Extract from my Elephant Book (27 Jan 2007)

- "On a highway made of red dirt in the middle of Cambodia. As you cross the border the GDP per capita drops by US$6000. Everywhere there is dust: the road, the buildings, the fences, my clothes, my hands, these pages. Outside the land is flat as far as the horizon. Unsown fields, not green nor picturesque, but empty dry grass.

There is the blare of a hooter and a car passes us from behind. I haven't yet worked out whether Cambodians drive on the right or the left side of the road. It doesn't appear that they have reached a consensus yet either.

We rattle along the road to Siem Reap (which, roughly translated, means "that time we thrashed the bastard Thais into the middle of next century and we have the temples to prove it").

Another hooter. The windows have no latches and as we jolt they work themselves open. This lets in air but it lets in the dust too. I close it, again. We pass two men on bicycles laden with tins. I read the signs along the road; " Cambodian People's Party", "Administrative of Police Post", "Austcare, Australians caring for refugees", a billboard advertising condom use.

A bus, unseen, sweeps past us and fills the bus with dust through the window which has jolted open, again. We reach for the water to wash our tongues clean.

Are they dust devils in the distance or the smoke from small grass fires? As the light dims the fires flicker on the horizon.

Our driver begins to play chicken with a truck. The truck wins. We slow to a brief stop to give it some distance and let the dust settle. The sun is red and the dust is red and my finger prints on these pages smudge red across these words." -