CambodiaFarebná Kambodža

Cambodia is colorful, Cambodia is smiling, Cambodia is wild.

That's how I've experienced it from the bike saddle for nine days now. I get up early, pedaling before dawn. The moon lights my way, shaped like the letter U, like a smile. This close to the equator, you see it from a different angle than we're used to back "up north." Different country, different people, different moon.

Around half past six the sun rises, painting the landscape red. The trucks switch off the colorful LED lights that blazed through the night. But they keep asserting their dominance on Cambodian roads with brightly colored little flags strung all over the truck bed.

The villages wake up. Fishermen prepare their nets, trucks are packed with people riding standing up to work like it's public transit, kids head to school. On foot, some on bicycles, some even on mopeds. As a rule, 3 kids per moped or bike. They wave, shout "Hello!" at me. I shout back and share the joy with them. It makes them even happier.

Around noon it gets hard going, the sun is merciless. Every cloud that passes overhead is a welcome companion. The road is dusty, traffic heavy. I'm wrapped in a scarf, trying to breathe shallowly and drink enough water. The chain cries. The world looks like it's in thick fog, but really it's dust, kicked up by passing cars. Everyone honks when they overtake me, but not out of anger, just so I know someone's behind me. Progress is slow, lots of potholes. By the roadside a truck with its hood up, where two locals are dealing with an overheated engine, a bit further on a trailer with no wheel and behind it a long gouge in the road surface.

The heat eases, the sun sinks toward the horizon. The road turns to asphalt, the dust fades. The scarf comes down, I clean my sunglasses and see the landscape again. In a bar right by the road a wedding is being prepared, decorations everywhere, round tables, festive tablecloths and cutlery. A bit further on a funeral, a procession, everyone dressed in white. A woman is crying, cars are waiting.

For dinner something I can't identify. Coriander, lime, that's all I can tell. I fall asleep in a hut for a few dollars, amid the chatter of the jungle.

And tomorrow, onward.