At times I caught myself hoping that the Cambodians "knew something" we didn't. Plunder and occupy for as long as we pleased, we'd never find the religious truths Angkor contains deep in its stones. Perhaps, just as the temples patiently wait out the centuries, the Khmer are standing by while the West expends itself in "cultural anthropology" and "theology," poised to reassume their holy nobility after we give up the chase. I'm afraid this notion is specious, very possibly born of a received orientalism, and surely romantic. But when your Cambodian moto driver drops you off at a thousand-year-old sanctuary and then hangs out at a concessions stall for two hours while you look around, it's a reassuring one.

Attend to the words. It's no coincidence that the language of the world, like its currency, is also American. I toured part of Cambodia with a Dutch woman named Lijsa. Did I speak any Dutch? No. (Actually, I know one word: sneeuwscheuvel. That means "snow shovel.") But Lijsa spoke English perfectly, except when mispronouncing "relief." I uttered no Khmer while I was in Cambodia until the last few days, when I figured out that aw kohn means thank you and su s'day means hello. I could not ask for anything -- food, shelter, a bathroom, a doctor -- in their language, and I didn't need to know how. Show up in Southeast Asia and speak English, and before long you'll find someone to understands you. In fact, just look Western, plop yourself down on a bench, light a cigarette or open a Coke, and mind your own business. Within minutes someone will come and talk to you: "Transport?" "Sir are you married?" "Mistah you buy pineapple?" Perhaps you're German, Israeli, Russian: all of them powerful first-world countries that play major roles in the global theater. To most Southeast Asian eyes you're basically American -- those are dollars you're exchanging, after all -- and you'd better know English, too.

After paying my five bucks to get out of Laos, I sat next to an Englishwoman during the flight back to Bangkok. She told me she had recently gone to the town of Battambang in Cambodia, intending to spend two days. But the bonzes there begged her so desperately to teach them English that she stayed for over a week, and in exchange they gave her introductory lessons in Buddhist meditation. She was headed back that day. Ingriss, Ingriss, Ingriss. As an American, I rarely gave it any thought. I just spoke my language because that's what they were speaking to me. (What's it like to be Swiss, or Spanish, or Korean, and have to speak English in Cambodia?) When they couldn't speak it, we pointed or wrote numbers on pads, because we were communicating only in order to negotiate the terms of a sale.

Dollars and English; English and dollars. I couldn't speak their language and I was constantly fumbling with my guidebook and five different currencies. I could only have felt more foolish had I been wearing an I'M WITH STUPID t-shirt. But my American speech was like a halo, my money like wings. The Kiwis and Canadians I traveled with, the Irish and the Aussies and the Dutch, elicited only mild grunts of recognition when they named their nations. When I said "America," though, faces lit up and crowds gathered. They wanted me to sing them songs. They wanted me to deliver letters to people in Carifohnya. I want to speak Amelika. My cousin lives in Amelika. I want to see Amelika. No, I wanted to say, you don't. All we do there is buy shoes.

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