He tells me his name is Tu, and he takes my outstretched hand and encloses it within both of his own. But his touch is so soft that I have to look down to make sure his hands are actually around mine. I’m not sure what to make of this gentle man whose voice is barely above a whisper. I don’t know what I expected at all about Cambodia, other than it would be harsh, forbidden and unforgiving. What I am presented with now, however, is far beyond my understanding.

The Cambodia of my youth was shaped by stories of illegal bombing raids, George Harrison benefit albums and Dead Kennedys punk anthems. Kampuchea. Pol Pot. Names that evoked mystery and horror at the same time, although I could not have told you why. I was too young to care, and by the time I was old enough to care, I didn’t.

Maybe that is why, now many years later, I have come to this place, to try to understand what all the fuss was about. But I cannot understand what Tu and his family, and thousands upon thousands more like him, suffered through while I was safe at home in our cozy Los Angeles home with a nice backyard and a gardener. Any more than I would ever understand what it must have been like to grow up poor and black in Alabama in 1953.

Certainly Tu was not going to enlighten me. He, and nearly everyone else I met, was eager to talk about the wonders of their country, but not to dwell on the past. They all want to know what I think of their country. You would think that these people, of nearly any people in the world, would have earned the right to carry a very large chip on their shoulder, for the raping of their country and their citizenry. And I would not argue with them. But I find that that is not the case. Instead, I get the feeling that they are embarrassed, of all things, like an ailing family member who is uncomfortable receiving so much attention at a gathering.

I was in Siem Reap to see the temples of Angkor. As memories of the war begin to fade and peace is slowly restored, Cambodia is struggling to gain a foothold in the tourism industry (and gaining it is, as there were at least three new large hotels under construction when I was there). I go with Tu because he knows the way, and he has what seems to be one of the nicest automobiles in town, a 1992 Toyota Camry with leather interior. I remark that he has a very nice car, and he tells me he bought it for $7,000 a couple years ago. I am paying Tu $20 a day for his driving and guide services. Where he got $7,000 I don’t know, but he sure keeps that car clean. No matter whether we had driven through potholes, mud, dirt or dust, or whether I had deposited most of the mud from my boots on his floorboard, the next time I saw that car it was spotless.

He is especially proud of the fact that it is a left-hand drive, as most of the cars and trucks here are right-hand drive. Yet, even though I was there for three days I never quite discerned whether the laws required one to drive on the left or the right hand side of the road, regardless of where the steering wheel was. Just when I thought I had it figured out, someone would go whizzing by on the opposite side, ruining my latest hypothesis and scaring the shit out of me at the same time.

On my last day with Tu I visit the granddaddy of them all, Angkor Wat. Tu doesn’t accompany me inside, but leaves me alone to fend off or haggle with the local guides as I wish. He prefers to wait with the car and talk with the locals. Some might be family, but it’s hard to tell because he treats everyone with the same quiet reverence.

I am exhausted, physically and mentally. I have traipsed around in the muggy heat, up and down hundreds of steps, fought off swarms of insistent bugs and even more insistent hawkers, but I am satisfied. I have walked alone among the Khmer ruins, imaging in my mind’s eye what it must have been like to live there in the twelfth century, in the height of Angkor’s grandeur.

I return to the car and ask Tu to take me back to the hotel. "You know," he says in his sing-song voice, "you and I, we have very different ideas about what we would like to see. You come here and you want to see all these old temples at the end of muddy roads that don’t mean very much to me. Me, I want to see good roads, big skyscrapers and a big airport."

I tell him that if he ever makes it to Los Angeles, I will drive him around to all of these places. Then he drops me off, and I realize I will never see him again.