I haven't decided whether the rewards of traveling alone outweigh traveling with friends. One one hand, there's safety in numbers and it's cheaper to split a $7 room.Then again, the benefits of flying solo are unending when it comes to meeting local people, a utopic dream I think every good traveler has.
I was taking it easy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and decided to give the see-ya salute to the flocks of tuk-tuk drivers on every corner and instead scout out the city on foot. My first stop, the National Museum, was right around the corner from my guest house. What's usually an annoying hiccup of traveling alone -- asking someone to take a picture for me -- turned out to be the ticket to one of the best days I've had in this country. I ended up hanging out with two awesome Khmer college students for the whole day after I asked them to snap a quick photo.
I like to think the adventure began when all three of us squeezed onto Than's little moto and whizzed over to a tiny vegetarian place for a delicious $1.25 lunch -- cheaper because it wasn't for tourists. Then it continued as we wove through craaazy traffic to the Russian market, which is pretty much exactly like other markets, except it has a more interesting name. It was there that I learned that Cambodians love their sugarcane. Glasses of freshly crushed cane juice and chunks of tender, dripping cane can be picked up for a quarter.
But how do you eat sugarcane?
Yeah, I thought you swallow it, too. The more I chewed, the more the juice was gone, the more it felt like I was chomping on, you know, wood. Probably because I was. I followed Than's cue and spit it back out before quickly going for the next bite.
Hoeun left for an appointment, so Than and I continued our grand tour around the city as we headed toward the Royal Palace. Right in the throbbing heart of downtown, surrounded by a French colonial wall, the immaculate gardens, pagodas, halls and art are magnets for nomad backpackers, tour groups and locals. I could have sat around the beautiful gardens and halls all day, gazing at the detailed architecture.Wat Phnom was next, the pagoda the founding lady of the city erected on a hillside park, which coincidentally is covered with...MONKEYS! Monkeys are fun to watch -- from distance. They are known to be heartless when angry and I believe it. One guy almost got a close up view of some razor-sharp incisors when he offered up a piece of gum two inches from a monkey's face.
I got another taste of life as a local when the girls got me onto this river cruise past downtown Phnom Penh for a non-tourist price. I was the only white person on board and liked it that way. I'll never forget the generosity and warmth of these two Cambodian women. As unlikely as it is that I'll see them again, if there's one thing I've learned this year, it's that the world is small, so maybe, just maybe I'll get to return the favor of hospitality.
