One hundred years of solitude in ten hours

One hundred years of solitude occupied me for much of the ten hour bus ride from Sihanoukville to Siem Reap. I have 90 odd pages of it left. It’s a fantastic read.

The journey was largely monotonous. It was split into two legs. The first leg took four hours and brought us to Phnom Penh. After a lunch of fast food that was anything but fast, we started on the six hour ride to Siem Reap.

The rides were punctuated by rest stops every two hours. At one of these stops, friendly girls selling snacks struck up a conversation with us. Where are you from? What are your names? How old are you? You have girlfriend? constituted their standard repertoire of questions. They revealed that they were 16 and 24 years of age but looked much younger. I wonder if the lifestyle and the different set of concerns they face have anything to do with their youthful looks. Perhaps it is the fresh food, farmed by their own hands, that they eat. They were well-spoken, being possessed of flawless diction. Who taught them to speak English? How would they fare had they been born in Singapore?

From the bus, the Cambodian countryside is incredibly flat, as if someone had gone over it with an iron. The sky was endlessly vast and blue and white. Sky and earth were sewn together by a line of trees on the horizon that seemed to go on forever. So much space. And so beautiful.

We arrived in Siem Reap at 7pm and found a guesthouse. We’ve arranged tuk-tuk drivers for the next three days, which we will spend taking in the grandeur of Angkor. I think we”ll enjoy ourselves =)