The Tuk Tuk was maxed out. The hum of its two-stroke engine was deafening and almost overpowered the timeless beauty of that particular spot. The road was headed due west, in a near perfect line; its trajectory lead away, but also gave time to repose, to look back and to ponder the significance of that which had just been seen. Moments before, I had stood in awe of Ankor Wat, that silent, lifeless monument which was once the cultural and religious epicenter to an all but forgotten people.

It is an immense compound – Ankor itself is by far the largest, but there are many lesser Wats in the surrounding area – each a haunting relic of the past; ancient ruins, slipping back into the jungle, being reclaimed, reminding us of a great prehistory, a history whose exploits and battles are depicted on massive walls of stone.

There is an inevitable feeling of insignificance that envelops the spirit of the average tourist when they enter the compound, for it is so vast, so real, yet so completely vacant that one begins to ponder the plight of all people – as history marches on, are we all to be swallowed up by the jaws and insatiable appetite of time? Will our reign on this planet be rendered skeletal like Ankor? Are we to become mysterious ghosts in some ever thickening jungle?

Skeletons, those lifeless outlines of something that once breathed, pulsed, thrived seem only to be able to tell part of a story, as if words and history vanish into the soil and float away into the cosmos. What these bones of stone at Ankor do is show us a story, provide us with a snapshot of one particular time and place, and in so doing, they mesmerize us with that which they illuminate and torment us with the questions they unearth. Answers are fleeting here and as the jungle closes in and time marches on, more questions arise. We feel at once closer to the past yet irrevocably removed from it.

So what do we do? How do we cement those memories into our minds? Like the snapshots of the past provided to us by the structures themselves, so too do we photograph, catalog and classify, all in an attempt to retain some of the aura and to allow us to venture down that same road when ever we should so desire. Of course, the moment we walk away from a place like Ankor Wat, the initial impact, watching the sun rise over its great turrets or standing transfixed as the building literally climbs out of the night, is lost. These experiences can never truly be relived, but we try. We click. We focus. We flash. We curse. We snap. We attempt to capture the experience so that we can relive it over and over again.

I am no different. My camera is always poised, itching to snap, like a drunk awaiting the chime of the noon time bell. Like most, I feel a need to remember my experiences and the photograph, it exacting - albeit two dimensional – quality is the best way I know how. Ankor Wat provides countless scenes, ooh and aah moments that simply must be documented. A forgotten pillar lies just as it has for seven hundred years, and on this day the light is filtering in through an adjacent window, giving the entire scene an ephemeral quality and in the mind’s eye, a monk has just emerged to perform his morning prayers. Snap. The moment, the experience, is captured, stored and saved, to be reminisced over in the coming months and years.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the Tuk Tuk was maxed. We were careening away from Ankor in a desperate attempt to beat the hoards of tourists who had also flocked there on that same day, in the middle of the Chinese New Year. The heat was oppressive and the breeze from the Tuk Tuk was a welcome respite. I could taste the engine as it blasted through its tank filled with fully leaded gasoline, but I didn’t care. This was an amazing day and my smile couldn’t have been wiped away with sandpaper.

“There still many land mines in the area, unchecked, live,” our enthusiastic driver informed us as we all but flew towards our next destination. I remember pondering the gravity of his statement – each year in Cambodia, close to a thousand people are maimed or killed by these buried nightmares – but his smile, his casual, kind demeanor, seemed wholly at odds with the information he had just provided and it dawned on me that this is perhaps one key to Cambodian perseverance. In a country with such a history of bloodshed, so much starvation and pain, how can they not now smile, for they have made it through some of the most heinous atrocities imaginable and they have emerged in victory, with only a few thousand land mines as an agonizing reminder of the monster that was the Khemer Rouge Regime. They are here, their lives are improving slowly and this must be why our lovely driver was all smiles. He – the entire country too – is a testament to the power of the human spirit.

He smiled again. “We almost there now. Oh my God – so busy, more than I ever see.”

There, at the entrance to Bayon, a smaller, crumbling Wat, famous for its immense stone structures of an important deity, my eyes widened, for it was shortly after eight a.m. but up ahead, no more than two hundred metres, were literally hundreds of Tuk Tuks, each honking and jostling and trying to gain an upper hand on their competitors. As my eyes grew large, my heart began to sink and in that moment the Tuk Tuks, Chinese New Year and all those damned tourists – just like me – flooded my mind and overwhelmed me.

My camera, my trusty companion, had previously been perilously placed in the inside pocket of my basketball shorts, which were designed to hold something like a key, a ring or a similar small object. My camera case was in hand. Why it was not performing its sole duty was entirely my fault. A slight bump in the road and the shockless Tuk Tuk took the hit like a speed bike racing down a mountain trail. In that moment, my camera leapt from my pocket, seemingly willed to do so by some unknown force, and crashed on to the road below. In a whiplash-like motion, I swung my head around just in time to watch it strike the cement, bounce once, and then break into pieces. Upset, but unwilling to let the pain of losing my sidekick destroy the day, I begrudgingly instructed the driver to continue on. He did. I said a silent good bye to my long time friend.

Behind, in another Tuk Tuk, were two friends and they bore witness to the entire incident, from awful impact to the camera’s final resting place somewhere on the side of the road. Being eternally optimistic, or wonderfully thrifty, they shouted, “stop!” Their driver obliged and they pulled over to retrieve the broken bones of my former camera.

Slowly, their Tuk Tuk sidled up alongside and they handed the heap of plastic and metal over to me.

“Was only the batteries that fell out,” they said. Sure enough, my camera, aside from a slight scratch on one corner, appeared as good as new. “We don’t know if it works – the lens is probably shattered – but no harm in trying, right, and no use losing your memory card.”

They had a point. I had forgotten about my memory card and I was grateful for their quick thinking. However, there was no way that my camera was going to work. At the time of impact, we had been traveling at speeds in excess of sixty km/hr, and the camera had fallen at least three feet on to the road below.

I turned it on. Its little motor fired up. The telltale icon flashed on the screen. It seemed primed and ready. Could it be? Surely the lens was damaged or the flash shattered. Some vital mechanism must have been destroyed in the fall. But from the initial appearance of things, it seemed good to go.

I looked at my Tuk Tuk driver. He seemed as impressed as I was. With a coy smile, I pointed my camera in his direction. He beamed. I pressed and clicked. The picture was saved. It is one of my favorite images from my trip. My camera survived its Cambodian adventure. In some way, its perseverance reminded me of my driver, of the Nation in general. When the odds are stacked against you, when danger still lurks in the shadows, it is a true test of will to emerge on top, unscathed. Cambodia lives on, a spectacle for the world, reminding us that we can survive the greatest of falls, defeat the toughest odds. We find strength in its ancient past and smile at what they are accomplishing today. After a painful fall, the pieces are being put back together here and the images being created are the most beautiful of all.

6 Comments To "Day Tripping"

#1 Comment By Archie On November 29, 2007 @ 7:49 pm

#2 Comment By Sean B On December 1, 2007 @ 4:49 pm

#3 Comment By Eliot Che On December 3, 2007 @ 1:01 am

#4 Comment By David Carson On December 3, 2007 @ 2:14 am

#5 Comment By Josh Massey On December 13, 2007 @ 12:35 pm

#6 Comment By David Carson On December 15, 2007 @ 12:21 am

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