The rumors about the excessive flood were here and there. My family seemed confusing with wishy-washy decision. Finally, we did take risk and left on 25 September afternoon. The gossips were partly true. Some roads were covered with flood; in some cases, they were even damaged that made the travel nearly impossible.
All of my cousins had already left for Bateay when I arrived. It seemed that I had nothing to do while no one was around. I decided to begin an adventure biking around the whole village with a shabby bicycle starting from the east direction. Along the small rough road, I could see water spreading almost everywhere; some houses were submerged under the yellowish water. Villagers had placed their cattle along sides of the road; sometimes I found this hard to get through these huge creatures. To my surprise, when I went farther and farther, I still found some lively light green paddy rice field still existing during this flooding season, causing me to stop and enjoying the fantastic sight.
When I reached a small road leading to another part of the village, I heard three passers-by talking about one collapsed tuk-tuk when passing this road. I continued biking slowly and then realized that road was severely inundated; I was cautious now preparing to paddle through this hindrance. The water was calf-depth that I had to walk my bike side by side wading through the muddy floor below my both feet. At the middle of the flooded road, the soft standstill orange shadow of the sunset printed on the rippling water resembling the light of a candle; it kept my eyes staring quite a long time before I continued my tedious walk. At last the water was a bit shallow and the muddy floor was gone that I managed to cycle through the water. This was another rough road since the fast-flowing water had deformed the once smooth, easy-to-travel road.
Life appeared a bit harder for those villagers whose house was flooded waiting for the water to recede slowly under the course of time. Pigs were sleeping aimlessly in the grayish muddy enjoying this very much that I felt only if I would enjoy the same thing as they did. By this time, I thought that if my old bike had transformed into a mountain bike, my cycling would have been much comfortable. I felt numbness and ache on my butt after a long travel, but the scene of the countryside kept me travelling.
In some places, water was flowing without sign of tiredness across the road, but this time the water did the good things; children were playing with the floating water, seeming like they enjoyed this without thinking of a little break. I also found this joyful if I were children again. I stopped at one place where the floating water stretched all over the road. I could see the river in its full dimension, probably twice as large as its size in the dry season. The volume of the Mekong River was so huge that the surface of the river and road were on the same horizon. The sound of the flowing water kept trembling inside my ears as if I were at the waterfall, bringing the feeling of a miniature of the real waterfall. I parked my bike aside enjoying the flowing water alone as those kids I had seen before.
I walked with my bare feet feeling the flowing energy of current flood, fantasizing me very much. The water made its way through my toes forming the shape of my own feet before passing through to the other end of the road merging with the nearby pond. Occasionally, the loud noise of cars with so many passengers broke through the serenity of this silent countryside.
The sun was going to set down itself very soon, so I continued my biking heading for my grandparents’ home. From the distance, I heard monks’ sermon from the nearby pagoda informing me about the end of my adventure cycling. Suddenly, to my shock and horror, two sows were fighting over the share of their food, groaning so loudly combined with their forceful attacks that even the strings which tied them together were cut off. I had to stop my bicycle in front of the fierce row in case there was some necessary escape, I would achieve it breathlessly. Eventually, the huge sow won and the small one was in deep pain. I noticed that the skins of the sows were soft smooth pinkish that I remember one story “Charlotte’s Web”. Pig with smooth light pink skin is considered as a good pig – for slaughtering – I felt sympathy for them as well since they will not have much more times.
Ah finally I approached my destination with no energy but pain on my butt after a long cycling. Still all of these deserved my efforts for the fantastic views and surprising happening in return.
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