Today we moved on from Anlong Veang (last stand of the Khmer Rouge until Pol Pot died there in 1998) to Preah Vihear (amazing temple complex on top of a mountain. It's an amazing place, and a complete pain in the ass to get to. We got to the village at the base of the mountain, and everyone says "you need me to take you to the top! Very steep! You need my motobike!" when we are already on a motobike (albeit without quite as much power, which we quickly discovered) So with my pack, Heang, and me on this poor bike up a huge grade, it was pretty difficult. I had to hope off a few times as he started out in third, slipped down to second, then first, then the bike refused to move with us. So huff puff up a ways until it flattened and we could start up again. The road winds for about 4 hm. We managed to get to the first little village on the mountain and left the bike there. It took some pretty strong convincing to get Heang to let me carry my own pack at this point. He took a little too much concern for my health, safety, and wellbeing and started to treat me like too much of a "girl" for my own independent Laura Croft tastes ;) But I showed him by scampering ahead of his out of breath, pack-a-day self - with my own pack. We made it to the top of the temple just in time for sunset. What an amazing view! You can see Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos all at the same time from up there since it is the border for Cambodia and Thailand, and near the Laotian border. The really striking thing is that you can tell where the Thai-Cambodia border is a night because the cambodia side is all lit up with cities and villages with electricity, and the Cambodian side is completely dark. You know that there are people living there because you see them all day long, but there's no power outside of the provencial towns, so the entire country just looks pitch black.
We stayed in a simple little guesthouse the village of Preah Vihear and ended up staying up late drinking "Special Muscle Wine" (cheap cambodian headache whiskey) with the owner (also the chief of police) and two of his friends. Heang was busy cooking our dinner since the owner of the only restraunt in town was too sick to cook, so the three men and I sat staring at each other and exchanging smiles and Khmer/English words for gecko. Grand conversation ;) Once Heang re-entered the conversation, it was a bit easier since he could translate, and this very kind guesthouse owner started asking all about my home and family, and how big america is relative to cambodia. I wish I'd traveled with a little world map because it would have been so useful on multiple occaisions already. I ended up drawing (very poorly) on the back of my journal. And OH MY GOD the crickets here are ENORMOUS - a good 2 inches long at least. And they're so loud that they are literally deafening. It was quite beautiful to stand up at the temple and listen to the symphody of crickets and frogs with lightening rolling in from the distance.
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