Angkor...Almost

Though there are several ways to see the Angkor Temples - the famous temples in northern Cambodia - I decided that I would rent a bike and take a tour by myself. I woke up at 7:30am, and made my way over to the bike rental place. For a grand $1.50, I was able to rent what seemed like a decent bike for the day.

It was quite easy to navigate my way through Siem Reap, the city near Angkor, and make my way to the front gates of Angkor in about 1 hour. The men at the front stand said I needed to buy a ticket and pointed me in the direction I needed to go. As I was enjoying the scenery around the road, I began to hear a funny noise coming from my bike. Before I could even stop to look at it, a loud noise came from my tire and completely deflated. I quickly came to a stop and began to examine my new problem. I couldn't see anything seriously wrong with the tire so I figured it was just a hole in my inner tube.

I was about half way between the ticket office and the front gate and decided that I would make my way to the ticket office and see if there was someone who could help. After about 30 minutes I arrived at the ticket office and the very kind man told me to continue down the road for about 10 minutes and there would be a bike stand. I arrived at the bike stand and the man began to look at it. He immediately showed me a massive split in the tire and with his hands explained that he would have to go into town to buy a new one. So I sat there drinking my water and laughed to myself at the situation. The man eventually made it back after about 20 minutes and very quickly put the new tire and tube on. I payed him $10 dollars and with a smile said goodbye and made my way back to the ticket office.

Its really not that big of a deal, right? Even so, I realized today that my patience has developed immensely since I have left the US. If this situation would have happened a year ago, I would have been on the verge of melting down. Though I wasn't exactly happy about the whole thing, without thinking about it I calmly figured out what to do and within an hour was able to get everything solved.

An hour.

How many times has an hour meant life or death to me? - "I can't stay on this bus one more hour or I am going to go crazy", "If I stay on this plane for another hour I am going to freak out", "Do you seriously expect me to sit through this lecture for an entire hour?"

But really an hour is only an hour. A small hiccup in our lives. I don't think that I have ever realized how insignificant an hour is and even had the patience to understand this until now. I usually go through a day without having to wait for anything and everything happens in the timing I want it to. It's so easy for us to do that. But sometimes situations throw curve balls at us, maybe just to see how we handle it.

For me, it takes a flat tire and an hour to really understand a small change this whole trip has had on me. I am grateful for this and I hope that it continues to work on the other flawed areas of who I am.