Okay, picking up where I left off...

Ah, give me a break. I had to be able to say I got a workout in at Angkor! Here, I busted out a couple sets of my favorite pulling exercise, the L-pull-up, at Banteay Koei.

Day two of my Angkor temple exploration started quite a bit later. Samang and I headed over around 10 o'clock in the morning and ended up visiting just four temples: Ban Nan, Da Pruhn, Banteay Koei, and Da Wan. By far, my favorite was Banteay Koei. It was quite a large site, much of it was crumbled, and there were enormous, sinewy ficus trees growing throughout the ruins. I'll post several pictures here from that day, but am going to omit my usual (annoying) captions, since I can't remember what temples some of these images belong to.

Having felt thoroughly satisfied with Angkor after 12 hours of touring it, Samnang suggested I pay a visit to the War Museum located at the edge of Siem Reap. The museum, which is completely outdoors, displays tanks and armored vehicles, large artillery pieces, ordinances of all types, and numerous small arms, all of whcih were used throughout Cambodia for decades during its darkest years of the last century. Most of the pieces were of USSR origin, although there were many that were manufactured in the USA and China as well.

We intended to head back to the Sunset Temple to catch a last glimpse of the setting sun before I headed off the to Bangkok the following morning. There was about an hour to kill, so I offered to pay for a full-body Khmer massage for Samnang and myself. We headed to "Seeing Hands," which employs blind massage practitioners. I prefer my massages pretty rough, and these women knew how to do it right! Only $3 an hour as well! Now that's a bargain. Unfortunately, Mother Nature sent another mighty rainstorm through Siem Reap, squashing any hope for a sunset viewing. Oh well, I saw it the first day.

Well, I am back in Bangkok near good ole Khao San road, the backpackers' ghetto. It almost felt like I was coming home. I ran into Brian, an Aussie fellow I met in Vientiane, whom I didn' t think I'd be seeing for a few years. As I wrote in a previous entry, it's amzing who you continue to encounter in life. We've spent the last couple nights sitting on mats, drinking large bottles of Beer Chang and chatting it up with all sorts of characters. We'll see what happens when I head to the Thai isles here in a couple days. That's right, I'm headed to Krabi to finally get some proper climbing in. YEEEEE-HAAWWW!!!

Take care.

'Nuff said.

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."
Nelson Mandela