I'm stuck on movies.

Probably because I haven't been in a movie theater for awhile. There is a movie theater here in Phenom Penh, but it's hot and dangerously overcrowded with school children.

Have you ever seen the old movie, The Time Machine? How about Planet of the Apes or any of the Star Treks, especially the old ones. All these movies described my afternoon yesterday.

Krista wanted to go swimming. And what do you know, Phenom Penh has an Olympic sized pool and it's open to the public!

Both of us get on the back of a motorbike and cruise on over to the Olympic Stadium. The stadium is huge. It dwarfs the city around it and you can see the Olympic Torch out front. From the entrance gate, it looks majestic and proud.

We pay 12.5 cents to some guy laying in a hammock at the gate. He puts the money in his pocket. Krista asks about the pool, but he doesn't speak english. We pantomime swimming and his friends point to the western boundary of the complex.

We pass a dozen tennis courts without nets. A young man is peeing in the corner of concrete bleachers. A few yards away, we spot a 10 meter high dive platform up in the sky and we know we've found the pool. We come up to the pool and it's glorious. Nobody there. The grandstands are gigantic. The pool is long and stately, but strangely bluish green.

We go to find the main entrance and pass by some guys working on their motorcycle. It's leaking oil everywhere. The glass doors are surprisingly unlocked. We go inside and see car parts, empty soda cans, somebody's laundry hanging in the corner, and a makeshift stove sitting next to rows and rows of shower stalls.

We go outside the shower area and a couple of old men seem to be trimming the hedges without putting any real attention into their work. I can see stuff in the bottom of the pool, mainly dirt, but on closer inspection, the pool is full of larvae-like things and swimming insects. There is a oily sheen on the surface. I touch the water and put my fingers up to my nose and it smells like a rain puddle, not chlorine. Krista and I sigh and sit next to the pool to discuss the possible diseases we could contract if we swam in it. It becomes clear we cannot swim here. This pool has been lost. This society can't maintain such a facility, let alone feed their people or prevent their daughters from being sold into the sex trade.

So, remember that scene from The Time Machine when the blonde people from the future shows the main character where the library books are? He goes into the library all happy thinking these people are so idyllic and civilized and then picks up a dusty book from the shelf and it crumbles in his hands -- that was me yesterday afternoon.