Same same, but diffferent

Here's a column I wrote for the paper after we got back from Cambodia

--Brad

People in Southeast Asia have a pidgin English saying that tourists have clung to.

Same same, but different.

It's practically a national slogan in Cambodia, where I've just come from. It's on billboards. It's screen printed on T-shirts and every product imaginable in street markets, where you can buy barbecued tarantulas, fresh produce, or a pirated copy of the new "Simpsons" movie for $3. One guest house one-upped the slogan, claiming "Same same, but better."

Which reminds me, I found myself looking a lot at girls' legs while spending two weeks in the country.

See, my wife and I were trying to figure out if it was OK for her to wear short pants around in a land that still holds extremely conservative values with regard to women.

It's a country where public displays of affection are frowned upon. Men and women aren't supposed to openly even give each other a peck on the cheek. We saw an entire family of five riding together on a 125-cc motorbike -- seriously, everyone drives motorbikes in Cambodia -- and the two women were riding side-saddle, which is considered more tasteful.

Things are changing there. Young girls are starting to wear shorts, and I even saw a couple holding hands on the streets of Phnom Penh. But these people belong to a new generation, and the folks we were interacting with probably didn't like them any more than they like Americans tromping all over their ancient temples.

We were definitely going to walk the temples, but my wife decided, for the most part, to forgo the shorts.

We spent a few days in the country's beach town of Sihanoukville, where the usually emerald waters of the Gulf of Thailand were a silty blue-gray from the heavy rains of the wet season.

For the better part of three days, my traveling friends and I would sit in a beachfront bar, eating a dish called fish amok and drinking Mekong buckets of Red Bull, Coca-Cola and what probably passes for whiskey. Then we would plunge into the crashing sea.

The water was particularly rough one afternoon, with the waves crashing onto Occheuteal Beach irregularly, but frequently, from two directions. You could duck under one wave and come up just in time to get plastered
by another.

It was great fun.

My friend Phil and I were bodysurfing. My legs ached from trying to fight the strong current pulling me sideways. I was out of breath from diving under and over waves in order to get deep enough for a good ride.

I caught a good wave and coasted in to knee-deep water only to find that two others had ventured into the water with us.

One was a naked Cambodian boy who looked about 6 but was probably 10. The other was a grown Cambodian woman, who was wearing a full dress.

All of us were taking ragged, open-mouthed breaths and waiting for the next onslaught from the gulf.

This was carpe diem moment for all of us. Our differences had been washed away. Our skin color didn't matter. Our skin covering didn't matter.

We were different. But we were same same.

Cumberland's lighter side

Here's a column I wrote for the paper after we returned from the vacation.

-- Brad

A couple of weeks ago, I'd have told you that armadillos don't exist as living animals. That's because I'd only ever seen them on their backs, on the sides of interstates. In fact, I had a theory that they were all rubber, manufactured by Goodyear from used tires through some sort of recycling grant.

But they do live. They all, apparently, come from Cumberland Island on the Georgia coast. How they all sneak on the ferry to the mainland only to be run over by a Peterbuilt truck is anyone's guess. They're everywhere on the island proper, though -- on the trails, in your campsite, in your tent.

The true existence of the armadillo is only one of many valuable lessons I learned on a recent vacation to the gorgeous, isolated national seashore. Among the others:

• There are clear signs that you've been attacked by a snake, per a poster tacked up at Cumberland's Sea Camp headquarters. Those signs are "bites" and "pain." There are even more troubling signs that you've been attacked by other wildlife, consisting of "bites" and "bleeding." Those are good to remember, in case, you know, you forget actually being attacked by an animal.

• The spiders you can see spanning the live oak trees everywhere are called banana spiders. You might think this is to make them sound harmless, but it's actually because they're as big as bananas. Also, the names Giant Spiders of Death, Wild Hog Bloodsuckers, and Spawn of Shelob were deemed bad for tourism. (I'm not sure what these spiders really eat. Clearly, not mosquitoes.)

• The nearby city of Folkston, Ga., boasts "Train Watching at its Best!" on highway signs at its bounds. I don't know which is nuttier, making that claim, or knowing that there's another city close to Columbus that might challenge it.

• When given a choice, sharks prefer roadways to open water. How else do you explain the preponderance of shark teeth on the sides of the shell-paved roads at Cumberland? Rangers will tell you the teeth are dredged from the water along with the sand and shell. Hogwash, say I.

• And speaking of hogs, I learned that there are ninja pigs. When my wife and I were riding bikes north on the main road, we stopped when we heard a bit of a stirring in the brush. She's looking to the side, where we heard the noise. I'm looking back at her, and I see two shadowy oinkers dart across the road behind her. I know what you're thinking: So that's how Miss Piggy learned karate.

Indeed.