Good Luck One Dolla'

The bus for Siem Reap was leaving at noon. That gave us a couple of hours to head to the beautiful National Museum in Phnom Penh. Rushing ourselves to pack was really worth it for this museum. At the centre a courtyard surrounded on all sides by large open rooms filled with sculptures. There was even a display of original Rodin sketches of Cambodian dancers from many years ago.

Our first afternoon in Siem Reap we checked into the Number 9 Guesthouse. It featured the first of three signs that amused me in SR.
The second sign was at the Dead Fish, a multi-level bar with floor seating and a crocodile pit.

And of course, the Twenty Seven, or rather, Seven Twenty as it says on the door.

The following day, once we slept through the morning into early afternoon, we grabbed a tuk-tuk driver and made our way out to Angkor Wat, the most famous of the temples of the former ancient Kmer empire. According to the Lying Planet is the largest religious building in the world. The central tower represents Hinduism's mythical Mount Meru. The wat was built in honour of Vishnu and served as the funerary temple for the king. The carvings along the wall and pillars are sublime. The nagas seem to be stepping out of the stone into the courtyards.

I wasn't really prepared for the steep walk up to the central tower. The steps are almost at a 90 degree angle. No railing in sight either to help you hold on. Signs at the bottom warn that you climb at your own risk.


I climbed slowly and got a cramp in my leg. Then I posed like so with Chris on the steps.

Sorry, you're gonna have to turn your head sideways. The computer here won't let me save an upright copy onto the hard drive.

The second temple we looked at was Bayon, the temple of faces. 216 faces of Avalokiteshvara to be exact.

Every temple has a Buddha statue sitting in one of the rooms with a bald headed wo/man trying to entice you to buy incense sticks for good luck.

Day 2 was more intense. We woke up at 4:30am to catch a tuk-tuk for the underwhelming sunrise at Ankor Wat. Seems that a few hundred other tourists had the same sort of idea. The sunrise went from blurry dark to blurry grey to blurry overcast skies.

On the plastic chairs next to us, at the edge of the lake, was Richard and his whiny wive. She ordered the coffee, got the money out of his moneybelt to pay, decided where they sat and clearly had no problems letting the world know that she was a pain in the ass. The icing on the cake was when she asked a lady immediately after sunrise "are you Japanese?". The woman did not look Japanese at all. She was Malaysian to which she replied "oh, because our son bought us this digital camera and I can't figure out how it works." Oh yes she did! I walked away to laugh and laugh and laugh.

We looked at some more temples. Chris was miserable. Food poisoning in the form of liquid poo. After a while all the temples started to look the same. Ta Prohm of Lara Croft fame was filled with Korean tourists taking pictures of every stone. Somehow I managed to edit them out of my shots.

They cut down the tree shooting out of the temple that Angelina Jolie stood atop but there were plenty of other overgrowing roots to photograph.

The Terrace of Elephants was also nice. The temple itself is under construction (cranes and all) and looks like a pile of rocks but the carvings on the outside were beautifully detailed.

Ta Keo is a massive pyramid that was not worth the two minute hike up the steep steps. There ain't nothing on top to look over or at. Nada.

That night we headed to the Seeing Hands massage parlor. It's a basement with four beds and four blind masseuses. They were good. A one hour massage cost $4. My guy felt his way around the bed with his hands and then spent a lot of time on my ass and legs. A little 4-year old girl that lives there came up and started to play with my dangling hands.

Banteay Srei is 37km away. We left it for the last day. Our driver took over an hour to get there which is why we didn't make it out to the sunset balloon ride. Admittedly, we kinda had a half-ass sightseeing schedule but the heat and angry ass problem were major factors in our decision to take it easy. Plus, once you've been in temples for a few hours you stop looking at the sculptures and walk straight through to the end just so you can say you've been there.

Banteay Srei is known as the women's temple and is much smaller than most other sites. It is one of the most beautiful and definitely worth the ride out. The intricate carvings on the temple walls are mouth watering. Unfortunately, the temple is now roped off so you can't walk right amidst the buildings but it is still very photogenic.

On the way back we stopped at a huge man-made lake to watch some local kids frolic in the water at sunset.

The last night in Siem Reap we headed out to the Boom Boom Room for music. My ipod never had it so good.

On our way up the street a local 10-year old street kid came up to me and hugged me. She walked down the street with me arm in arm and then did it again when she saw me walk the other way. She was beaming. Another amazing 20 second moment in Asia that has stayed with me for weeks.