The strangeness
of England doesn’t hit me until we reach a familiar road on the way home.
Everything is so neat and clean. There’s no rubbish piled at the sides of the
road, no half-built, falling down houses being choked with climbing plants. The
pavements don’t have steep curbs with huge trees growing out of them. You can’t
hear the constant sounds of chanting, temple bells, drums, motorbikes. Children
don’t follow you around, doing peace signs and asking what your name is. There’s no tail-less, teeny cats looking for
food. Worst of all, there’s no almond Snickers.
The
English sky is the colour of the roads, and it’s cold, cold, cold. The trees
are still bare and it still feels like winter, even though the daffs are out.
Coming
back, it feels like everything’s changed and it’s all stayed the same.
The
flight home was easy; I managed to sleep on the 6 hour Phuket – Dubai leg of
the flight, which made the bright light craziness of Dubai airport at 5am
bearable, though paying £5 for a Starbucks coffee was painful.
Watched
3 films on the Dubai-London leg, and was surprised at the number of passengers
that remained in their seats for the entire 6 hour plus flight, not even
getting up to go to the loo. I am sure they thought I was crazy, getting up
every half an hour or so to pace up and down the aisle in between trips to the
loo. There was one other woman who had a
good half an hour wander up and down the aisles, looping one way and then the
other, up and down, over and over again.
When
you get to Heathrow after coming from Phuket airport, you realise how well
ordered and clean things are here. Everything is so shiny and new looking and
not covered in a fine layer of reddish dust or held together with tape. It adds
to the sense of disorientation and ‘otherness’.
I
suppose tiredness contributes to the sense of feeling at odds with your home
country, and thinking that you had expected things to be changed in some way,
but they’re not.
During
my last week in Cambodia, I was ready to come home. There were things I was
missing about England; the order, the green, being able to have the bedroom
windows open at night, cheese, BBC programming, hot showers, being able to
flush loo paper away, the normality and cosiness of ‘home’.
Now I’m
back, I’m missing Cambodia. The sun, being able to cycle around without
worrying about car drivers mowing you down, the Asana bar cocktails, the
Touiche Restaurant veggie Khmer curry, the temple bells and chanting, the kids
that follow you down the street and ask what your name is, not feeling guilty
at not having anything to do other than whatever you want…..
I am
sure after a few days, getting back into the routine of normal things, finding
a job and catching up with friends, it will be like I was never away. It
already feels like the last three months belong to another life, or happened to
someone else.
