Pieceing it Together

Well, it was bound to happen. Arriving in Cambodia pushed me past my saturation point, and all that I learned in Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam are now scrambled together in a cultural, architectural, historical, political, religious blender. Histories and destinies are woven together and each country has a slightly different recollection of the region's history. Invasions from Siam, Kemer, Cham and China in earlier days and recently China (again), France, United States Russia, and Vietnam played, and continue to play their parts. Hinduism, Buddhism, communism, capitalism, Confusionism, royalism, imperialism. We traveled with a guide whose grandaddy was a North Vietnamese official during the war, and another guide whose dad was a South Vietnamese soldier who stayed in the country to face two years in a "re-education" camp after the war. We traveled with two guides in two different countries who had been Buddhist monks before they were guides. We traveled with one guide whose dad avoided death in the killing fields of Cambodia by having dark skin, like a peasant, not an intelectual. We met young girls who cherish light complexions.
Culenary school, land mine museum, village kindergarten, POW museum, Cambodian circus, typhoon, Buddhist shrine, old market shopping, slick shopping center.  Bus, van, plane, taxi, skytrain,  tuk tuk, boat and bicycle. All fitting together into a puzzle.