Cambodia is unforgettable for what it has and what’s been taken away. There are miles of the most vibrant pairings of earth and sky you might ever see. There are jungle licked temples that, more than any skyscraper, have the power to stun. There is horrifying education in the Killing Fields Memorial and Tuol Sleng, the Phnom Penh high-school turned prison camp turned genocide museum. There is bohemian energy in its nightlife comparable to its western neighbor. And maybe there is travel guilt. Anyone with the economy to fly there, to play tourist, is financial royalty by default. In Cambodia, the average income per capita hovers around 1,300 USD. Where a road or path enters or leads away from a visitor-must are people waiting, asking, begging, selling. I know nothing about real poverty but life sometimes gives lessons.

On my final day, I took a tuk tuk miles from my hotel, well out of Siem Reap into pure country. The weather was perfect and the country’s colors saturated. We stopped at a clearing by a river’s edge where I boarded a wicker-chaired boat. I was the only customer for the journey up-river (or down), to a floating village I’d read about in a guide. We’d looped through the river town and turned for the trip back when the captain eased alongside one of the wooden-barged homes. An unannounced pitstop. Whatever I’m missing in my memory, I’m still very aware of my reaction. I was less excited than guarded. My closest ally was the total stranger piloting the boat and my flight was several hours away. I didn’t speak the language.

Inside, the room was square, simple, and had a small television with some karaoke DVDs on display. If there was furniture at all I can’t say and besides, the eight to ten men gathered were sitting cross-legged, brown and bare-legged on the floor. They were young, none older than 30 if I had to guess, and celebrating a holiday. I was invited to sit and offered a beer from a cooler, Angkor not surprisingly. I can’t say I jumped at it. I’d been drinking the night before and do hair-of-the-dog no better than the dog itself. I declined the can. If it was a test, I’d flunked. I felt a psychic wave of disappointment from my hosts, rejected hospitality. I quickly accepted the beer and cracked it. Then loosened up. What did we talk about? There was one who spoke English. He worked in a hotel in the city and took on the translating duties. I’m sure we covered the basics, from my side where I was from and what I was doing in Asia, what things were like in Canada. I didn’t ask them what I was most curious about, how they lived and where their families were. They cooked a river fish on a simple burner and some banana leaves, both of which I tried, neither of which I found edible. Of course that wasn’t the point.