for "Korean girled meat." Most of the people we've encountered are young, kids hocking their wares will grow up to lead tours and run hotels. I love that those kids we met earlier at the road stop have little, but still have to confidence to convince us to buy their bracelets for 25 cents...
On the turntable: Depeche Mode, "Music for the Masses"
On the nighttable: "RE/Search, Real Conversations #1"
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