Dani Stricker could hardly believe it. She didn’t recognise a thing. The country looked utterly foreign to her.
The new airport was different to what she had expected. What had she expected? The buildings were practically shining and the arrival hall was as neat and clean as the departure lounge in Frankfurt. Everything smelled new. The immigration officer wore a real uniform, hardly looked at her and, once she’d paid the twenty US dollars for a tourist visa, he stamped her German passport without pulling a face or asking for a bribe.
Her arrival card read, “Welcome to Cambodia”.
Fear and pleasure, a strange euphoria shot through her. The war, which she carried in the back of her head like the memory of an absent child, was nowhere to be seen. Outside, the taxi drivers hustled around he
