Leaving Cambodia

We are leaving today, leaving the rice fields and the temples, the motorized rickshaws and the funny little plows, leaving a country that made me feel at home the second I arrived and hasn't stopped since.

In a great irony of traveling, I feel like I'm just getting the hang of the place — able to pick up a few words from the jumble of foreign sounds, knowing what to order on the menu — when it's time to leave.

But though my physical body will be whisked from this place at the end of the day, my mind will linger, will puzzle out the sights and sounds, will recall the gurgle of fountains in the Golden Temple Hotel and the generous hospitality of every home we entered, no matter how humble.

Today it is summer heat and warm breezes. Tomorrow will be damp, chill winter. But I'll keep in mind, as I always do, that the world is large, and there are more worlds within it that we can possibly imagine.