Trust Your Guide

As hard it has been for me to trust various guides I've had in my (not so many) travels over the last several decades, so it has been hard for me to trust (for lack of a better phrase) my "inner" guides. On this trip, for whatever reason, I have been much more able and willing to trust my guides. Sometimes I have trusted without a second thought, other times I have come to trust through overcoming doubts or suspicious thoughts, sometimes I have come to trust through experience.

On my first day, the tuk tuk driver I met at the Buddhist Pagoda (seemed to be a trustworthy place to meet a tuk tuk driver!) when we made an arrangement for him to take me to Tonle Sap (see previous post--"Offerings"). Later that night he picked me up to take me to a tourist dinner and traditional Cambodian dance show that he had encouraged me to sign up for. He was a little late in picking me up and he explained (without taking his helmet off) that his grandmother was in the hospital with an injured leg and that he had to come up with a bunch of cash to help pay for it. He then, with some difficult I think, asked me if I could loan him or give him $50. I was in a spot--he seemed genuinely upset, and we had spent the day together and I felt he was a good guy. But it was my first day in town and I had heard so much about corruption, and I had already been duped earlier that day (donate to instead of delivering directly, except for your English lessons of course, to orphanages). And his request probably hit some nerve in me about my own difficulties around money and my clear status as having privilege (which I have trouble dealing with particularly gracefully sometimes). And I also didn't have $50 on me. I resisted him, but he pressed. And I ended up giving him the $20 I had.  He insisted that I should call him (he gave me his mobile phone number) and that he would drive me during my stay. We parted. You probably think I'm nuts. But I let it go and went and had a reasonably good dinner in a huge banquet hall and saw some actually pretty interesting dance.

It turns out I didn't take any tuk tuks over the next many days (except in desperation later the next night when I walked quite in the wrong direction and had to succumb to taking a tuk tuk back to my hotel). Then a couple of days ago as I was biking past the Buddhist pagoda where we first met, I saw him--he waved, I waved happily back but kept moving in the flow of traffic. Yesterday I was walking to meet my new Dutch friend for lunch and he saw me walking down the street, turned his tuk tuk around (mid-street in chaotic traffic, as is the way here!) and asked me if he could take me somewhere. I was only going a couple of blocks, but I went with him. He asked me why I hadn't called, and I explained my non-tuk tuk travel. He reminded me to call him whenever I needed him. After lunch when we were walking over to the Old Market area, we saw Rea at the pagoda. My friend needed a ride to the hospital where her partner was with Dengue Fever--so Rea took us there (a long way and often a 3-5$ expense, depending on your bargaining skills), and brought me and a young Israeli couple (another story!) back of course without charge. He reminded me again to call him.

He has been true to his word. I believe I was right to trust in my instincts about Rea. It wasn't without doubts and hesitations, but I clearly need to trust my intuition and to trust in what I think is the basic truth about humans-- that we are all basically good souls, deserving of respect and trust.