one night in bangkok...

Actually, several nights in Bangkok. I got in on Saturday, but haven't had the money to publish this post until today, Tuesday. My bank, if you could it call it that, has decided to freeze my ATM card because of some pretty suspicious activity, namely, me using it in Thailand, clearly a very suspicious country. So 44 year old me had to run to my mommie to save my sorry ass by wiring some money Western Union. You can actually live pretty cheaply in Thailand, but the 150USD I changed at the airport isn't going to make it two weeks. More about Bangkok in my next post, hopefully in a day or two, but let me take a moment to gush about Cambodia.

The ruins at Angkor are endless, immense, and elaborately detailed. A three day pass with a private driver barely scratches the surface. I managed to see 20 temples in various states of preservation and ruin, within a 40 km radius of Siem Reap over three full days. For me, the highlights included that iconic image of Angkor Wat's towers; the enigmatically smiling 15 foot tall faces at Bayon; and the trees growing from the roof of Tha Prohm.

Just south of Angkor sits the ever expanding tourist city of Siem Reap, once pretty much nothing, now over 200,000 people. I stayed at a guesthouse above an Irish Bar, Molly Malone's, just so I could be sure there'd be English speaking people around. I needn't have worried, everyone there speaks English. The town is growing by leaps and bounds, and you had better hurry over there before it starts swallowing up the temple ruins.

The people of Cambodia amaze me. After 20 years of civil war, they are curious, quick to smile, and like a good laugh. My driver, Tong, lost his father in the early 70's for the subversive activity of teaching math at university. The Khmer Rouge emptied the cities of Cambodia, and forced everyone to farm. By the time they were forced to flee the country, over 2 million people, 1/4 of the population, had died. The country was left one of the poorest places on earth. But Tong was too young to remember this, and is doing well by his pretty wife and new son. These people have been to hell and back and still manage to thrive, even prosper.

Wow.