Taipei Airport

It’s 11 am and we are on a small plane with 120 Khmer and some Chinese heading to Phnom Penh from Taipei. It is a bright mid-morning which feels like a neverending afternoon. We are served a very similar version of our breakfast which was consumed while flooding down into a very Oakland-like and foggy Taipei. Eggs or Chicken/Rice, this one is somehow more Spartan and less flavorful than the 5 am breakfast version. We are quiet, Bodhi is watching yet another repeat of Star Wars :The Clone Wars – his 4th viewing in 24 hours. Considering this is his favorite movie, it couldn’t be better for him. We feel saddened somehow that he is not just still and present awaiting his pilgrimage. That is the word he used, pilgrimage. We’ve filled out our tourist cards on the flight and put the reason for travel as “vacation” and he’s corrected us on this one, but we’ve left the cards as they are.



The world is huge and Cambodia is familiar. It seems ungodly to travel around this ball at such a speed for such a time. In 14 hours we were in Taiwan and there was, no difference, except more Chinese speaking English. This may sound harsh at first, but I mean that inside the airport there was: technology, noodles, crusty croissants and Bubble Milk Tea. There was also free wireless but our carry on had been force checked and my laptop power cable had gone with it – so for our layover while I hoped to blog, I was as always, thwarted by technology, having wasted the battery on the series opener of Battlestar Galactica on the flight.  

The Cambodian man across the aisle asks me if the boy is Cambodian. I tell him “yes.” He asks if he’s my son, I tell him “yes.” He is touched that we are bringing Bodhi to see his country and so are the other surrounding passengers, who are treated to some photos of Bodhi as a baby and present day in California. Most of the passengers are Cambodians who live in California, heading to their country for a yearly holiday.




We come down over the expansive, flat, corn-colored landscape. It reminds me somewhat of California and I ask Bodhi if he thinks so too. He says it looks like he thought it would. The airport is new. That is okay, last time we were here, we came down a rolling stairway and walked across the blasted tarmac. God, that word is cliché, tarmac, not blasted.

We come through passport control and the endless row of uniformed officials passed us along to the last three of the row and they take a long look at Bodhi and say: “Cambodian?” “Yes” we agree proudly, “But he’s a US citizen”, reminds Amee. Bodhi speaks to the American senior citizen couple behind us that he is coming home to see his country. And we leave the terminal.

A wave of heat coated with excellent nostalgia hits us as we are recognized by Ken holding a card with our name on it. We acknowledge him and meet around the corner and walk a few hundred feet to his racy Nissan SUV. He quickly turns off the hiphop radio blasting as we settle in. He is the driver for our friend Catherine MacNeql who on the board of Cambodia Tomorrow, a non-profit that has built a school for orphans outside Phnom Penh. Amee served on its board a year or two ago and Catherine has graciously put us in Ken’s care for our Phnom Penh stay. We get to know each other as we navigate a chaotic traffic pattern into the heart of town. We noticed a lot of new construction from the air and it seems that things are busy as can be for Phnom Penh. I remark that America is seeing business closures and lots of layoffs, but PP seems to be thriving in its impoverished status quo. Last I heard Cambodia is the 4th poorest country in the world, I’ll check on that, but its not like we’re in Bruges. And yet the street scene is loaded with businesses upon and tons of people busy at them.

Ken takes us to a used cell phone store so we can get hooked up, there is a guy scraping crusty cocaine-like buildup off of a tiny SIM chip for a customer looking on. We purchase the cheapest Nokia and get it readied for action, we will give it to Ken as a tip at the end of our stay.

We try and locate the hotel. We have an address but no phone number and Ken is a bit concerned. We know its about two blocks from the Palace and the river. What we don’t know is that the neighborhood is a Charlie-Fandango of one way streets, streets that actually change name every few houses, construction closures, concrete fallout from what looks like bombings (not possible), police manned barricades and always, always, always, motos (motorscooters of every kind) coming at you from every direction.




After what seems like an hour of this and a moment where we stare silently at a terribly sad family sitting in rubble like a vision from Baghdad, I suggest to Ken that we ask the police on the corner if our hotel is behind this barricade they man behind the Prime Minister’s residence. It is. We’re dropped off into a large, lush, private compound with fruit trees, red-rooofed haciendas, still outdoor pools and little raised pavilions with softy beds, mosquito nets and wireless internet, one of which I write you from just now.

We order a tuna melt for Bodhi and Salade Nicoise for us and are delighted by what I can only call “hamische” lunch – as if someone invited us into their kitchen and said “after 20 hours of flying, you folks look like you could use some home cooking!”.

Bodhi is still in the giant rectangular pool which is a perfect four feet deep throughout and likely will be for the next four days. I ask him how he likes his country so far and he replies in true California-speak – “sweeeeet!”