Sunrise over Angkor Wat

We left the hotel around 5:30 AM so that we could scramble up the steep, dilapidated steps of Phnom Bakheng to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was nice to be still and silent with the cool--relatively speaking--morning breeze wafting by. The temple complex itself had 108 towers constructed on different levels. Many have been reconstructed although many others are still in disrepair.

The roads here are actually quite good although narrow and being shared with everything from cars, trucks, motorcycle pulled rickshaw like carriages, and bicycles. If the windows were open on the van we could reach out and touch the riders they are traveling so close to the vehicle. The cars have the driver on the right side of the vehicle (similar to Great Britain) but they drive on the right side of the road. That means that the passenger and the long sliding door on the side of the van opens in to the stream of traffic. Needless to say, you look both ways.

As we toured Angkor Wat yesterday, I forgot to mention that there is a small echo chamber. The superstition goes something like this, you stand against one wall and hit your chest, the echo reverberates and the sickness is then absorbed via your back into the stone, thus making you better. To be prophylactic, we did the hitting your chest thing although more so to hear the cool reverbs.

I have broken a few food rules, but it seems that it is very difficult to follow them to a "T". The chili peppers that are available to be sprinkled on the various dishes and the prolific basil leaves find their way into everything. Yes I have visions of cysticercosis in the back of my mind. We also have been drinking non-carbonated water. Hummmmm. What we have been drinking--that I haven't purified myself--is labeled as reverse osmosis as well as ultraviolet and ozone treated. Let me just say, so far so good, because we've needed the water with the warmth of the day and the high humidity.

On an aside, our guide tells us that the main tourists are Japanese and Korean, followed by French and then Americans. We both had a chuckle when we were having breakfast in the hotel, and a Japanese boy was wearing a shirt that said, "My dad is stranger than your dad."