“I like you. Do you like me?” asked the sister of the bride.
She had materialized a few minutes earlier with a cold beer in her hand, so in point of fact I had reason to be positively disposed toward her. I also had an ulterior motive for answering in the affirmative. Although utterly ignorant of Cambodian marriage customs, I knew perfectly well that, world over, a wedding is usually accompanied by a feasting.
“Yes, I think you’re very nice.”
It was time to meet the family.
Kompong Trach is not in any guidebook. Nor is it on any of the common bike routes through Cambodia, which aren’t all that well-traveled to begin with. I’m not really sure why the town even has a hotel.
I was only here because dusk had crept up on me while I struggled over the broken asphalt and deep sand that make up Cambodia’s highway system. Looking for dinner, I had drifted toward the only party in town, a local wedding. Cambodians like their music loud and awful. Parties, when they occur, are easy to find.
The bride and groom spoke little English, but the three of us shared a deeper bond, which was: none of us had any idea why a towering, dirt-smeared Westerner had materialized in the middle of an otherwise straightforward Cambodian wedding. (Yes, at 5’ 9” — formerly 5’ 10” — I am towering. True, the groom dwarfed me, but the other Cambodians seemed to regard him as though he were Shaq.)
The father of the bride, on the other hand, spoke very good English, and seemed more excited by the arrival of an American than by the marriage of his own daughter. He chattered away, and although I could only hear every tenth word over the music, I was grateful to have an excuse to stop trading awkward smiles with the bride’s sister. Long ago the father had been a nurse in Phnom Penh, and he clearly had an interesting story in him about the Khmer Rouge, a story I knew I’d never hear. It’s impolite to bring up wartime atrocities at a wedding. Emily Post is firm on this point.
Soon I was seated between the father and a groomsman at a dinner table. Four cans of warm beer (brand: Black Panther; motto: Feel The Power!) were placed before me. I was told to chug one of them, so I did.
A swarm of 10-year-old kids gathered at my elbow. One of them nudged me and nodded conspiratorially at my stash of beer. Always happy to indulge the natural curiosity of children, I placed a can on the ground by my chair. The can was snatched by the swarm, intercepted by the sister, and deposited back on the table in front of me. I reprimanded the kids for stealing my beer.
My obvious unsuitability as a father didn’t seem to dampen the affections of the sister.
I continued to ignore her as five dishes were set before me. The first was a whole duck that had been braised to the point that it could be carved with chopsticks. Another consisted, so far as I could tell, entirely of pork fat in a brown sauce. The other three were baffling. I ate most of the duck and a healthy portion of pork fat, and nibbled at the rest.
It was time to dance. I had been through this routine before in Latin America, to my eternal horror. Latin Americans merengue out of their mothers’ wombs, and I was more than happy to leave the dancing to the professionals. Need a software project managed? I’m your man. Want to shake your hips rythmically in time to some music? Call a Brazilian.
Fortunately, Cambodian dancing seems to consist mainly of walking in a slow circle while making snaky hand motions. I can make snaky hand motions with the best of them, and it is with confidence that I can say — apart from my mud-stained t-shirt, profuse sweating, and freakishly large nose — I looked no worse than anyone else on the dance floor.
I was having a wonderful time, drinking beer, dancing, and ignoring the sister, but at some point I began to crave a respite from the music and the attention. From the time I had joined the party, I had been attended to with almost religious zeal, carried bodily from wedding chamber to dinner table to dance floor and back again. Food and beer were not so much handed to me as poured down my throat.
I excused myself to go to the bathroom. The house had no plumbing, and I assumed I would be allowed to wander down the road a bit and enjoy some privacy. It was not to be. I was once again dragged bodily, back, back through the house to a yard. In the yard was an open cesspool, and above the pool was a rickety gangway leading to a dangerously listing latrine on stilts. A pig rooted around at the water’s edge.
I indicated I wouldn’t be needing the latrine.
Back at the dinner table, the issue which I had so successfully been sidestepping was at last forced out into the open. The groomsman leaned over to me.
“You want to sleep with her?” he said, tilting his head toward the sister. “I send her to your hotel.”
“Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Good idea?”
“NOT a good idea.”
“Good idea?”
“Bad idea! Bad idea!”
Switching tack, I claimed I had a girlfriend. Where is she? the groomsman wanted to know. Sensing I was on the losing end of this argument, I waited for a break in the music, thanked everyone profusely, and escaped to my hotel, but not before promising to meet the father the next day for breakfast.
At breakfast, blissfully quiet breakfast, I was able to explain for the first time that I was cycling by myself across Cambodia. “Do you work for CIA?” the father wanted to know. I put my finger to my lips and nodded once.*
I took a few pictures and asked for an address where I could send them. I got not so much an address as instructions for the mailman: “Kompong Trach, 100 meters off the main road…” I’ll give it a try when I get back to the states. You never know.
* OK, fine, I just said no.
