Cigarette dangling from his mouth, our wiry Cambodian engineer yanked the starter rope on a small motor mounted to the rear of our open-air rail car. The engine sputtered momentarily, then roared to life. Straining at the weight of the iron frame, he pushed our rudimentary vehicle down the tracks a few feet, hopped aboard … Read more
Once my traveling companion, Larry Bosco, and I had exhausted land-based attractions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, we turned to the water. Rivers are the lifeblood of Cambodia and Phnom Penh is located at the confluence of the Mekong, Tonle Sap, and Bassac. We walked along Sisowath Quay beneath international flags of countries flapping in the … Read more
The ocean of tuk tuks, motorcycles, and pedestrians in downtown Phnom Penh parted around me like the Red Sea. An uneasy feeling niggled; something wasn’t quite right but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I returned a smile from a pajama-clad Khmer woman on her daily shopping rounds and suddenly realized that my face … Read more
I had long wanted to return to Cambodia to see more than just Angkor Wat. Finally, five long years later I had my opportunity. With three weeks of leisure time between my annual visit to Nepal and a flight back to the United States, I teamed up with Larry Bosco, a friend who also had … Read more
I looked up the definition upon returning to the hotel. Memory: the process of encoding, storing and retrieving information from the outside world that reaches our senses in the forms of chemical and physical stimuli. Earlier that day, I had casually glanced into the entrance of the Western Viharn at Wat Pho, one of the … Read more
