Guided tour of one man's life, a nation's story

SIEM REAP, Cambodia — Mao Bun Lang spotted us as we walked along the river on our first afternoon in Cambodia.

Rain clouds were gathering, and we could feel the humidity rising.

"Do you want to ride?" he asked my husband, Tom, and me, pointing to a lavender pillow on the seat of a carriage attached to his green Honda motorcycle. "No thanks," I said. "We like to walk."

He smiled. A thunderstorm can transform an afternoon stroll into a steam bath in Southeast Asia. We'd change our minds, he said, and when we did, he'd be waiting for us.

"Where do you go tomorrow?" he persisted. My inclination now was to ignore this man dressed in flip-flops and a floppy white shirt. Walking away is often the best way to say "No" in a developing country when a polite "No thanks" fails to get the message across.

This is easier done with some people than with others, of course. I have no trouble ignoring the carpet sellers in Istanbul and their invitations for tea. It was harder to walk away from the woman in Bali who followed me down a dirt road, her arms filled with plastic statues she was likely being paid pennies to sell.

As Bun Lang tagged along with us, I also thought about the times we'd said "Yes" to people like him, sometimes because it was easier, but more often because we sniffed an adventure.

There was the stranger in ragged pants who followed us down a trail in Cappadocia in central Turkey where wind and rain have sculpted a volcanic landscape into cones and strange rock formations. He spoke only a few words of English, but conveyed through motions that he had secrets to show us. We followed him into underground cave churches with amazing frescoed ceilings that we would have never found on our own. At the end of a three-hour hike, he accepted our offer of a cold beer — but asked for nothing more.

On our first trip to Thailand, we agreed to spend a few hours sightseeing with a cab driver who approached us outside our hotel. When he realized we had no interest in the shops that paid him a commission for reeling in customers, he asked us what we would like to do. We ended up spending three days with him exploring the hill-tribe villages above Chiang Mai, sampling foods that made our lips burn and stopping along the roadside to watch men racing giant beetles. His daily rate was $10, which we gladly raised a few dollars to make up for the lost commissions.

Remembering the kinds of unpredictable travel experiences that can result from random encounters like these, I stopped walking and chatted more with Bun Lang. We agreed on a price for a half-day's sightseeing. It was $6.

If things didn't work out, all we stood to lose was time.

The Khmer Rouge

Bun Lang showed up at our hotel the next morning wearing pin-striped suit pants and a green ballcap that said "Australia 2000." We climbed into the back seat of his carriage, and soon we were bouncing along a dirt road lined with palm trees and open-air stores that double as brothels.

"If you want to know [anything], ask me," he said.

The ancient temples of Angkor draw most visitors to Siem Reap, but we wanted Bun Lang to show us a different side of the city where he grew up. Instead of quizzing him about the sites, we asked him about his life.

Now 43, with six children, Bun Lang was 13 when soldiers from the Communist Khmer Rouge regime took over Cambodia.

He remembers the day the army entered Siem Reap (a Thursday) and the time (9 p.m.). His father was a French teacher, part of an educated class of Cambodians whom the Khmer Rouge and its leader, Pol Pot, intended to eliminate and replace with a "classless" society.

"If anyone asks," Bun Lang recalled his father saying, "you tell them that I am a farmer."

Bun Lang's family members were driven from their home and separated. He was sent to work in the rice fields in a rural village about 25 miles away.

"If you knew the difference between a cow and a buffalo, you were considered an educated man," he recalled. By the time the war ended in 1979 when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and defeated the Khmer Rouge, 1.7 million Cambodians had been killed, almost a third of the country's population of 7 million.

"I live," he said.

His family returned home to find that the Vietnamese had taken their land, but Bun Lang was able to finish school and join the military. With tourism beginning to develop in Siem Reap, he began driving a tuk-tuk, at first renting a motorcycle and carriage, then saving enough to buy his own.

His story is the nation's

As we turned onto a paved two-lane highway leading to the Angkor temples, he pointed out luxury tourist hotels and gardens built by what he called "powermen," his word for rich Chinese or Cambodians with political connections who have benefited from the growth of the tourist economy in Siem Reap.

Later, we detoured into a small village on a dusty street where vendors spread out stalks of sugar cane and finger-length bananas for sale on straw mats.

Searching for the word "bombs," he yelled "Boom! Boom!," indicating this was the site of the former "American airport," a secret airstrip far from the main airport, where as a boy growing up during the Vietnam War, Bun Lang watched U.S. planes and helicopters land. Later, he drove us past a memorial for victims of the Khmer Rouge and a grave marker stacked with human skulls.

Almost every Cambodian over 40 has a story of being separated from parents, husbands, brothers and sisters; of being orphaned or widowed; of returning to destroyed cities and towns and searching for their houses or the homes of relatives.

Is world forgetting?

As the United States marks the 30th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War this year, Cambodia marks the 30th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge invasion. Unlike Saigon and Hanoi, which have prospered with foreign investment and new industry, Cambodia still suffers the aftershocks of widespread poverty and corruption. Survivors such as Bun Lang fear that the world's collective memory is fading.

"Many people forget," Bun Lang said. "But I don't forget."

I took down his phone number in case we needed him again, then gave him a tip that produced a smile I won't forget.

Carol Pucci's Travel Wise column runs the last Sunday of the month in Travel. Comments are welcome. Contact her at 206-464-3701 or cpucci@seattletimes.com