thoughts of kampuchea

I found out that I prefer:



Palm trees TO skyscrapers



50 cent street food that might not be completely up to modern world sanitation standards but is served with a HUGE, sincere smile TO $12 lunches where everything is perfectly clean and the person serving you doesn’t even look into your eyes much less give you a smile worthy of the Guinness book of world records



Haggling for ten minutes over paying $1.50 for that t-shirt rather than $2 TO paying $20 for the same t-shirt made in the same factory by the same beautiful brown hands



Tiny bathrooms with the shower and the toilet and the sink practically touching and everything getting wet when you shower TO large, ‘clean,’ unfriendly rooms where everything is perfect



Monsoons that cause the streets to flood and leave everyone stranded wherever they are right at that moment (such an adventure) TO all day drizzles



Magical smiles that light up your soul paired with happy ‘Sousdays’ that linger for minutes everywhere you go TO mandatory thin smiles and greetings that are meaningless and forgotten



Strangers offering you directions or anything that you need when they don’t even speak the same language but somehow that mix of broken English, bits of Khmer, and a lot of gestures gets you there TO strangers who do not even make eye contact on the street, the train, or at a restaurant



Rows of endless chaos of fruits, vegetables, smelly meats, breads, grains, insects, and who knows what else TO perfectly organized and labeled aisles crowded with carts overflowing with food, much of which will eventually rot and be wasted



I don’t know, maybe it’s just me