Snippets from Abroad 005

I don't know this place:

I've been here before, twice, spending a total of ten nights in this town, yet I know nothing about it. I guess that's the burden a place has to bear when the most fantastic historical ruins of the planet are nearby and buses tend to arrive at night and leave in the morning. The times I have been here, I spent all day from dawn until sundown around Angkor. Not this time. This time I'm just passing through and, for the first time, actually look at this place. It's a lot bigger than I thought. When I pictured this trip in my mind, I saw myself strolling down a main-street, not much unlike the one at the border, asking around in the few bus-offices where to find a bus to take me to my obscure destination. This won't work here. I hire a moto to take me to one of the guest houses that are on my list of good accommodations. The driver is a young boy, not in his twenties and his vehicle, a rikshaw drawn by a detachable scooter is covered with homebrew-batman signs. So I tell him what I want to do and, offer him a reward if he helps me. He gives me his cellphone number and I give him my name so he can find me at the place I decide to stay at. He'll find me a bus-ride and I give him money that I know is worth half a day of his driving. We both win.