Post eighteen, which is full of mazes and discoveries

I arrived this morning in Cambodia, which appears to be the Iowa of SE Asia, flat, treeless, hot, rural, a lot of cows, and roadside stands selling root beer - or, cane sugar beer in this case. The only thing missing are my relatives! I was en garde, having been warned so much about the poverty here, and even when my hotel was on hand to meet my 15-minute early plane, for a free ride in a luxury tuk-tuk to the hotel, I was still a bit on edge.

I was greeted by three Cambodian hotel youth who were very concerned about my overheating and insisted I sit down in the lobby before checking in, and enjoy a cool washcloth to the forehead and a glass of what looked like alarmingly dirty drinking water. They smiled and stared, I smiled and stared back, enjoying the washcloth but determined not to touch the cloudy glass. They smiled and stared, and pointed at the glass, and stared, and stared, and finally I caved and drank...oh, lemonade. Whew.

So thank you, Hotel 89 - very little money per night here gets you lemonade, unlimited bottled water, 80 cable channels, free internet, the hottest shower I've had the whole trip, the softest pillows of the whole trip, and a tied scroll containing the text of a traditional Cambodian bedtime story, "The Crocodile and the Six Judges." I'm saving it for bedtime of course, and will let you know what happens to the crocodile tomorrow. It doesn't sound good.

Also $13 gets me a luxury tuk-tuk and private driver Mr. Kuhn for the day, from 5:30 AM onward, at my beck and call. I feel a bit like a colonial queen being toted around in my tasseled tuk-tuk with burgundy cushions and fancy claw armrests, naked children waving at me from the roadside. And Mr. Kuhn, hilariously, refuses to leave my side - I tried to tell him I would walk to get lunch today and meet him in an hour but he insisted on driving me the 2 blocks and then sitting in the tuk-tuk outside the restaurant window...in which I was the only diner, and the waiter likewise just stood next to me while I ate. It must've been exhausting to be royalty, actually; tomorrow I think I'll take my noodles to the bathroom and eat them in there.

Anyhow, today was day one of touring the extensive temples of Angkor Wat (there is only one actual Angkor Wat, like how there is only one Random House imprint, but also exists a greater Random House with many imprints, likewise, dozens of temples from 900-1200 A.D. are spread about an hour apart from the main Angkor Wat complex). I started with one of the furthest afield, Banteay Srei, considered a "jewel" and famous for its rose colored stone and incredible intact, intricate engravings. This was all true, but the temple itself is tiny - just one small main building - and I had a bit of a spoiled "oh, is this all there is to these legendary temples?" moment.

It was the perfect setup for Ta Prohm (google image if you don't know it!), the temple made famous by the A. Jolie vehicle Tomb Raider. Ta Prohm is totally overgrown with spectacularly huge white tree roots, which over the centuries have grown so thick they have prised apart the enormous temple stones. If I had paid attention to my Rough Guide, I would have known in advance that Ta Prohm complex once housed 12,000 people with 80,000 more living on its fringes. Instead I had no idea how enormous it would turn out to be, had low expectations after Banteay Srei, and ended up quite lost deep inside the unending, breathtaking, maze-like courtyards and tunnels.

I can't imagine a better place to be lost: the late afternoon sun sent slanting rays through the palms and overgrown temple doorways, the cicadas and birds shreiked overhead, and the enormous white tentacles of tree roots (enormous! two stories hight!), like so many alien claws, gripped the most staggering temple ruins I have yet to see. Most tourists visit Ta Prohm in morning (I am strategically doing the circuit backwards) and happily it was nearly deserted, so for much of my wanderings I was totally alone in the mysterious temple maze. I stayed till sunset and may go back again tomorrow.

I closed the evening with cocktails in the garden of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Siem Reap, one of the most romantic foreign locales I've been in since the Park Hyatt of Tokyo - too bad this one was wasted on me there alone, with my lonesome notebook and pen. I'd been dying to go here (and even more so the legendary FCC of Phnom Penh, where so much action went down in the 70's) and it met dreamy expectations: the all-white club, shutters thrown open and black ceiling fans spinning, palm trees reaching to a nearly-full moon, white loungers around a reflecting pool, with me on one of them, $5 green fizzy cocktail in hand ("Correspondent's Feast"). All it was missing was some Khmer Rouge violence outside the gates! Maybe next time.

Off to find out the fate of the crocodile, and hit the soft pillow for the night. 5:15 AM wake-up tomorrow to make it to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise over the temple.