Cambodia: temples.

Cambodia has a lot of temples. Angkor Wat, the most famous of them, is from the 12th century. Most of the temples have gone from Hindu to Buddhist, and although Buddhism is the main religion in Cambodia, it seems to have a lot of Hindu influences.

At the first temples, near Kampong Thom, as soon as we stepped out of the van a group of children descended on us. They paired up and each pair stuck to one of us like glue. They had pretty good English, considering, and made sure to point things out. Most of the temples at this site had eight sides, so pretty much every time we walked by one, they said, "Octagonal temple - eight sides." Every time we walked over a couple of tree roots, they said, "Be careful, miss." Mine giggled whenever I said, "Thanks - you be careful, too!" There was a shameful amount of litter all over the place, so I started picking it up. When my kids saw that, they started picking up litter, too - and then some of the other people in the group did, too, and then their kids started helping. It was pretty cool, even though the kids were just doing it to soften us up - but maybe it planted a little seed in one of them? When we got back to the van, they re-swarmed and asked us all to buy scarves. Since my kids helped me pick up litter, and since the scarves were only $1 each, I bought one from each of mine. That's how they get you!

Most of the temples aren't very well preserved - lots of rubble. At this one, the students and I all went our own ways and clambered around like monkeys. Eventually, though, I got a little lost, and one of the Cambodian scamps led me out back to the bus. I gave him a dollar, too.

The rain also made the clambering interesting.

In Angkor Wat, there's a big carved mural depicting an old Hindu tale about a prince fighting a monkey army in employ of the devil, who stole the prince's woman. Or something like that - Samnang's a good guide and all, but I was too busy examining everything to really pay attention to him.

We went to one temple to watch the sunset - the stairs were pretty steep.

And there wasn't even a sunset that night - it was too cloudy and stormy. But the students and I bonded. [photo from Mom]

We also woke up far too early to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat - but there wasn't really a sunrise to speak of that morning, either. We generally had bad luck with sunsets/-rises. We were more interested in the pair of dogs right next to us that were, ahem, stuck together for far longer than they wanted to be. I guess that's one way to make your man do pillow talk afterwards...

A lot of the temples had trees growing on/in/over/through them.

We also went to a newer Buddhist temple.

Buddhist hell is scary.

We were sitting in the little gazebo entrance at the top of the stairs when this adorable man sat down next to us and started smoking. He's 80-something, which is incredible in Cambodia - a lot of older people didn't survive the Khmer Rouge - and apparently helps take care of the temple and the monks there, although he doesn't seem like he could keep up sweeping for long. [photo from Mom]