Angkor-What?

greetings from siem reap, cambodia.

i have to write all in lower case because the keyboard in this steaming cyber cafe dates back to the WINDOWS '92 era. it is nearly as ancient as the great Khmer kingdom.

today john and i (along with throngs and throngs of tourists from the globe over) hiked around the beautiful ancient temples of Angkor Wat, and other relics of the Khmer civilization. we went to the biggest temple at 5:30am to watch the sun rise over the breath-taking landscape. the crowd was roughly the size of michigan-ohio state football game. the rest of the day was spent exploring a few of the other 30 or so temples and monuments in the area, including angkor thom, the temple in which scenes of angela jolie's hollywood hit "tomb raider" were shot. it's amazing how much that movie has affected this town. local bars even have drinks named after the voluptuous lara croft.

we have been enjoying every minute of cambodia, and wish our trip weren't so brief. tonight we had dinner at a restaurant-theater and saw several 'traditional' Cambodian dances showcased. i'm not sure whether they were 100% authentic, but the costumes sure were shiny. it was beautiful.

interesting things about cambodia (or at least siem reap):

1. there are so many tourists that almost all local people speak some degree of english. by the way, cambodia was colonized by the french not the brits, which makes this doubly amazing.

2. almost everything is price-listed in US dollars. you can also pay in cambodian 'reál', thai baht, etc. i wonder if they take canadian loonies?

3. the rickshaws here are comfy, padded, and pulled by motorcycles. a welcome change after the bone-jarring rides of dhaka.

well, i still can't believe i haven't devised a way to post pics. we have plenty of good ones. shame on me. will keep working.

off to bangkok tomorrow for three days.

yours truly,

TKP