U-Pick: Lost in Translation*

When Tiffany and I arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia last June, we were two and a half weeks into a three week vacation. Having spent the early part of our trip traveling down the coast of Vietnam, we had grown accustomed to the mostly- smiling-but-very-aggressive touts selling their wares. Samet, the tuk-tuk driver who picked us up outside the Siem Reap airport was no different. On the spot, he offered to motor us around his country's famous temples for the duration of our stay. Tiffany and I nodded, non-committal, and gulped the bottled water he handed us from a little cooler in his carriage. It was hot, and we didn't have any idea where we were staying that night. We weren't ready to think about tomorrow.

"I take you to river of 1,000 peenies," he said, smiling broadly. "With a waterfall!"

Tiffany and I looked at each other. We had no idea what he was talking about, but any kind of river sounded lovely in the Cambodian heat.

"Pennies?" I asked. "Like shiny coins?"

He nodded, but his smile faded a bit and he looked confused.

"Sure," we said.

When Samet dropped us off, he wrote his number on a scrap of paper and made us promise to call him. For our first full day, though, we hired an English-speaking guide to show us some of the beautiful Angkor Wat temples. On our second day, exhausted by the long dissertations our guide provided--helpful as they were--we decided to forgo the background noise. We called Samet to take us to see the sights and threw our guide book into our backpack so we could read about them ourselves.

About half-way through the day, Samet pulled into a turn-off, parked his tuk-tuk in the shade and waved his hand toward a steep rocky path.

"River of 1,000 peenies," he said, before ambling off to sit with some other drivers.

Tiffany and I made our way to a sign at the base of the path, which informed us we had about a mile climb. We looked down at our flip flops, shrugged and started up. The thought of a river to splash around in was heavenly-I didn't even care about the pennies anymore. We hadn't stopped sweating since we touched down in Vietnam.

The path, which cut through a jungle, was wide in some places and narrow in others. There were butterflies everywhere, and they landed on Tiffany's feet every time we stopped to take a drink of water. No matter how still I stood, they wouldn't come near mine.

"I wonder why the pennies are here?" I asked as we climbed, picturing a wishing-well. "Seems strange, doesn't it?"

Tiffany shrugged, picking her way around a pile of rocks.

Finally, we reached the top. Sticky and stinky, we made our way to where a handful of people were milling about, looking down. We looked down too. The rock was carved with people, animals and, everywhere we looked, pedestal-like shapes.

"Ohh, pretty," I whispered to Tiffany, reaching for our guide book. "But where are the pennies?"

In fact, there weren't any pennies. What there were, according to the book, were 1,000 of the pedestal-like carvings, called lingas--a Hindu symbol of the phallus.

"Penis!" I said. "It's a river of 1,000 penises not pennies!"

The people around us stopped admiring the penises to stare. I closed the book.

Tiffany covered her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

We spent a few minutes walking around the lingas, which were carved onto the bottom of what would have been the river Samet had promised but for the fact we had arrived just before Cambodia's rainy season. The waterfall, too, was a disappointment--little more than a trickle.

But who could complain? The climb was beautiful, there were butterflies and, although I can't speak from experience, I've heard peenies sometimes do fail to deliver.

*This post brought to you by Nana, my 86-year-old grandmother who reads my blogs after they've been printed out in large font on actual paper and suggested I write about Vietnam and Cambodia (sorry, Nana! It was the first story that came to mind!). To find out how you can suggest a post topic, click here.