Our last day in Siem Reap

Hello! Lest you be concerned that we fell into the crocodile pit, we felt we had to send another blog quickly.

The Dead Fish Tower is the craziest restaurant ever. I swear, it's a law suit waiting to happen. There are multi level platforms with both regular tables and low table seating, and many of the platforms are without railings. A few too many drinks here and you might end up in the middle of someone else's table on the lower level.

Food was good, no surprise, and as an added bonus, we got to see some traditional Khmer dancing. Mark's favorite is the coconut dance. He wants to go back tonight for happy hour (I think he has a crush on the cute dancer, personally.)

Yesterday was another guided day filled with ruins. At the first temple we ran into a couple that we met in Halong Bay, Kenneth and Maureen from Washington DC. Since you kind of get on the ruins circuit, we continued to bump into them throughout the day. We ended up at the same place for lunch, so had a nice time catching up with their trip thus far.

Lunch was very exciting. There was a lot of thunder and lightning, and then the monsoon hit. We could barely hear each others words as the rain pounded on the tin roof. It rained so hard that the cars drove right into the restaurant to let the tourists out (lest they get drenched). Totally funny. The storm lasted for about 45 minutes, and we were on our way. The best part was that the temperature dropped about 10 degress after the storm passed. Very refreshing.

That evening we ended up back at Blue Pumpkin for happy hour with Kenneth and Maureen, and then had dinner at a Khmer place. We made it a relatively early night because we planned to get up at 4:30 to ride bicycles to Angkor Wat (8 km away) for sunrise.

4:30 came awfully early! Our two bicycles were somewhat mismatched. One single speed and one fancy pants "21 speed" mountain bike with suspension (It was so rusted up that only 2 gears kind of worked.) The single speed was WAY too small for me, and the mountain bike made strange sounds, but you take what you get around here, so by 5:00 a.m. we were off.

Sadly, we were about 10 minutes too late for the spectacular orange sunrise that we saw from our bikes. But, we did enjoy the quiet of the temple once we got there. Not that there weren't very many people, because there were, but everyone seemed quite quiet and contemplative (or still asleep.)

We hung out at the north side of the temple facing a gate for a good 1/2 hour. It was lovely to just sit there and listen to the sounds of the jungle - lovely bird calls, and wait, was that a monkey? Not just one monkey, but suddenly we saw several of them running and playing on the roof of the gallery directly across from us. One seemed to get chased away from the group, and took off down the wall and up the stairs directly at us. They are cute and all, but I beat a hasty retreat when he bared his teeth at me. No cavities!

Since there were so many other monkeys on the other building, we decided to explore over there. Down the very steep stairs we went, only to find a family of monkeys with a tiny, tiny baby monkey. They were not very cooperative for the camera, but I'm sure that I'll remember their antics for some time to come.

We rode our squeaky bikes to Bayon Temple where we saw people getting on elephants for a tour. They are such large, lumbering, gentle beasts. We continued our ride alongside the elephants for a bit - it was a little surreal.

Finally we made it to Ta Prohm Temple, poked around there for a while, and headed off. The crowds seemed larger today for some reason, and by 10:30 or 11:00 I was ready for some lunch and a nap! Wouldn't you know it that this was when the trusty mountain bike derailleur came apart. It's kind of a necessary part of the bike, and thankfully Mark's a good bike repairman, so all was not lost. After a couple of stops to macguyver the thing, we made it back to the guest house. I suppose that I shouldn't expect much for $2.00 for the day (although we didn't get charged for it in the end.)

Not sure what our plans are for our last night here. Dinner of course, and likely the night market. We leave by bus tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. for Phnomh Penh.

Thanks to those of you that are leaving posts. It really is great to hear from you!!

Ciao for now.