As we talked over dinner I found her very smart, and quite adventurous: she was a year younger than I but she'd already traveled extensively in Europe and Asia. She was confident enough to have come to Siem Reap alone after her traveling companions had gone back to Amsterdam from Thailand. Her intolerance for duplicity or vagueness of any kind was swift and keen; it would emerge several times over the next few days as we confronted the mazes and hurdles of third world travel. She studied the restaurant menu carefully and inquisitively. She ate and drank well but not overmuch. She smoked a lot, assuredly, contently: everything she did betokened a woman who had grown fully into herself, who knew pleasure and sustenance. I was a little envious of her. I noticed that she used the word "well" whenever she needed to fill a pause taken for mental translation from Dutch to English: "Thailand was... well... it was very developed." There was no right way to tell her that Americans just say 'um' -- or worse, 'like' -- when we're trying to cover a pause. That isn't the kind of vernacular I want to teach people.
She was thin but sturdy, and her shoulders were so broad that her slender neck seemed to be propped upon a 2"x4", like a scarecrow's. (She told me later that she used to row crew.) But all that rectilinearity was set off against a warmly rounded, cinquecento face. Her hair, which she wore in a ponytail, was long and streaky-brown from the tropical sun. There was a cold sore burgeoning on her lower lip. When we stood up to leave I saw how tall she was, taller than I.
The next morning, Sawath showed up with a different second driver. I wondered whether the first had somehow "fired" us. Did we flunk his standard for tourists? Had we unknowingly committed an unforgivable breach of Khmer etiquette? Lijsa's new driver called himself George. He was more vocal, a little more aggressive than Sawath. One day we got drenched by rains, and the two of them had to maneuver us carefully, onerously, through and around floods and runnels. Neither had any raingear. We had to wait out the heaviest squalls under tarps erected as roadside "convenience stores," whose meager stock comprised a hodgepodge of Thai candy, painful Vietnamese cigarettes, and cloudy homemade rice liquor. When we got back to Siem Reap that evening, George tried to bully us into paying more for the day's transportation. Lijsa and I had already privately agreed to increase the daily fee in gratitude for their perseverance, but George's importunity annoyed her so much that she refused to give him his bonus. I had to insist, gently, diplomatically.
