I visited Angkor with a Schootzy Lens! Argh! (or, "Excuse me, but I think I've lost my kidneys!")

Just in case there's anyone reading who has, miraculously, never heard of Angkor, here's a bit of background, yawner if you hated history. According to the collective research of my guidebooks, the accuracy of which I can't attest to, Angkor Archeological Park, a complex of 70 tombs, temples, palaces, moats, reservoirs, and causeways was built over a period of 400 years, between the 9th and the 14th centuries. It spans 200 square kilometers, with the key ruins concentrated in an area of approximately 60 square kilometers. (Wiki's entry says there are actually over 1000 temple ruins.)

Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire, generally designated as the 630-year stretch from 802 to 1431, and its architecture reflects a unique mix of Hinduism and Buddhism, each of which was prominent at different times. Shiva was initially the most favored deity; by the 12th century, it was Vishnu. Mahayana Buddhism was introduced as the court religion by the end of the 12th century. Kings were also deified. The result of these influences is the colossal, astounding ancient city of Angkor, which at its zenith may have been home to a population of as many as 750,000 citizens. Few people have not been transfixed by photographic images of Angkor Wat, the world's largest, best-known and most photographed temple. It lived up to these tourists' expectations, though Dan was uniquely situated to benefit from our guide's knowledge of this full-square-kilometer-sized monument. Hein and I (she, because she speaks Vietnamese and I because Khmer-accented English is indecipherable), were largely to marvel at its grandeur and the world's longest bas-relief panels, the most interesting (to my mind, anyway) of which depicts the "Churning of the Sea of Milk" -- a Hindu creation myth.

We managed to see quite a bit on our first full day: the Bayon, Ta Prohm, Angkor Thom, Bakeng Hill, The Terrace of the Leper King, the Elephant Terrace, Ta Kaeo and, of course, Ankgor Wat. You can find better pictures on the net than I took, so Ive included just a few personal ones, together with what I consider to be the true jewel of Angkor, the little "pink", lesser-known Banteay Srei ("Citadel of Women"), which is described in detail here.



















Somewhere on the road between Siem Reap and the "Citadel of Women" temple, the loveliest sight my eyes have beheld to date, are my kidneys. They were intact--albeit barely--when I left Dan and Hien and boarded a tuk-tuk outside the Blue Pumpkin in Siem Reap. Before that, they, along with Dan's and Hien's kidneys, had been near-disgorged by our dispiriting but ultimately successful quest to find the relocated TerreCambodge travel agency, the only one to whom I would dare entrust a full day to tomorrow's day-trip to Lake Tonle Sap. As Dan so aptly stated, 45 minutes into the dusty expedition, "talk about the road less traveled." If the dust or lost kidneys didn't kill up, a wouldn't-have-been-a-bit-surprising tuk-tuk tumble into the drainage ditch might have. (And, while I'm on tuk-tuk tumbles, if the driver's wearing a helmet, doesn't that suggest that we may need them too?!)

Near as we can tell--because it's never entirely clear what's going on when one of the involved languages is Khmer--we're being picked up by tuk-tuk (yes, again!) for a half-hour (that means an hour, I think) ride to a boat dock. We board a sampan (again, we *think*), see a floating fishing village and then paddle ourselves in wooden dug-out canoes through a mangrove-like forest. We'll return to Palm Village Resort just long enough to grab our bags and head to the airport for a 6 pm flight to Hanoi. Please let nothing happen that will trump our current best-missed-flight story!