Chapter 10 Rose Island (10)

7. Sunset Fast boat from Phnom Penh to Angkor. In the cool morning, the coconut grove and the village just woke up from their deep sleep.The Mekong River is wide and gentle, stretching to the sky.The sky has thick gray-red clouds, and it has just rained at night, and the air is very humid.The sun has not yet broken through the clouds with sufficient power, but an orange light seeps through the gaps in the clouds. The ghosts put their luggage in the cabin, and then climbed onto the deck on the top of the ship, preparing to sunbathe.The sun at noon will be scorching hot, and they will bake their bodies evenly to a wheat color like toasting bread.The boat started tumbling, faster and faster, and the fierce wind was blowing.There are big trees on the river bank, and the children under the trees are jumping and raising their hands and waving, and they can clearly see the innocent smiles on their faces.Maybe they can't get out of their own land all their lives. These visitors from other worlds bring fresh feelings to their day-to-day life.The people on the boat also waved back.

The boat passed through a plain among the rivers.Great flocks of white birds circled low, then swept across the fields and flew towards the horizon. In Phnom Penh, you stay at Narin Guest Hotel. It is difficult to find such a clean small hotel in this city.There is a small kitchen on the first floor, and exquisite Thai advertisements are played on the TV.The second floor is a large terrace with wide wooden tables and high-backed wooden chairs, where you can drink, eat and enjoy the shade.The cook will make delicious curry chicken and vegetable rice, use yogurt and bananas to make a cool and mellow drink, chew between the lips and teeth, there are small ice particles, making a crisp sound.

The wooden bed in the guest room is thick and strong, and the pillowcase is made of animal-patterned cotton cloth, sewn with ruffles.It's like a child's bedroom. The ghosts walked up and down the wooden stairs barefoot. There were many dogs in the shop, the youngest of which was only two or three months old.The bad gravel road is just outside the door.Many streets in Phnom Penh are uneven and extremely rough gravel roads. Motorcycles drive on them, flying sand and rocks, and constantly bumping.In the past, this city was bloodbathed by violence, wars, and massacres.It takes time to heal.And the men already had a hard, patient face.The kind of persistence like holding a wound.People who have seen blood remember the smell of blood.Although they are just silent.

Unable to sleep in the middle of the night, you walk out barefoot on the patio to smoke a cigarette.There are still people there.A group of French men are discussing travel itineraries around a table.There was a Taiwanese boy who sat alone in a corner and read a novel quietly.The moonlight was so bright that it sprinkled on the terrace like a pouring river.The huge fan turned slowly.Downstairs, under the telegraph pole, motorcycle boys gathered to chat. You think of Vietnam.They are also countries that have experienced wars and colonization, and Vietnam is soft and calm.And Phnom Penh is a city full of sadness, and it seems that there is nothing that can never be recovered.And, it's so hard.

You don't want to stay in the city for long.On the banks of the river, you see a fashionable clothing store, decorated like a shop in the streets of Paris, selling only clothes made of satin and leno.An ordinary jade necklace is priced at $110.Motorcyclist tells you that this is a store run by the wife of the embassy. Those noble ladies have nothing to do, so they design some clothes for sale.And next to the store is a construction site under construction.In the scorching midday sun, women and men carry bricks, wrapping their faces in cotton scarves.Some people are so tired that they curl up in the shadows in the corner.A skinny, dark girl, topless, with a naked child in her arms, walked quickly across the street.She couldn't find anyone to beg for.A pair of big dark eyes, extremely indifferent.

The price of a lunch in a beautiful western restaurant is not cheap.In the suburbs, a large number of people live in thatched huts, where they put bowls and buckets. There are 5 or 6 members of the family, and they sleep on a broken straw mat.The people live like insects.Such poverty is almost like fate.Therefore, monks are the most respected.Religion has become the only spiritual comfort.They place their hope in the afterlife. You don't want to stay long.Because you can't do anything.You are just a traveler, at best taking some shots with photos.In the end you can barely take pictures because you don't want to point your camera at those who are suffering.Their innocent and unknowing eyes will make you feel ashamed.You can't solve any problems.Neither can alms.Silently turned and left.This is the only thing you can do.

Later, when you return to Beijing, you happen to pass a restaurant on the street, and you see a crowd of beggars pouring out. They obviously just had a full meal, and they are carrying gifts like old clothes and quilts in their hands.There were a few people in modern clothes mixed in, apparently they organized the show and filmed it all with DV.They kept filming, filming the joy and blindness of these poor people.An old beggar, carrying a pile of rags, disappeared quickly through the crowded streets.He will go back to his life, as always, without any changes.At that time, you really wanted to go up and smash the machine in the hands of the DV shooter.His complacent face is disgusting.

That's some real homeless, disabled, life-threatening people.The art of belittling pain, so hypocritical. On the morning of the third day, you board the Clippers.You stayed in the cabin all the time.Take a large bottle of mineral water and drink water.The cabin was full of people, but the air was not stale.A Spanish couple sat on the steps, hugging each other and dozing off.The way they are loving.On the way, a black man from Los Angeles and a group of white men quarreled.No one interferes with them.And the quarrel of unknown meaning also ended quickly.You gave a little girl in purple a pack of gum.She was so dark and beautiful, with melancholy black eyes.She carefully inserted the chewing gum in her pouch.It's chewing so lovingly.

Long voyage, no lunch.You feel very tired. When the boat arrived at the pier, the boats of each hotel had already begun to attract guests in the river.The pier is dilapidated, with gravel roads, scorching sun, dirty vendors, and flies everywhere.Too many flies.The muddy yellow river stinks.There are very thin and dark men with bare upper body catching dead fish inside.The road conditions are very poor, and along the way are living sheds made of tree trunks and thatch.Small and rudimentary, it barely shelters from the wind and rain.This is the home of the poor.If it is a little richer, it will use wood structure, the area is also large, and of course there will be more furniture, not just some buckets and basins.

Almost everyone is sleeping at home in the afternoon.Men, women, children.No entertainment, no work.There is no electricity, running water, sanitation, or even dogs.Just outside the sleeping curtain is a dump.Their life is like this.And the road that the car passed, there are also unforgettable vast green fields, large forests and bright water lilies in the swamp.The blue sky and white clouds are stretched and silent.Nature watches with eternal composure the poverty and desperation of man. Siem Reap, where Angkor is located, is a clean small town. Because it is a tourist destination, its construction is better than that of Phnom Penh.You're staying at Narin's hotel chain.The hotel is quite new.American movies are played in the restaurant on the first floor at night.A bunch of ghosts were watching TV and drinking beer there.It was very hot and the room had no air conditioning.You come downstairs at night for a frozen lemonade and a plate of fried rice with vegetables.There is fresh watermelon.The people in the hotel were all from the same family, some were hostesses, some were cooks.They boil rice porridge to drink.Polite and gentle service.

You shower over and over again.hot.The heat makes it hard to breathe at times. Angkor, there is nothing to say.Many people come to Cambodia just for Angkor.you are not.You watch all the time.Your travels are different from theirs.You don't talk to other people either.You find that a long career working alone at home has robbed you of interest and motivation in the language.Of course, you don't think there is anything wrong with this. The only thing you remember is the afternoon sunshine and cool wind in the dark and long stone corridors of Angkor Wat.Behind the upright stone pillars are verdant forests and grasslands under the scorching sun.Flocks of birds fly across the sky and the sound of birdsong and leaves can be heard.That's what it sounds like. After you walk for a while, sit down on the rock.rest.Listen to the wind.Such a cool and ancient stone.There are carvings on the stone.Sculpture comes to mind when people want to keep something eternal.But when the sculpture presents those images, all the joys and sorrows have long been wiped out. Everyone wants to go to the Bakken Mountain to watch the sunset, because it is said that the sunset seen there is the most beautiful in the world.So, at dusk, a large group of people began to climb the stone-lined hillside.The flat ground on the top of the mountain was already full of people.It is almost a large aggregation of races from all over the world.But the sun was obscured by thick clouds.All that was left was a plain that was gradually being swallowed by the twilight. For two days in a row, you didn't see the sunset.Perhaps the most beautiful sunset in the world should be seen by very few people in very few opportunities.It should be mysterious and haunting.You remember your novel.You think you're going to write a novel someday.The novel will have such an ending.A man who has not seen the sunset.A promise that cannot be fulfilled.Our life is to continue for expectation and endure for disappointment. A Chinese woman hired a motorcycle guy to take her around Angkor.It was a handsome young Cambodian man.For three days they traveled through the jungles and plains of Angkor.There was an afternoon in a small temple with few tourists, Banteay Samre. The old steps, eaves and walls are completely preserved.There is also the sound of monks knocking on wooden fish.At about three o'clock, a rainstorm, which is rare in the dry season, suddenly fell.They are stuck in the hallway.Hear the sound of rain hitting the leaves.There was a kiss that didn't happen. In the end, the woman paid the motorcycle guy more than double the fare.Is it because of guilt or emotion?unknown.This is a love passage that doesn't have any beginnings.It's for listening.very real.The sound of the rain is the most imaginative detail in the whole story.From the point of view of the novel, it is indeed a kind of perfection that the kiss does not happen.