I love geckos

They are everywhere. They eat bugs. And they drop their twitchy tails when you try to catch one :) We got our 3 day passes for Angkor Wat yesterday and headed out to see the temples for a few hours. Angkor Wat is really impressive, the most intact of all of them, and HUGE!! We also went to Bayon at Angkor Thom which is right there nearby. I think that's my favorite of all of them. It's more of a ruin, and there are super cool faces everywhere. After 4 hours, we'd had enough - in particular of the kids selling things all over the place. I met two cute boys in Angkor Wat, Spiderboy and 007 as they've called themselves. They followed me around for about half an hour just chatting away in pretty good english that they've learned from tourists. It's really tough walking around the temples here. There are stalls everywhere, and as soon as you get out of the motocart, you get swarmed with kids trying to sell drinks, books, handbags, scarves, books, you name it. And if you buy anything from anyone, you get half a dozen more who see you as an opportunity. I had a hard time of it today out at the old capitol. My driver (who is fantastic, and I'll write more about him in a bit) wanted to stop for lunch, so we went into a stall area. I bought a can of soda, and quickly had a girl fanning me with a menu, three kids putting flowers in my hair, and a little boy put a bamboo leaf ring on my finger. I gave a girl $10 for a handbag (they were 3 for $5, but I just gave her the extra), and she gave me a scarf as a souvenir. She was so sweet, but then a woman who saw this came over and was shoving postcards in my face telling me "You bought from these girls, now buy my postcards." I just lost it and started to cry because you feel like if you could buy something from everyone that you see, you would want to be able to help, but you just can't. So it gets exhausting and heartbreaking to see people with nothing when we're all so fortunate back home, and yet there is so little as an individual that you can do to help. And they're not just begging for money - they buy these things and turn them around to sell for profit, so at least they're doing their best to work for anything that they can get. Enter my absolutely fantastic moto driver, Heang, who was comforting me with pats on the shoulder (while still reminding me how lucky I really am). He has plans to try to put together an organization independent of the corrupt cambodian government where he can buy food, clothes, school supplies for the even less fortunate kids in the countryside who don't even have tourists to sell things to. He showed me pictures of a village school that was a palm thatched roof, no walls, and a few tables with benches. He's really nice and an excellent driver (I'm convinced he's the safest driver in all of Asia). He offered to take me on a 5 days motorcycle tour through the countryside between here and phnom pehn, and I'm seriously thinking that I might do it. It'll be a physically and emotionally draining experience, but one that I think would be good for my heart and soul.

On a lighter note, I can now say that I've been clubbing in Cambodia. It's not exactly what I'd expected to be doing on this trip, but my two companions were up for a night out, so we went. It was a good time. We started at a bar called Angkor What? (which I later found out donates a bunch of their profit to the local charity children's hospital). I signed the wall. So if you're ever in Siem Reap, go to the bar and find my signature at the top of the right pillar outside over the specials menu. "A gecko was here, www.phdtraveler.blogspot.com I got the tail ;)" Right before I signed that, I tried to catch a gecko on the ground, and it left me with its twitchy tail. Did I mention that I like geckos? and monkeys, too.

We're getting up super early in the morning to catch sunrise at Angkor Wat, so I must be off. Sorry for the terribly long blog. If I take this motorcycle trip, you all won't hear from me for a few days while I'm in transit.