Schmootz on my camera lens!

Drat! A full day of temple touring--Angor Wat, Angkor Thom, and Ta Phrom, among others--only to discover upon transferring my images from my memory card to my laptop that I had schmootz of some sort on my lens all day. Sheesh! What happened to my photographic conscientiousness? Maybe it was the withering heat and humidity, the exhaustion of trying to understand our Khmer-accented English-speaking guide! Poor Dan's got his hands full, translating English to Vienamese for Hien and translate indecipherable English to decipherable English for me! It's get so confusing that he's found himself lapsing to...Spanish, of all things! ROFL! Anyway, schmootz or no schmootz, we're having a great time in Cambodia.

Because we missed our 3:30 flight--ahem--we were then three hours early for the rebooked flight, and so arrived at the gate with more than ample time. So early were we, in fact, that when they changed the gate number on the screens, we'd already passed them all by. Fifteen minutes before departure, we heard an announcement that the gate had been changed and only later realized the announcement was for us alone! They knew we'd checked in, but hadn't boarded! So after all we'd already been through, we practically had to do the OJ-Simpson-leaping-over-bags-running-through-the-airport bit. The gate agents had even been dispatched to find us and literally screamed for us to get on board with all due haste. Hien's satin-and-jeweled high heels did her no favors as she clip-clapped along in our wake, three of her steps to every one o ours. It's funny now. Linda will surely be posting a comment about how my face must have looked after that little episode. To repeat: I do not miss flights and I do not run to gates. I'm the first arrival with the bulkhead seat, working the system to all possible advantage and comfort. I do not miss flights!

As usual, I digress.

I'm sitting in the open-air dining/lobby area of the Palm Village Resort in Sien reap. Toads (toads!) are hopping underfoot and I don't one bit like their seeming unawareness that they manifestly should *not* be hopping towards me, of all people. I can't tell you how many times since our arrival yesterday that I've found myself thinking, upon seeing some yet-to-be-identified thing, "please don't be a creature." And creatures there are. Geckos and rats in Saigon, toads and bugs of all manner here in Siem Reap. Fortunately, Dan is my natural bug repellant--where ever he is, that's where the bugs are--he attracts them away. But he's gone back to his bungalow, so I'm having to fend for myself. Honestly, I've not been bitten once and can't seem to find a mosquito. (Though there are some interesting--er, scary--bugs that keep landing on my laptop screen, and I have a strange rash of some sort on my calf of uncertain origin, whether flora or fauna.) (Oh, there goes another toad..not sure how I'll get from the table to the door without an encounter!)

We left for the temples with our car, driver and guide at 8 and were back by 4:30. A full day of temple-rock scrambling and dodging omnipresent troops of Korean tourists. (Enormous toad--eek!) Nothing can prepare you for the first sight of Angkor. Nothing.

Have to stop here--the bugs and toads are the victors. Will share tomorrow a pic of the graceful Cambodian dance--Apsara--that we saw this evening, as well as a few other highlights that are getting diluted by our abundant subsequent experiences.

(Please let me get out of here without squishing a toad--they've now got me surrounded.)