Feb 20th, 2004
There are honest monks in Cambodia.
They are all young, and bright, and full of smiles and conversation. If anyone in Cambodia has optimism, they do. Their country has serious problems, and they have a clean slate. When the Khmer Rouge was in power here, every Buddhist monk was defrocked or executed, and nearly every temple destroyed. They are entering unknown territory with resolve and powerful lessons behind them.
I was entering unknown territory too. On my last day in Siem Reap, I found myself on the back of an old motorbike, driving through sand. My driver was a 17 year old boy with stick-thin arms and a broad yellow-toothed smile. He was shivering in the morning mist, yelping every few minutes in stilted English.
“Ayeeee cold no!!?!”
We had been driving for nearly an hour, and he was shuddering while his tiny frame just barely controlled the jostling, bouncing motorbike as it plowed down this sand road at ridiculous speed, avoiding cows and potholes and children with bamboo slung across their shoulders.
“How long have you been driving a Motorbike?” I yelled over his shoulder.
“Four month!” He yelled back with a proud grin, as if it was big consolation.
It felt like we could topple over at any minute. This seemed inevitable as we continued, and the road became less sand-road, and more sand-footpath covered with low branches and gnarled tree stumps. The kid was driving like we had divine protection.
In fact, we did.
There were three motorbikes behind us too. Each one of them was carrying two saffron-draped monks plowing down this road at the same ridiculous speed. They were our entourage, and they were keeping us upright and safe with serious projected karma.
I had just met these five monks that morning, after a long conversation with an American girl named Tracey who had run into one in Angkor Wat a day before, who asked her to visit their Commune. She mentioned it to me when I met her at our guesthouse that night. I had a 5am boat ticket the next morning, but hearing her words I decided to stay. I’m very glad I did.
We pulled into the sand driveway of a small shack on stilts, under a huge “Cambodian People’s Party” political advertisement.
“This my home.” Kid driver said.
His family began slowly filtering into the front yard, staring at me with curiosity and amazement. When I say family, I mean all his family. Cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles included. By the time they had all made their way into the front yard and sat down, there were about fifteen people.
“Seesadeye!” I said, clapping my hands together in very bad Khmer.
They laughed and smiled, approached and shook my hand awkwardly. I don’t think they had ever done it before. Kid driver’s tiny grandfather was crouched down in the dirt, elbows on his knees scrutinizing me with amazing intensity. He had ancient blue tattoos running all down his neck and hands. I smiled at him, and with an utterly stoic gesture, he nodded at me once.
Kid driver talked for a moment with his family in Khmer, and they bustled around, laying out a straw mat while his little brother shimmied up a palm tree. The monks drove in with Tracey just as coconuts began plunking down into the grass nearby.
The wrinkled parents and grandparents approached the cheerful monks as they dismounted their motorbikes. The monks were only around my age, but the elders bowed and prostrated before them, laying themselves out on the dirt in a sign of utmost respect. I felt odd for a moment, because I had only briefly shaken their monk-hands at our introduction. These people treated my orange robed friends with tremendous deference, and these monks treated me with great respect besides.
The monks spoke some with them in Khmer, then sat on the straw mat while an uncle chopped open fat green coconuts for us with a machete. These coconuts were huge, full of about a liter of milk. In rough, broken Cambodian English we began a long conversation in which the monks pulled out photographs of a meditation session they directed at a school. There was a photo of a 16 year old Cambodian girl sitting half-lotus with her eyes closed, tears streaming down her cheeks. Tragedy was written all over her face.
“Meditation bring old old pain.” The monk said.
Powerful photograph. This very monk was standing behind her in the photo, smiling benevolently. The kindness this monk was imparting to us made me wonder why these respectable religious figures wanted us here, being no more than a few scruffy backpackers.
“My name is venerable Mean So Methe, we are so glad you come.” He said.
They waited for us to finish our enormous coconuts, which was nearly impossible, and got on our motorbikes after saying a formal goodbye and thank you to kid driver’s family. Again we were off, at high speed, down the sand path. Another twenty minutes of reckless plowing through the sand and we were much further into the middle of nowhere.
The children we’d pass would all yell “Hello! Goodbye!” The farmers would cock their heads in bewilderment. Every single person that saw me on the back of that motorbike stopped and stared.
I guess I would have too, seeing a giant foreigner in a bright orange shirt clinging to a Cambodian kid half his size trying desperately to control a massive motorbike flying through a perpetual sandpit. It was an odd sight for anyone.
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