If You're Traveling to Cambodia...

Decided to visit Cambodia as soon I realized I had a couple of free days during the Bangkok shoot. Had a total of one hour of preparation and research on Siem Reap. What could go wrong? 

Sure I wanted to visit Angkor Wat. Take some good shots of the old tree and check another country off my list. Talk to strange men and children, walk to hidden alley ways for a bowl of soup made of unknown animal parts. I study the history, keep a list of what I do, and of course, my job allows me to work with local videographers. So forget about all the tourist traps and online reviews. I’m not your hey let’s ride an elephants traveler, I connect. 

But all of that better travel stuff went out the window when the greatest thunderstorm I’ve ever seen hit Bayon temple when I arrived. I was stuck in the tuk tuk with my driver Kim Yin. Got tired of waiting, bought a pair of sandals and a thin yellow rain coat for three dollars and went into the temple alone. The deep moving water washed away my sandals a few times, and I couldn’t see anything but water coming from all sides and a blurry image of a buddha’s head hanging in the sky.  

Finally I had to leave. Spent the rest of the day in the hotel reading about Khmer Rouge and drying my clothes.  

The morning after I walked to a breakfast shop made of metal boards. The woman served me a plate of marinated pork, rice and cold veggies. A boy and a girl in uniforms sat down next to me. Asked me my name and where I was from. He wanted to be a doctor when he grow up, and his five year old sister a pharmacist. We talked until his father came to pick them up. Time for school. 

Kim Yin and I rested over some sugar cane juice after I’ve toured everything I wanted to see. I asked him about Khmer Rouge and the genocide. This even keel man suddenly became emotional, went at length at what took placed in the three years and eight months of horror. 

Good to know. Next city. Next trip. Next post. 

Hours before daybreak, in another hotel in a strange city I woke up. Suddenly it hit me, long and hard. 

I thought about Chuck Palahniuk, and the experience of sleeping better in seeing others’ suffering. But this wasn’t it. This felt different. This required action of my own to be rid of the emotion. 

The thought of great tragedy reduced me to a human. No job and no purpose. And I have a choice — To go on my life traveling the world, buy a property in Manhattan, share a monthly message in church, and raise a couple of kids who would become doctors. 

Or I can actually do something about it. Ask what I can do to help. Spend less time calculating what I have and consider what I can give. I need to do something about the anger I’m feeling now. 

And to those who repeatedly tell me “Adopting someone is not the same as having  your own children.” or “foster care is very difficult”. Thank you for your advise, but I’ll know what I know when I get there. I’d rather be struggling and doing something right than living in a bubble where every new idea is offensive.