a last coupla things from Siem Reap

Before I forget:

• Cambodia and Thailand have been engaged in battles for a long, long, long time. One great benefit of France's involvement in Cambodia was that it retook land that had been taken by Thailand. Siem Reap means "Siam is defeated" which totally, totally cracks me up. It's like naming a town in the far northern US "Suck it Canada" or something. It makes me laugh every single time I say Siem Reap. (Which, FYI, is pronounced SEE-em re-EP.)

• The beds in Cambodia have -- without exception -- been hard as the floor. There's usually a lot of variability in hotels, but not here. Here, every single bed is as hard as the floor. They are actually beds, actual mattresses, but just really really hard. And the pillows are very thick and overstuffed, leading to crazy stiff necks in the mornings. I have a hard enough time staying asleep, but these rock-hard beds and high hard pillows keep me waking up all night long in a lot of physical pain. I'll be sad when our vacation is over, but I'll be thrilled to be back in my own cozy bed with my own soft pillows.

Since the beginning of our vacation plans, I've been most looking forward to seeing Luang Prabang, in Laos - and now it's time! Before I shut down, I'll show you a couple of photos of Ta Prohm, which is one of the temples in the larger Angkor Thom complex. I haven't begun to work on my Angkor Wat photos, but I do want to get something up here.

OK, this one is obviously Angkor Wat. The sun was nearly up.

Ta Prohm is all overgrown; it's a constant battle to keep the jungle from taking it back.

It had such a different feeling from Angkor Wat - a bit eerie but wonderful.

This spot is iconic - you always see photos of it. The time we were there, it was in such shadow but nearby was so light, I couldn't adjust the image very well. Anyway, it was flooded with a big tour of Chinese tourists who didn't seem eager to let anyone else near the spot any time soon so I finally gave up.

there are these Khmer faces on all four sides of this tower, and similar towers on all four corners of the temple. i can imagine they looked kind of fierce if you saw them for the first time.

OK! Time to close up shop for the morning, to pack and prepare to leave Cambodia. I'm glad we'll be back for a couple more nights in Phnom Penh, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing Laos.

just a quick note of being thankful

Thankful Lori in front of Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat as the sun was coming up

I am so very thankful, on this most unusual Thanksgiving of my 52 years of life. Thankful for my children, who are living their own thankful lives and building their own happy families. Thankful for my sweet husband, who (among all the rest) organized this amazing trip for us, and who (still among all the rest) got up with me at 4:25 this morning even though it wouldn't have been his first choice, and who (still among all the rest) stays patient with me when I overheat and need to stop and drink water. Thankful for my relative extraordinary wealth that allows me to fly to the other side of the world and see this incredible place, and meet these sweet people. Thankful that I'm healthy enough to do this.

I just keep thinking of Cat's Cradle, The Books of Bokonon (Kurt Vonnegut, of course):

God made mud. God got lonesome. So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!" "See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars." And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around. Lucky me, lucky mud. I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done. Nice going, God. Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have. I feel very unimportant compared to You. The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around. I got so much, and most mud got so little. Thank you for the honor! Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep. What memories for mud to have! What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met! I loved everything I saw! Good night.”

Lucky me, lucky mud.

I have hundreds of photos.....wait until you see Angkor Thom. Our Thanksgiving dinner was great; we ate at The Touich Restaurant and Bar. We started by sharing two appetizers: beef salad "lab" battambang and banana flower salad with dried fish, and then I had sauteed chicken ginger from battambang province and Marc had sauteed chicken with spices and lemon grass.

Tomorrow we fly off to Laos, to Luang Prabang. I can't wait to see it, even though I'll be sorry to fly away from Cambodia.

Siem Reap and the Golden Banana

There are a couple of things that make us feel comfortable about a hotel in this part of the world - the biggest one is when they explicitly forbid sex tourists. I get very freaked out by the child sex trade, especially, but the whole thing bugs me a lot. We also tend to feel comfortable when a hotel says that it's gay-friendly; we suspect that means a certain warm and open atmosphere. Friendly. So the place we're staying when we return to Phnom Penh falls in the former camp, with the explicit statement forbidding sex tourism, and the place we're staying here in Siem Reap is the latter - gay-friendly.

For a while, we thought I was the only female in the whole place. For a while, we thought gay-friendly meant gay-exclusive. The staff, at least those we've interacted with, were somewhat flamboyantly gay, and giggly. The young man who set everything up with us could hardly stop giggling, and sliding his eyes to the side. I liked him, and he made me laugh. When he showed us to our room, the art on the wall really said all we needed to know:

I LOVE IT!! I really do. It makes me silly happy.

Siem Reap is preparing to be Tourist Central; the road coming into town was lined with these gigantic, mostly pastel-painted hotels that would fit comfortably in Miami Beach but were named "Empress of Angkor" or "Princess of Angkor" or things like that. Crazy. They're giant, hundreds of rooms each.

this Buddha in the traffic circle had no arms, leading Marc to call it (of course) the Buddha de Milo

the pool in our B&B; view from standing on our balcony

all the porches have these bathtubs. what?! luckily, there's a wonderful shower inside the room.

new and old Siem Reap, all on one traffic sign set-up. Temples to the left, golf straight ahead.

KFC, anyone?!

lots and lots of these giant new hotels

Our lovely little B&B is down an unpaved alley in the old part of town, so we're going to rest a bit and then head out to visit the Old Market. Maybe later check out the Night Market. But we have a tuk-tuk arranged to pick us up at 4:45 in the morning to see sunrise at Angkor Wat, so it won't be a late night for us, no matter what.

I guess all my loved ones in the US are busy making pies and turkeys and side dishes and getting ready to spend time with other of my loved ones. Happy Thanksgiving Eve, y'all, from a 3rd floor suite of a gay-friendly B&B in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Siem Reap: Golden Banana

More details: Here's where we'll stay in Siem Reap, which is our anchor point for seeing Angkor Wat. We'll arrive on November 24th, and stay for two nights.

the pool at the Golden Banana Boutique Hotel

and our room - a deluxe suite

Siem Reap seems to exist to handle the load of people heading to Angkor Wat; there is a part of town that is so jam-packed with hotels, and there isn't a whole lot going on in Siem Reap itself, from what we see so far. But here's the big reason to go, even if there is a lot else to see.  ANGKOR WAT.

What is it I'm always saying? Oh yeah........I can't wait! As of today, 136 days until our wonderful trip.