Salon.com > Rosemary Berkeley

The perilous pepper of Phnom Penh

Fri, 21 Jan 2000 17:00:00 +0000

Just what does one wear to a Nepalese dinner party, I wondered. It was my first social event in Asia, and I was anxious to make a good impression. I'd arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, only two days before, and I stood before my narrow wooden closet still in the evil clutches of jet lag. The closet was not quite big enough to hold a 5-year-old on a time-out, otherwise I would have ordered my tired, grumpy self inside for a while.

The sensory overload of the last few days had begun when I got off the plane at Onchentong Airport and had my passport scrutinized by a soldier with a pinky nail so long I thought of asking the guy if he'd ever heard from the folks at "Ripley's Believe It or Not." The nail curved around and around on itself, a giant mollusk that I'm sure made ocean sounds if you got close to it.

Once I got outside the airport, the crowds of the city -- hurrying to catch up with the rest of the Asian tigers -- left me frazzled. And with my first outing, a walk across the street to buy a loaf of bread, came the realization that living in this city would require getting acclimated to life in a sauna. It reminded me, too, of one of the cardinal rules of the developing world: If being gawked at like an American Indian shipped to England to entertain the court for the winter season tends to unhinge you, perhaps you really should be living in Dayton.

Honeymoon turbulence

Wed, 31 Mar 1999 20:00:00 +0000

"When did the bossy boys seize control of U.S. carriers?" I ask my husband at the start of our flight. The flight attendant stands at the front of the steerage class section, hands on hips, and shouts, "People, we're not going anywhere until you take your seats." He then brushes by a pregnant woman holding an infant and a diaper bag, struggling to put one of them in the overhead bin. "Suck it in, honey," he says as he wiggles his way past her.

"I know I'm going to be suicidal by the end of this," I mutter.

"Calm down," my new husband, Chris, says. "It's not that bad."

We are en route to our honeymoon. No, wait. What's more ghastly is that I guess we are now officially on our honeymoon. And if we're on our honeymoon, shouldn't things be a lot more romantic?

I daresay that anyone who has flown more than a handful of times has probably been on a flight like the one that took us to our honeymoon destination -- a flight where everything goes wrong. A flight where you almost want the plane to crash in order to end the misery. Maybe you were one of my seatmates. Or maybe you were the guy in front of me, the one who somehow managed to recline his seat during takeoff without getting caught, the one who kept it reclined for the entire 10-hour flight. The one who got up looking rested -- which is surprising, given the volume of your snoring -- and ready to meet the challenges of the day.

Couped up in Cambodia

Fri, 17 Jul 1998 19:00:00 +0000

Timing in life is everything. I first heard that in high school, from Patty MacVicar, who was giving me the lowdown on the art of kissing. No one had tried to kiss me yet, but I was hoping someone -- specifically Danny Fitzgibbons -- soon would. Patty, who'd gone well beyond kissing, considered herself impossibly sophisticated compared to me. She concluded her instructions with, "And for God's sake, open your mouth when he's kissing you."

"How do I know when to open it?" I asked.

She shot me a you-are-never-going-to-be-a-popular-girl look, but it seemed like a good question to me. Do I open my mouth as he heads towards me (open wide, here comes the plane)? Do I spring it open as soon as I feel his lips? Do I wait until his tongue gives me a sign of some sort?

Road Warrior: Couped up in Cambodia

Fri, 17 Jul 1998 09:13:00 +0000

Timing in life is everything. I first heard that in high school, from Patty
MacVicar, who was giving me the lowdown on the art of kissing. No one had
tried to kiss me yet, but I was hoping someone -- specifically Danny
Fitzgibbons -- soon would. Patty, who'd gone well beyond kissing, considered
herself impossibly sophisticated compared to me. She concluded her
instructions with, "And for God's sake, open your mouth when he's kissing
you."

"How do I know when to open it?" I asked.

She shot me a you-are-never-going-to-be-a-popular-girl look, but it seemed
like a good question to me. Do I open my mouth as he heads towards me
(open wide, here comes the plane)? Do I spring it open as soon as I feel
his lips? Do I wait until his tongue gives me a sign of some sort?