Macaques, Angkor Wat, and bar trivia

We were up and out of the hostel by 8. We met Noah and had a quick breakfast together. Augie went with banana pancakes, while I went with an awesome fruit plate. Theng was waiting for us, and we went right back to Angkor. On our way back in, we saw some macaques waiting patiently to sucker tourists out of food. We happily obliged them, and they let us take their picture.

One of our first stops in the morning was Preah Khan. After that was Neak Pean, a temple atop an artificial island surrounded by a moat. The coolest part of that was the huge millipede I found when I ventured off to pee behind a building.

For lunch, we stopped at a grouping of restaurants. We were accompanied by a little merchant girl who kept at us with her impressive English. Tired of just saying "no thank you," Noah decided to get creative. The girl had a cute stuffed animal attached to her belt loop; Noah asked her how much that would cost. Her eyes bulged for a beat, but she quickly recovered: "One hundred dollars." Noah played right along, agreeing. She didn't like this at all, and left us alone.

Meanwhile, I ordered chicken green curry with rice. I think it ran me $3, and it was amazing.

After lunch, we continued on to Ta Som, East Mebon, and Pre Rup. Ta Som was interesting, but I got tired of walking with the group, and decided to wander around on my own at each place. Armed with the Indiana Jones theme on endless loop in my head, I clambered around temples, imagining what the builders and original inhabitants thought about them.

I've since learned that East Mebon dates from the 10th century, making it about 200 years older than most of the other temples. Pre Rup was made even more interesting by the thunderstorm that blew in while we were there. We took cover in a central chamber, but that only kept us partly dry--the ceiling was open. It was a great chance to huddle next to other tourists. I counted Spanish and Japanese being spoken!

Having come perilously close to being sick of temples, we decided to finish with Angkor Wat itself and be done with it. The thunderstorm had moved on, leaving a steady drizzle in its wake. We decided to try waiting it out in a cafe across from the temple moat, and paid entirely too much for a ham sandwich and coffee.

On our way to the bathroom before heading to the temple, we were marauded by a particularly persistent group of ten-year-olds. Realizing this was probably our last chance to mess with them, we each struck up conversation with one. Mine went this way:

Girl: "Hey mister, where you from?"
Me: "Cambodia."
Girl: "I don think so!"
Me: "Where are you from?"
Girl: "Cambodia!"
Me: "I don't think so. You're from Vietnam."
Girl: (looking like I just hit her) "No! I'm from America!"
Me: "Okay. Who's the president?"
Girl: (without missing a beat) "Obama. Who's the president of Cambodia?"
Me: "...I don't know."

I think we were the funnest group of tourists they'd had all day. Mine stuck with me:

Girl: "Buy a bracelet!"
Me: "No."
Girl: "Buy one for your wife!"
Me: "I don't have a wife."
Girl: "Buy one for your girlfriend!"
Me: "I don't have a girlfriend."
Girl: "You know why you don't have a girlfriend?"
Me: "Why?"
Girl: "Because you don't buy my bracelet!"

When it became apparent that I wasn't buying any of her wares, she asked me to buy her some ice cream. I said maybe, after we came back from the temple.

Angkor Wat proper is surrounded by an outer moat 190 meters wide, which is outside a 30-meter-wide apron of ground, which is outside a 1024-by-802-meter, 4.5-meter-high wall. We took some pictures on our trek across the moat, and I kept mistakenly thinking we'd finally reached the temple.

The wall encloses a massive plot of land, split down the middle by the causeway entering from the moat. We made our way down, marveling at the openness and the crowds before finally reaching the temple entrance.

The temple itself was nothing less than amazing. The outer walls of the temple are a gallery of bas reliefs depicting many Hindu stories, including the Churning of the Ocean of Milk and several epic battles, including the Battle of Kurukshetra. We dutifully walked along all four walls in the prescribed order, able to appreciate them only as works of art. I felt as though I'd wasted a wonderful opportunity to learn about Hinduism, but there wasn't much I could do about it there.

The central temple was off limits to tourists, as it was being restored by some German outfit. Mildly disappointed, but still satisfied, we made our way out. I was only slightly surprised to see the same girl come running up to me asking for that ice cream. We headed to where we'd seen it, only to find out that it'd left for the day. She wasn't terribly happy.

We headed back to Siem Reap, thanked Theng for his services, tipped him, and said goodbye. We just made it to the day market as it was closing up; I bought a silk hammock for $3. The four of us headed to dinner. As we were ordering, Rachel and Carol--two ALTs from Sasebo--walked up. I'd known they were in southeast Asia for Golden Week, but we hadn't been able to line our plans up. They joined the table, and we had an awesome dinner.

Afterwards, we headed to the Funky Munky for bar trivia. It was exactly the style of trivia I miss--teams huddle together, write their answers down, and turn them in to the emcee. We finished in the middle of the pack, but we didn't really care about the points anyway. No, really. The group broke up afterward, and we three went back to the hostel at about midnight.