Candace Rose Rardon: A Lesson in Disappointment in Chong Khneis, Cambodia

20 Feb Candace Rose Rardon: A Lesson in Disappointment in Chong Khneis, Cambodia

Candace Rose Rardon is an American writer, photographer and artist who sketches as she travels. These sketches, combined with the stories behind them, poignantly portray those moments of encounter and illumination that become the stepping stones of adventure, inner and outer. We are extremely pleased to present her on-the-road sketches-and-stories here.

Ever since I arrived in Cambodia, my knowledge of the country has been slowly growing, like rings being added to a tree, year after year.

It began with Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat, and has now grown to include Tonlé Sap Lake and the floating villages that exist along its shoreline, forever in flux with the seasons. Before leaving this enticing region, the village I most want to visit is Kampong Khleang.

Home to some 10,000 people, this is the largest floating village on the lake, and also one of the most remote, its communities of stilted houses difficult to reach from Siem Reap.

As fate would have it, however, I have come to Cambodia in the dry season, when the waters of Tonlé Sap recede – the lake itself shrinking from over 6,000 square miles to just a thousand – and leave behind a rutted network of roads, nearly impossible to traverse in a tuk-tuk.

Faced with these facts, I choose to visit Chong Khneis. This village is much closer and easier to reach, but I have been warned that with this proximity comes tour buses, and with tour buses come crowds. So even as I make the decision, I can’t help feeling disappointed, like I’m settling for second best….

Within minutes of leaving Siem Reap, the world evolves from city into dusty countryside. Sugarcane fields grow right up to the edge of the road; the air smells of the sea, or more likely of that day’s catch brought in and laid out to dry. I spot a lone water buffalo, knee-deep in emerald rice paddies.
Soon stilted houses come into view.

“This isn’t so bad,” I tell myself, content to enjoy the journey, even if the destination isn’t what I’d intended.

On the road, as at home, there are things we can’t control. And when something as uncontrollable as dry season redirects your path for the day, all you can do is trust that where you are instead is where you’re meant to be.

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Don George

Don George is the Adventure Collection’s Web Editor in Chief. A highly respected and pioneering travel journalist for more than three decades, Don is the author of "The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George," and of "Lonely Planet's Guide to Travel Writing." Don is currently Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler and Special Features Editor for BBC Travel. He has also been Global Travel Editor for Lonely Planet Publications, Travel Editor at the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, and founder and editor of Salon.com’s travel site, Wanderlust. In addition to authoring two books, Don has edited ten literary travel anthologies, including “The Kindness of Strangers,” “An Innocent Abroad," and "Better Than Fiction." He has won numerous awards for his writing and editing, and he speaks, teaches, and consults at campuses, conferences, and corporations around the world.

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