I'm in ruins!

          I'm so sad about leaving my school that I am in absolute ruins!  The ruins of Angkor wat an the surrounding temples! Perhaps you've heard of it? It's a UnESCO world heritage site, also one of the seven wonders of the world! If this still isn't ringing any bells, there was a movie called tomb raider where Angelina Jolie is running around the most beautiful place you've ever seen? Yes that's where I went today, wow!
         I said good bye to my tiny house and the dirty streets of Tapraya. I drove with
Kru Thavee to Aran, as we talked about how dangerous Cambodia is, and I'm very brave to go there alone, and how unfriendly Cambodians are. Great I'm trying to be calm about my border crossing to Cambodia today. I've read about it online and they make it seem like it's super awful. They'll. be scams and beggars and touts trying to trick you and pickpockets and casinos an loose women! So Kru Thavee wasn't doing much to put my mind at ease. He dropped me off and I thanked him for everything and said goodbye with an American hug!   Smooth as silk i crossed the street and walked toward the sign that says "departure" I followed it and the following sign that says "foreigner" yep thats me.  I saw two people doing a bike trek as we were pulling up to the border, I see the same bikers in line. Where are you from i ask? England! Awesome, how long have you been riding? We left England a year ago and have gone overland the entire way here.  What? Oh my, the adventures that people go on are astounding, and make my trip seem like such a baby adventure!  I get stamped out of Thailand, I walk out, I find my way to the right side of the road (yep back to driving and biking on this side of the road, the currency in Cambodia is also the US $).  I fill out my form, pay my $20 visa fee and head to immigration.  In about 30 minutes i was through the "Border nightmare" that i had been reading about for weeks.  I am finding that most things in life are not as scary as they are made out to be, or i got lucky.
       I found a taxi share to siem reap, the town that is a few kilometers outside of the temples.  I rode in the taxi with two korean businessmen from Bangkok.  One slept while, the other one drank red wine out of a plastic bottle and talked my ear off.  Did i mention its 9:30 in the morning? Ah well, it made the ride pass easily, and he gave me a bag of peanut M&M's. If i were in the U.S. under no circumstances would i probably eat this candy, but I'm in Cambodia and it seems like its my duty (and my Korean friend seems to think it is too) to eat them.  So I do and enjoy the sights of busses passing strapped with goods like a cartoon car, towering high into the sky, with a guy sitting on top.  Taxis and busses pass by like third world clown cars crammed with Cambodians. was that too many C words in a row?  We arrive in Siem Reap the taxi drops me off at my hotel (according to the internet another rarity, they supposedly try to hand you off to a tuk tuk driver).  I'm happily greeted and shown to my room where I smile and play ukelele and await the arrival of my friend Karthick.
        Besides my new Korean taxi friend, I haven't' had too many english conversations lately.  I can't tell you how nice it was to see a familiar face and chat and chat and chat!  I met Karthick a year ago when i went to stay in a yoga ashram in Virginia for a month.  It's great because we know all the same yoga chants that we learned there, and can catch up on the folks we met.
       He wants to check out a temple for sunset. We grab the bikes provided by the hotel and hit the streets.  Flowing with the traffic, dodging tourists, the occasional monkey and my desire to look around and not at the road. Entering a thicket of trees with a small stream flowing alongside the road, we take in tourist stands, people selling gasoline in recycled coca cola bottles, ancient trees and so many foreigners.   We arrive at Angkor Wat and try to convince a policeman to let us past without a pass. He won't, so we turn around and buy a 3 day pass to the temples, ride our asses off to the temple and make it there, 4 minutes after they closed. Ahhhh well, there's a greater purpose perhaps? And if not it at least makes us feel better thinking that?  We sit among the hoards of tourists resting and refusing the offers to buy silk scarves.  I spy my first elephant being slowly ridden up a hillside.  We ride our bikes home and   are excited to shower and go off to dinner. However, theres a problem with the water at the hotel, there isn't any, great well we will wait it out.  I teach Karthick some ukelele chords and we wait, and wait.  So the water is still not fixed we decide to hit pub street.  Pub street is a big downtown tourist area with lots of bars, restaurants and shops.  Very colorful, very loud.
Everyhwhere there are tanks full of fish and people paying two dollars to put there feet in and let the

fish eat their dead skin.  It includes a free coke or beer.  If you ask me it sounds awful, but if i were drunk maybe i'd do it, just to say i did.  We find a mexican restaurant and say yes to that!   I drink a lemonade, and eat a chimichanga. This is the first time i've had cheese on this trip, its incredible!  I don't really feel like I'm in another country, it is such a tourist place here!

Well nine days later and I still haven't finished the post!  The next day we rose at four am and hit the streets on our bikes to Angkor wat for the legendary sunrise! It's pitch black the stars are clear and bright, the roads are empty. As we walk into the temple, we are approaches by coffee vendors with
memorable names like, harry potter and Rambo! The reflecting pool outside the temple is already drawing acrowd. We decide to go into the temple and meditate and practice yoga. So there we are completely alone in this ancient ruin, surrounded by darkness and the gleaming night sky! Karthick saw a shooting star!  It was so amazing to salute the sun as it rose above the crowns of the temple peaks! We wander out and view the spectacle of thousands of people facing us flaming pictures, okay we are famous! Or maybe they are taking photos of the temple! So many cameras in the air at the same time! The sight of the sunrise behind the temple is glorious! The day before Karthick an I enjoyed some fresh pressed glasses of sugar cane juice!  He told me a story about drinking the nectar from palm trees. on the walk out of the temple I see a man shimmying up a tree and attaching curious objects to it, then there's a man with bamboo cylinders that he's pouring into plastic cups. I ask Karthick if that is palm nectar! It is! We drink two glasses it is delicious! And tapped from the trees of one of the seven wonders of the world! How cool is that!
         The rest of the day is full if biking to temple after breathtaking temple. Climbing stairs to look out over lucious jungles, riding through tree lined forest roads, drinking coconuts, eating pineapple, running your fingers over ancient engravings, feeling lost in the magnitude of these temples and
wondering at there colossal consteuctuon.  Everyone reading this must go! Go! Go!  By twelve noon
 we are back in our rooms, mind you we woke at  four am.  I yet to blog but I fall asleep instead. We wake up and I discover a local cambodian run vegetarian restaurant, so we go hit it up! The restaurant is outdoors with all these wooden bungalows with short tables and cozy mats on the floor. Interesting menu items, and soooooo cheap we order a feast! We just stuff ourselves to the brim and wander back to pub street. Despite our level of fullness Karthick insists I try a  banana Nutella roti (it's a little like a crepe)! Topped with sweetened condensed milk of course!  Then we get an hour long  foot massage for four dollars. We play pool and watch some open mic in a pub. Then we head to the temple night club for some dancing to bad American pop music, I am so stoked just to dance! What a day! I'm grinning as we walk home and find the water is on at the hotel, yay!
          And then there's day two!   After a little ukelele playin in the courtyard, it's time to bike agsin, gee my ass is sore butt let's do this!   We go to the sunset temple in the morning, it's deserted excellent! We walk and try to remember what the other wonders of the world are, at the temple two women approach us and ask us what the seven wonders of the world are! We laugh at the councidence! And make new friends! They tell us the story of how they  met in se Asia thirty years ago. One woman from Australia the other from Canada. When the Canadian returned home he told her family about the lovely Aussie friend shed made, only to find out that her sister had met the  Aussies sister the previous year while traveling in se Asia as well! How's that for travel magic?  Wel bid farewell and after a few meters I realize my front tire is flat! We walk the bike to a bike repair stand on the roadside. I strum uke and watch the leaves drift slowly form the towering trees. I tell Karthick that after the. Story of travel maxi that I bet we are going to meet someone really cool because of our flat tire delay....... Lo and behold  hours and many temples later we meet a sweet
swede named Madeline. She's traveling alone so we invite her to bike along with us, she's great and speaks English wih a Canadian accent.  We see some Cambodians on the roadside with some palm
fruits, we ask if they have palm nectar, they don't but they bust open the palm fruit, and  peel them for
 us revealing these  half dollar suzed white waxy discs, you pop them in your mouth and they explode

with water that  dribbled down your chin. Such a cool experience! I play uke for them as they carve us more palm fruits. Back on the road we spy water buffalo. And we visit our last temple, pink sandstone and the sun setting behind it. We make our long bike home, passing by the Angkor wat mote  and watch the sun set in it's water.    
         We meet up with Madeline for Indian food  and talk of travels. We mentioned we were heading to sihanoukville to go to otres beach. She went there, but to ko rong island. How was it? Oh it's the best beach she's ever seen. So we alter our course and make plans to head there instead.  After dinner Madeline convinces us we need to have our feet chewed on by fish, you know that activity I mentioned. Not wanting to do earlier? Well now it's peer pressure and I succumb, It was worth it just for the amount of laughter, those fish tickle, it's the creepiest feeling ever and I can't keep my feet in without fits of laughter! Though after ten minutes I get used to it. So there's a day of  new experiences!
       The next morning we rode the bus, twelve long hours to sihanoukville. We stYed in a dirty guesthouse, walked through the dirty seaside spring break atmosphere. An d bookie our tickets to the ferry the next morning. I must say that sihanoukville showed no promise as to the glory that awaited us on koh rong island.....  Let's blog that another day I've just arrived in langkawi Malaysia and I'm tired! Love and missins to y'all!