Where am I? – Cambodia blog entry #1

           I opened my eyes and looked across the dark room. A dim light was streamingoutside the open door from a source to the right. Where was the bathroom? Ithad to be out there somewhere.

         My travel partner, D, snored very close behind me. We’d been sleeping inseparate beds for the past sixteen nights; why was she in bed with me now?

         Then it dawned on me. It was my husband snoring, and I was home in my own bed.

         I rolled over and read the clock. The red number 12:15 screamed at me. Totallyexhausted, I’d crawled into this perfectly comfy bed only four hours ago. Whywas I wide awake?

         Darned jet lag.

         My left brain wondered from the beginning how I’d be affected by thisphenomenon this trip. Previously, I’d only ever flown to Kenya, eight timezones to the east, and jet lag never bothered me when I got there, but alwaysmessed me up when I got home.

This trip took me twelve time zones to thewest. So my left brain reasoned that the jet lag would be worse going toCambodia and not as bad when I got home.

Left Brain has definitely got it wrong. RightBrain believes that when I go somewhere, I am so excited about the trip that mybody and my brain adjust quickly so as not to miss out on anything. When I gethome, all the hormones let loose, and my internal clock doesn’t want to switchback to Central Standard Time; it just wants to sleep.

And Stomach Clock grumbles because itthinks it’s just past noon and we should be eating.

Then Writer’s Brain pulls me by the arm toget me out of bed to write down all these peculiar thoughts because it knowsthat, just like when we dream, if I go back to sleep, all of this will be gone.

So here I am, at 1:40 am, trying to keepmy eyes open while the rest of me feels crazy-energized. But I am going tofollow the lead of my eyes and wander back to bed. Whether I go back to sleepor not, who knows? Will my hypothalamus figure this out and allow me to driftpeacefully off, or will the rest of my brain continue bouncing around neurons?

In any case, I’ve been home from Cambodiafor just over thirteen hours. It’s been forty-eight hours since I left, Ithink, because I still can’t put any part of my brain around the whole timetravel thing about these trips.

It was a short flight from Phnom Penh toTaiwan with a brief layover at Taipei Airport. The ticket on the second flightread that we were leaving there at 8:00 pm and arriving at our destination inChicago at 8:45 pm. So, I’m supposed to convince my body that it took 45minutes to fly halfway around the world when I know it really took thirteen hours.

Oh, well, I’ll come around. I promise thaton Friday, I will start posting about my once-in-a-lifetime,fifty-years-in-the-making trip.    

Good night – or good morning. And the first and last pictures - with over 2,000 taken in between.  

Sunset over Chicago before our flight out

Sunrise over Chicago before our drive home from the hotel