What a Trip

I have never spent that much time on a plane in my life. I was barely able to remember that there was life outside of airplanes and airports. I spent around thirty hours flying to Cambodia and watched about four in flight movies and several in flight TV episodes. "The Informant" is pretty funny even though I didn't get to finish it, "Love Happens" with Jennifer Aniston is actually a pretty good movie (I am holding less of a grudge against her now for the whole Brad situation ;)) and I was surprised. Everyone should definitely check out the TV show "Better off Ted." Hilarious. Also let me interject that Singapore Airlines does it right. They know how to treat a traveler. I was served several full meals, had my own personal video screen with free media, was given a hot towel to freshen up with before every meal and blankets and pillows come stock (I don't even have to ask for them). In short, this trip was definitely not as much of a hardship as I expected. I tried to stay up as much as possible on the plane so that I could be tired and sleep at night when I got to Siem Reap. I thought this was a sure fire way to lick the jet lag more quickly. I was wrong. You cannot always defeat the body with the mind. I become a zombie around two in the afternoon. It will be fixed soon enough though. I had stops in San Fransisco (huge airport), Hong Kong (Liquor stores in the airport??), Singapore, Da nang, and then finally in Siem Reap, Cambodia. I had many feelings as I was flying over various lands. My main feeling though was that of Sam Gamgee's from Lord of the Rings: "One more step and this will be the farthest I have ever been from the shire. It was odd for me to say "I am in Hong Kong, or San Fransisco." I have only talked or read about these places, and I still have only seen the airports but I was there! I began to get somewhat philosophical, however, as I was flying over Vietnam and Cambodia. I was thinking that every hill and ripple in the land, every village, city, and rice paddy is part of someones home. The person living there knows that land and is familiar with it as I am familiar with Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The difference, however, is that no one made countless Vietnam War movies about Murfreesboro. My only experience with this land is history and media involving the Khmer Rouge Revolution and the Vietnam War. These people don't know about our praised cinematic opuses such as "Apocalypse Now" or "Born on the Fourth of July" that showed us the horror from our living rooms. For me these historical events are only blips on a world timeline that I can sit back judge and critique as to their justice or injustice and say thank goodness they are over. I can say that the Khmer Rouge regime was evil for what they did or that we really messed up in Vietnam. What this means for them, however, is that the faux pa in Vietnam left these people with a lifetime of repair and healing. Reconstruction, if you will. Our soldiers came home and their families heard the stories (which is tragic enough); their soldiers were home and their families lived the stories and still are living the stories. I was flying over the land thinking "this is where it all happened." What an odd feeling. These were my thoughts during my last few hours of flying. With these thoughts I wasn't thinking about or criticizing the west because I don't think that would be fair. I'm not trying to say that there is any current guilt involved. I was simply thinking that in my mind seeing this land and knowing what happened here made these concepts more real to me. I think that spending that amount of time on a plane does odd things to your mind. Do you know what smashed against these thoughts, against all my experience with Vietnam history books and War movies? Vietnam has commercial airlines, flight attendants, a nice airport, and even better in flight service than Delta. This is a dimension that I never thought about in my ignorance of this region. Their entire history and culture is not relegated simply to the history I have read and seen in "Platoon" and "We Were Soldiers" etc. I knew this, but I may not have ever given it much thought. I may not have ever thought of Vietnam and Cambodia outside of their relevance on the world stage. Do you see what thirty hours on a plane can do to your mind. It is like an isolation chamber. As I said before, though, the flight was not as awful as I thought it would be. I actually enjoyed it (not that I would want to do it every day).
Getting on the ground in Cambodia presented me with an odd feeling as well. It's like the end of a shift at work. No matter how much you love your job, you are instantly the most chipper person in the world as your are walking to your car. Thank God for this too because I must have looked like a complete fool going through customs. I had no idea what I was doing and did not receive much help because of the language barrier. I also learned that you cannot expect every white person abroad to be an English speaker. You can imagine the comedy of learning that lesson over and over. Several times I asked someone a question hoping they would save me from my ignorance and I could rest in our common western experience only to get the same quizzical look and the response "No English." Goodness Gracious! I know I looked pretty foolish as I had to go back several times to fill out some other form that I had no idea about. It was more funny to me than anything though because I was in my chipper, trip finished mood. Nothing could kill my buzz. I was halfway across the world and this felt like a monument. I think I like this traveling thing. As Humphrey Bogart so poignantly stated "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." At least I hope.