Siem Reap

We're still in the Reap.  Yesterday we rode cruiser bikes to the closer temples, the big hitters, the mother wats.  They certainly live up to the billing of 8th Wonder of the World.  I won't bore you with a description of each temple but one in particular deserves some PT hyberbole.  Ta Prohm.  Google it.  The still intact stone temples have sucumbed to the mighty grip of enormous trees, many of which found purchase hundreds of years ago (when still saplings) on the roofs of the temples, and as they grew into the towering behemoths they are today their gnarled, thirsty roots, in search of better footing and more nourishing soil below, coiled and twisted around doorframes and bas-reliefs and building stones like the crushing tentacles of a giant squid.  The Lonely Planet is as guilty as I in its use of hyperbole when describing a place -- its authors often use words like mythic, mystical, stunning, etc without the least bit of editorial restraint.  All those words, however, aptly apply to Ta Prohm (and really to many of the other temples of Angkor).

Today we took a tuk tuk and a longboat to a floating village called Kampong Phhluk on the shores of Tonle Sap, a massive lake that claims millions of acres in the middle of Cambodia.  Google it as well.  All the huts in the village are built on 25 to 30 foot stilts to account for the huge fluctuation in water levels on the Mekong.  Pigs and other animals meant for eating are caged in floating pens.

Other miscellaneous notes:

1) Yesterday I accidentally formated the memory card in my camera and lost about 400 photos dating back to week one in Laos.  I was crushed.  I did some research online and found some websites advertising software which allows you to recover erased data on a memory card.  I pray the software is legit.

2)  Tauts.  Some tauts will try to sell you just about anything.  For example, in Nepal, at 6:00 in the morning, a rickshaw driver accosted me outside of our guesthouse and the following conversation took place:

Him:  Rickshaw?
Me:  No thank you.
Him:  Trek, take you to Everest, see big mountain?
Me:  No.
Him:  Hash?
Me:  Sorry.
Him:  Laundry
Me (I shake my head with a smile and walk away)
Him:  Where you from?
Me:  America.
Him:  Rickshaw?

Other tauts will try to sell you something you clearly don't need.  For example, yesterday while riding our bikes a tuk tuk driver yelled:  "Tuk tuk, where you go?"

Other tauts will use clever lines to lure you into buying their stuff.  For example, today Erin and I walked towards a few roadside stands to get a drink and 4 young girls came sprinting towards us, screaming and carrying on.  When we decided to buy a coke and a sprite from one of the girls, another girl who lost out on the sale looked at me, half wistfully, half bitterly, and said with a mocked anguish:  "But my name is Suanna?"

3)  Way too many Cambodians are missing appendages.  Eventually this place will be fully de-mined.

4)  Fish foot therapy.  In SE Asia, and particularly here, massage parlors have big fish tanks on the ground (holding thousands of gallons of water and huge schools of little fish) in which you place your feet for the fish to nibble on.

5)  Today we ran into a woman selling a basket full of deep-fried tarantulas.  I was tempted.

Tomorrow we leave for the world capitol of depravity -- Phnom Pehn.  We stay there a night and then head south by bus to Kampot, a small town in Southern Cambodia.

Hope all is well.