Angkor and the wats

Body - Starbucks
Imagination - Climbing steep Angkor steps

Re-reading old entries and realize (mortified) that while I discussed our Siem Reap hotel in some detail, I make no mention of the wats themselves. Bad tourist - for my next post will review the poolside menu and gift shop's pricing.

Of course we went to the wats - every morning for three days and would have gone more if there hadn't been that restrictive 3 day pass. Instead of getting to do one last wander on our final morning, instead did the hotel's breakfast buffet.

Planned to do Tha Prom first (the moody, over grown with trees one) but our cyclo brigade was forced to halt (tire puncture) directly where the men carrying the epic length naga meet the road, at the doorstep of the magnificent Angkor Wat itself. Turned out, of course (higher powers working amidst their ruins) very much for the best as it was high noon and, for the most part, the tour groups had retired to AC-ed luncheon buffets and we had the wat almost to ourselves - sweaty bakpackers, Cambodian tourists and monks sparsely scattered.

Puncture mended, when we reached Tha Prom later in the afternoon as it began to burst at its ragged seams. Had memories of it virtually empty in 1998 (Jase and I got stoned in it and he took 6 rolls of film) - now there's a line of couples having their photos taken amongst the most evocative wall/root combos. Loads of American on tour (unexpected, Americans anywhere other than Bermuda and London is unexpected), French striding about as if it's birth-right to be there, Germans touring as means of domination in bulging photographer's vests, and the Japanese (for whom enough has been said). Still, a magical place but our near perfect Angkor visit of the morning toppled Tha Prom from my #1 wat position.

Angkor! Look left and the series of doorways frames an orange scarved Buddha, look up and the tapered stone tower frames a patch of sky, look through the stone window columns and another scene is framed. Its builders, its architects, allowed no off-views - there's no point anywhere in the complex where there's simply nothing to see. And if a saffron robed monk should happen into frame? - you have a photo op that feels Buddha-sent.

More to be said and shown about Angkor but later.

C

Power Duty-Free

Bangkok's Don Muang Airport

Anyone tracking me through Bangkok airport’s King Power Duty Free in the early morning of December 2nd (12:30 to 2am) would have witnessed a Family Circle-esque dotted path of squiggles and backtracks and serpentines. Why? Because someone was recently rich with a royal B. 970.50 from the VAT refund and with no real purchasing goals (nor purchase power – about $20). I negotiated a very sleepy, hair splitting, baht counting series of purchases that (Lancome Ultra lash, chips, extra waters and oddly packaged Tiger balm throat lozenges) brought me to B. 0.

Felt like I was dipping in and out of consciousness, amazed to get myself to the gate on time, to once more see the familiar faces from the chaos of the check-in line. Check in on Kuwait Airways = sharply dressed Kuwaitis in business class, and cheapie travelers with souvenirs from Southeast Asia in the hairpin-ing economy line. Our (my) line a mélange of thrifty tourists, each with at least one fake Polo bag/Diesel shirt, in a Red Bull/Beer Lao/Singha tee, toting oddly packaged fans, conical hats, bulky wrapped treasures and Angkor rubbings in tidy palm tubes.

R got off safely on his slightly more upscale Korean Air flight, that left a civilized 2 and a half hours before my own. We had some strain filling a day in Bangkok which had begun at 6:30 in Siem Reap and which will end in New York tomorrow/today afternoon. Alleviated the strain with another fantastic massage wrap thing at the Chi Spa (no need for the computerized Chi readings this go – we knew our elements) followed by a lovely long dinner at the hotel’s Next2 bar/restaurant/outdoor thing. Kept lively with SAS’s Celebrate Scandinavia celebration – and a live band. And then to the airport, and now to hear – my crummy little seat with my skinny little blanket (which I have to return at flight’s end, as if I’d steal).

As we fly, our crummy, gills-filled flight passing over Amman, and then the romance begins with Al-Hufhuf, Al-Mananah, coastlines and relevancies I don’t recognize, interspersed with a few names I do – Makkah, Bahrain, Bandar Abbas, Shiraz, Doha and while I sleep we’ll make our way over eastern Europe to London.

C

Home again, home again

NEW YORK
West 16th Street, my couch

An un-exotic sign-in local - but home. NPR on the kitchen radio (missed), pot of green tea (Asian affect, sure to lapse), laundry being dealt with down the block and lunch meeting at the Asia Society. Fall back into the normal, the routines, so quickly - terrifyingly so.

Drinks last night with Cin and Ian at Cedar Tavern, quickly jet lag buzzed - a fun new trick. Jet lag dying off now, up early but not as giddy as yesterday. Tan face fading, read AM New York and Metro on the subway this morning and did a Starbucks sit in yesterday. Yawn - all so normal and quickly assumed. Have to keep pinching myself, and looking at the pictures (which I will share, soon) and gaze at my luggage tags to remind myself of all that went before.

Miss travel,
adventure,
heat and all new stuff every morning.
Also miss taking photos - went to the post office yesterday to retrieve a month's worth of mail (= triplicate crap from the pushy folks at William & Sonoma) and was thinking - oy, if I was in an Indian post office I'd be snapping away, everything would be charming and different and exotic but here, in my 18th street local PO - it's not noteworthy, to me. No fun. Must rediscover the exotic in my own neighborhood (of course) but give me some time.

More thoughts on the travels to come, more to be said.

Love from home.

C