Siem Reap: Put Your Shoes on my Shoes.

OH MAN. The great thing about Buddhist cultures is how mellow and nice and respectful everyone is. If you're a sad, lost tourist on the side of the road, they might try to sell you something but they'll also give you directions and help you figure out what you need and where you want to go.

You know what ISN'T great about Buddhist cultures? Taking your shoes off when you enter buildings. And you know what? I actually don't mind that so much, except that tying my shoes 40 times a day is a little annoying. What I absolutely DO mind is. . . STUPID TOURISTS WHO STEAL YOUR $80 ADIDAS RUNNING SHOES.

Sorry. I know writing in all caps is an internet faux-pas but I think it adequately depicts my rage.

Imagine, if you will (and you will) finding a pair of shoes in the Annapolis Mall that say to you, "Ariana! I will accompany you to Southeast Asia! I am both comfortable and breathable, with plenty of traction!". You buy them immediately, because you know these shoes are meant for exciting adventures, with a destiny greater than many shoes ever hope for. Fast forward a month of continuous wearing and use so that the shoes are completely broken in and fitted to your feet, protecting them from the debris, mud and pollution of large Asian cities. Then, if you will (and you STILL will), imagine a sea of shoes outside the entrance to your temporary residence in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Imagine that you leave your shoes off over night and come back to them each morning, gleefully donning them as you go out to explore temple ruins in the jungle in the early morning.

After a day in the heat and mud, your shoes are looking a little worse for wear, and so are your legs. You ask the Siem Reap Temple Village employee if you can take a shower before your 10 hour night bus to Bangkok and he agrees. You leave your shoes lovingly by the entrance and you go on a sketchy shower adventure that takes you into the wait staff's personal living quarters. It's cool, though, because they don't mind. You think to yourself, "Wow. These people are nice, letting me hang out and shower, even if it is just a hose protruding out of the side of the wall and the bathroom is a mess. Hey! It beats smelling like feces!"

So you shower, and your friend Frank watches your stuff and stands guard so there aren't any situational comedy scenes where an oblivious employee of the Siem Reap Temple Villa walks into their bathroom trying to find their Anime Character boxer shorts and instead finds a naked American tourist attempting to shower. Then a laugh track plays and the tourist looks mortified and the owner of the boxer shorts looks sheepish (but not really THAT sheepish) and in the end, everyone has a grand laugh. Har-har!

So then, imagine that you get out of the shower and awkwardly change in a bathroom where the floor is soaking wet and you're trying not to get the dirt of the shower on your semi-clean body. There isn't anywhere to hang your clothes as you change into them so you use your teeth as a hanger (Thank YOU, Florine water) and balance carefully on white flip-flops that aren't yours. Finally, you emerge dressed from the shower. Your friend Frank has politely fended off awkward onlookers, and you can go out into the world feeling refreshed.

You venture out, back toward the entrance and put on your shoes. Oh wait, that's not right, is it? You scan the sea of shoes looking for the familiar face of your Adidas Marathon shoes with pink stripes that are very muddy but perfectly formed to your feet. You see many shoes on other shoes and you wonder, "Could my shoes be under those shoes?". You check, but everywhere you look, you see flip flops. As you look with all your might, you come to a sinking, heart-wrenching revelation. Your shoes are simply not there.

At first, you remain calm. You retrace your steps. You ask the man behind the desk who doesn't speak a lot of English. You describe your shoes to multiple employees, hoping that they simply decided to wash them because you're in Cambodia and hey, people are just nice like that. Alas, the locals can't help you find your shoes because they are not there. The employees see the black cloud that has descended upon you and fearing the wrath of the irrational western female tourist, they quickly inform you, "You know this is tourist. People Cambodia never do this thing. Our minds? Ok. They do other thing, not good." The Cambodian man helping you search offers the shoes off his feet to help you out. As you listen to the broken English, you recognize the truth in his words and suddenly, you can imagine the whole thing, just as if you had watched it happen.

A dirty, dreadlock-bearing, droopy tank top wearing, patchouli and sandalwood smelling woman comes back from her first day trek around Angkor Wat and thinks to herself how dumb it was to wear Old Navy's earth-toned flip-flops (no matter how well they went with her bohemian ensemble) while jumping over scorpions and climbing over thousand year old ruins. She pauses while kicking off the plastic, ratty sandals and looks down at her feet, blistered and painful. Her eye is caught by a pair of shoes, sitting innocently amidst the piles of Tevas, leather sandals, and men's black walking shoes. They're dirty from the day's adventures, well loved by another traveler. She envies the obvious forethought the owner had to purchase such practical, comfortable shoes and feels foolish for thinking that $3 flip flips could ever compare. Then, feeling flushed with embarrassment, she thinks, "I'm an evolved being and a steward of the earth. No one person can ever really own anything. We come into this world with nothing and we leave with nothing. Material possessions are transient! These shoes belong to the earth, and therefore. . .me!" Stunned by this revelation, which could be the result of licking toads in the jungle, or the amazing amount of weed she just consumed, she bends down and sticks the shoes in her hemp bag, knowing that she was doing the owner, whoever that sucker was, a favor. That's what she does. She teaches by doing, just like the disciple of a god. If there was a humanitarian award, she knew in that instant that she deserved it.

So yeah. Too long, didn't read version:

Some tourist stole my shoes. People can suck, but probably not Cambodians.