Snippets from Abroad: 010

Last stages of a long journey:

The road is terrifying. Not that it's in a bad state, it isn't clearly, it's just that where I'm from nobody would build a road like this. I sometimes have nightmares where I have to follow someone along a road or a path on foot and the way gets steeper and steeper until I am climbing and then finally, it's all wall and I can no longer follow. This is that road. The slope must in places be more than 110% and while I have no idea how we're getting up there on this little motorbike and whether or not the driver has calculated my immense weight correctly so we won't fall over backwards, it does explain why the temple visitors must take drivers working here, and here only to go the last five kilometers of ascending the mountain. I had intended to take some pictures on the ride up but now all I can do is hold on for dear life, trying not to slip off the back of the bike while the incredible view goes by largely unnoticed. We pass troops, first a few at road-posts, then an entire village of them, with their families around too. Some kids are playing volleyball, something that the Khmer seem to really love as I have seen dozens of volleyball-fields in front of even the poorest-looking peasant shacks in the countryside. Up on top I start walking towards the temple. An army officer calls to me and asks me for my nationality. I tell him and he says "Okay!" and gestures for me to go on. I do and wonder, what answer would have been the wrong one...