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It was a sensation of having dived into a pool of warm honey and being probed by long fingers as it insinuated itself intimately around me.
Exiting onto the porch early this morning, suddenly I was cast back 68 years to my first encounter with tropical heat.
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Mum and I left London on the 2nd of June, 1956, heading for Paris where we would join an Air France Super Constellation destined to Bangkok.
The first impression I had was of terrible ear pain coming to land in Paris. We had been given hard candies to suck which were intended to help but my ears hurt abominably.
Fortunately, that was the only time. I believe it was common in those years, before proper pressurisation.
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Thus initiated, I learned the excruciating boredom of flying, although the journey was punctuated by many stops which were interesting in various ways.
My first dubious encounter with asian toilets in Tehran did not make a favourable impression.
My first sight of a large cockroach in the washroom sink in Karachi, startling.
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It’s so long ago I cannot remember it all precisely, but it may have been in Calcutta (as it was then) that the heat hit us on exiting the aeroplane and that is the memory which came back to me so vividly this morning.
We left the Air France flight in Bangkok and went to a local hotel for a few hours to rest while waiting for our connection to Phnom Penh.
It was in our room that I was introduced to air conditioning which noisily rendered the room cold and damp, which was not appealing.
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UNESCO supplied First Class tickets and the Air France flight had been reasonably comfortable, but in our exhausted state some 30 hours after leaving London, that last 3 hour leg on a DC3 was tough. It was the only time I have ever been air sick.
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We touched down briefly at Siem Reap which was the airport for Angkor. It was little more than a grass strip.
We arrived finally in Phnom Penh in the afternoon of June 4th which I remember because it was my father’s 44th birthday.
Dad looked so different wearing shorts and a smile. Life in the tropics had changed him.
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Living in Cambodia changed us all, of course, irrevocably.
My parents lived there for two years and I went back to boarding school there at the end of 1960.
There were complications that made those days rather stressful but I was always happy to be in Cambodia.
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Leaving England when I was 8, my education became disjointed, with a lot of prolonged gaps.
Returning 6 years later, I was out of step and I had just about adjusted when I was sent to live in America.
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The culture shock I encountered in moving to the States was far greater than I had experienced when moving to Cambodia, for many reasons.
For one thing, my days of travelling were over and I missed the Far East.
It was no doubt my desire to resume travelling that propelled me into taking an airline job and when I got my travel benefits in 1970, I planned a trip that would take me as far away as possible.
It was not very well thought out, in fact. I went on holiday with a colleague and we only had two weeks in which we programmed too much.
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Sadly, we could not go to Cambodia, but we did go to Bangkok where some things had changed, but mostly not too much and it felt good to be back there.
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Mum and I on the beach at Kep which is where the boarding school was that I went to later on.
We went walking there one afternoon, on the hill behind the town, along a rough track.
All around us there was thick rainforest with its unique sounds; the clicking of insect life, rustling of small animals in the undergrowth, the call of monkeys shrieking warnings about us and a sudden whoosh of wings as a hornbill flew over.
It was probably the first time I was excited at the sight of a wild bird.
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The ruins of Angkor impressed me deeply too.
There had been a great civilisation there once. The serene faces on those statues were the same as the faces we saw everyday.
So ironic.
Cambodia has always been in my heart. Perhaps that is why this is my favourite picture of Mum and I, on a friend’s veranda in Phnom Penh, 1957.
Thank you, Carolyn, for such a wonderful memory tour of Cambodia and other places! Your photographic presentation is heart-stopping and beautiful! I loved everything about your exotic adventures!
Joanna
1957 I was an undergraduate at Middlebury College in Vermont. Travel to South East Asia was still fat in my future
As always – a read to dwell on. Thank you.
Wonderful picture of you and your mother! Your life has been a fascinating adventure – thanks for sharing it with those of us that have never been to that part of the world.
You have so many vivid memories of an interesting life. My first really ‘bad’ experience of humidity was arriving in Beijing in 2000, to stay with a friend and his wife who were working there. I was dressed quite smartly for the trip, in a jacket and trousers. He had said he would meet me outside the terminal that night, and as I walked out wheeling my case it was as if someone suddenly wrapped me in a hot towel around my body and face. It was ‘only’ 34C, but the air was stifling, and it felt hard to breathe. I spent the next 14 days wearing shorts, and really appreciated the airconditioning in his smart apartment.
Best wishes, Pete.
have been a fascinating experience. I only got to spend about 48 hours in China (I refuse to accept that Tibet is a part of it) and it was unimpressive but coming from Tibet where I saw what they were doing, I wasn’t well disposed.
It always enjoys reading your “throwback” travel stories. You probably have seen so many things that have changed over the years … but (hopefully) not the beautiful ruins of Angkor. And love the photos of you and your mum – such special memories.
Well, it is apparent that your skill as a photographer has been inherited, Beautiful…
Thoroughly enjoyed this throwback to your childhood and Cambodia. Having travelled in Thailand and Cambodia several times, I fully understand how SE Asia gets under your skin.
Love the photo of Angkor Wat sans tourist. You’re so lucky to have seen it like this as sadly, this area was like a zoo the last time I visited in 2014! I’d hate to think what it’s like 10 year on.
Wow, flying back then was arduous even though you were in First Class. Looking forward to the next chapter…