First Sunset

We went for a sunset ride in a tuk-tuk. This is a motorscooter with a canopied buggy attached and can be had for about $6/hr. we went to the river and what began as exhilarating and glorious fairly quickly became a touch shocking and finally harrowing, but loaded too, with wonderous moments. When we reached the river, five minutes from the hotel, the driver pulled over amidst the beginning of an incredible sunset. We asked to walk and he, too, seemed to need a change, he got on his cell phone and a minute later another tuktuk pulled up. He explained that we would go with the new driver as he was quite busy this time of day. The new driver was very nice and had good English, so no problem, but we asked to walk a bit – he would shadow us. We passed a number of women selling large woven plasticy tapestries or floor coverings with various pictures such as the temples at Angkor or one with thanksgiving turkeys of all things. This gave way to egg and nut sellers and various cooked food sellers.

Now came the riverfront with several cages of birds. I began to film the birds which were doing an amazing random flight craze. The seller came up behind me to look at my movie. Amee explained that for $1 you can buy a bird and release it for a prayer. I bought one, he gave me two. The squiggling, warm, downy pulse was ticklish in my cupped hands, and I was happy to let it go pretty quickly. I prayed for this country and for Bodhi’s health.

We walked a bit more, a very sad beggar came up beside me and I wanted to give him a dollar. I fished around in my embarrassingly large wallet and peeled one of my few singles off for him. I had actually spent the last few days in CA getting singles in change for this purpose, but unfortunately had left them in the hotel. We kept going. The light became amazing and I asked Amee and Bodhi to stop for a picture. They stood by the river in rainbow salmon colored light. At this point there were a number of Khmer women in pairs on the stone wall over the river. A pair of them watched Bodhi as he tried to shake a coconut tree on the plaza. Their eyes went from his brown skin to our white skin and back and forth, they smiled, I smiled back. A boy of Bodhi’s age came up beside me. He was in rags more or less, a child of the streets, red pants ending in torn edges below the knee led to ashen dusty bare feet, I thought of Dickens. He grunted to me for money, he was badly in need and we had no more small bills. The desperation and that feeling of being swarmed overcame me and I think Bodhi felt it too. The sunset grew more and more amazing but a need for escape overtook us three.



On the plaza were hundreds of people doing some kind of line dance. I wanted to see what was up with it but Bodhi was tiring out. I believe it was that Zumba craze, with latin-tinged, techno-house music pumping from battery powered boom boxes and a white Aussie type of gal seeming to give instructions to the mostly Khmer group assembled.

We hailed another tuktuk and asked to be taken along the river. This driver had zero English but gave us a nice ride. A few blocks into the ride, Bodhi suddenly asked for a pen and began writing in his book. The ride became more difficult as the fumes from the evening traffic enveloped the carriage. Highlights: we passed the Sunway Hotel and Wat Phnom, the site of our adoption stay and many memories we have described to Bodhi over the years. We passed a new kid’s park with shiny play equipment and groovy neon across from the American Embassy. Big highlight - we spied a large monkey sitting nonchalantly on a concrete post around the edge of the park. We had to teach the driver how to find our hotel, with no language between us. Finally he stopped at another tuktuk stand and those drivers helped us home with directions.