On our last day at the tented camp, Melissa invited me to swim with her in the river.  Understand, when Melissa invites you for a swim, she does not mean a quick jump off the dock, some splashing around, and a float on your back.  She suggested we do a “ladder.”  An hour later, we had each swum thirty minutes alternating between swimming and kayaking.  I swam first, a fifteen-minute interval, and hung to the side of the kayak catching my breath.  It was then, in what is best described as a Kennedyesque, eyes on the horizon, nonchalant aside that Melissa noted the slimy sheen on the surface of the river.  I don’t know which is stranger to me, the fact that she let me swim through the sheen for fifteen minutes, or the fact that, completely unconcerned, she jumped out of the kayak and took off for her fifteen minutes.  That night, I woke up around 3 a.m. and spent the rest of the night in the bathroom.  I was not taking a shower.

The next day we left the camp at 8 a.m. to catch a plane at 1:30 for Siem Reap, the city next to the famous Angkor Wat temples.  Our young, earnest guide initially scheduled us to leave at 7 a.m.  Melissa, who could not at that point have told our guide the date much less the distance to the nearest airport, convinced him that we would be fine if we left at 8 a.m.  Without any attempt to question the basis for Melissa’s opinion this young man utterly capitulated.  I told you Melissa was getting prettier every day on this trip.  I was too fixated on the odds of staying within easy walking distance of a bathroom to argue.

Remarkably, everything unfolded without a hitch.  The camp used the fast boat, cutting our time downriver in half.  The car was waiting for us when we docked.  Traffic was virtually non-existent for the first 2 hours, and we made it to the airport in 3 hours on a trip the driver told me usually takes him 4-5 hours.  Sihanoukville Airport shuffled us through check-in and security with an ease that would put TSA Precheck procedures to shame.  We were over an hour early for the flight.

My stomach was still revolting.  I had eaten virtually nothing, and all I could think was how does this happen to Melissa? How does she get so lucky? A part of me, not my best part, I admit, hoped that we would miss the flight so I would have the perverse pleasure of saying I told you so.  I am not proud of the thought.  I was in discomfort.  At least I kept it to myself.

Our first full day in Siem Reap began with Mr. T.  Without a hint of irony, this 29-year-old, thin,  handsome native from a small village near Siem Reap said we should call him Mr. T.  We did not know then how much we would need him later that day.

We boarded mountain bikes directly outside our hotel and began the 8 or so kilometer ride to Angkor Wat. A few miles outside the city, the trail turned to dirt winding through a blessedly shady jungle canopy.  The most delightful thing about biking was being completely alone.  The masses of tourist, mostly Chinese, tend to travel in large groups on mammoth Trailways buses.  The most astonishing thing about biking was riding nearly blind through a tight, dense trail before pulling up to a stop next to a massive stone structure that you instantly knew was not built by any person living today.

• 

• 

• 

The next few paragraphs are for those of you who enjoy a history of Angkor Wat.  If, like me, you still prefer books with pictures, skip these paragraphs and look at the pictures.  You’ll miss some stuff, but you’ll get the gist.

• 

• 

• 

• 

Angkor Wat is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and covers an area of over 400 square miles with 3,000+ temples.  Only 1080 of the temples have been registered.  The rest are partially or totally buried by the jungle.  The largest temple, which most people think of when someone says Angkor Wat, is the best preserved, though parts of it are still in ruins.  Extending over 500 acres, this single temple is just one small part of the entire region.

Five years ago, using drones and radar detection, Cambodia was able to map the entire region and “see” for the first time how extensive this ancient civilization was.  The first temple in the region was started in the year 802 and additional temples continued to be built until 1432.  During this period, it is estimated that over 1 million people lived in the main temple area city, a small part of the region, making it one of the largest cities in the world at that time. 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Angkor means holy city. Wat is the Buddhist word for temple. However, this region oscillated between Buddhism and Hinduism throughout the temple-building years.  Each successive king determined whether the temple he built would be Buddhist or Hindu.  Only one king, referred to as J-7, was both Buddhist and Hindu.  During his reign (1181-1218) J-7 built more temples than any other king.  Half were Buddhist and the other half Hindu.  Unfortunately, as different kings came to power, the existing temples would often be altered.  Hindu kings tended to deface the Buddha statues while Buddhist kings were less prone to vandalism, choosing to simply place additional Buddha statues in Hindu temples without defacing or marring the Hindu carvings.  Thus, in many of the temples, including the main temple, you see carvings from both religions.

Hinduism and Buddhism both came to Cambodia via India.  In the first century with the opening of the spice road, the Khmer people converted from animism to Hinduism.  Buddhism did not enter Cambodia until the third century.

The largest temple was built in the twelfth century as a Hindu temple. Despite its massive size, this temple was completed in just 37 years, using both slaves from conquered nations and local volunteers (building the temple would bring a better afterlife). Construction would have required over 300,000 people and over 6,000 elephants.  The temple contains between 7 and 10 million hand-carved limestone blocks with an estimated weight of over 10 million tons.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The main temple and its surroundings served as the capital of Cambodia until 1492 when the capital was moved to Phnom Penh.  A combination of events may have caused the Khmer people to abandon this region, although they never abandoned the main temple.  Most significantly, a deadly drought lasting two decades followed immediately by ten years of torrential monsoons drove the people from the area.  In addition, the Siamese empire from Thailand invaded Cambodia in the 15^thcentury.  As a final note, Cambodia defeated the Siamese empire in the 16^thcentury and reclaimed Angkor Wat.  Siem Reap, now the main city in this region with 250,000 people, means defeat of Siamese.

• 

Back to the story. Mr. T expertly guided us via bicycle around the grounds of the main temple, a separate temple known as Angkor Thom (Thom means large) and to several surrounding temples and structures. By 1:00 p.m. Melissa and I, both still with recovering (river-slimed) stomachs, needed a lunch break.  Most of our tour was complete.  Lunch revived us.  Fortunately, river-slime disease lasts only 24 hours.  The worst was behind us.  Before riding back to the hotel, Mr. T took us to one last stop to see what has been described as “living art,” the unimaginably beautiful interconnection between living trees and human-made stones.

Unfortunately, pulling up to this last stop, Melissa lost her seat and fell awkwardly on her wrist and bum.  Elephant pants were converted into a makeshift sling, a tuk-tuk was urgently called, and we waited, in the heat, a little anxious, hoping for the best.  Mr. T became a hero.  He told us we needed to go to the international hospital.  He called his good friend who happens to own a car and somehow got him to meet the tuk-tuk at the entrance gate.  Cars are not allowed in the temple grounds.  About 2 hours later, Mr. T was still with us in the emergency room when the doctor told Melissa she had no broken bones.

Earlier in the day, I asked Mr. T what the tattoo on his arm meant.  It was Cambodian for benefactor in honor of the people who helped care for him when he was young.  While he waited with us in the hospital, he told me about his tattoo.  

Mr. T is the youngest of 5.  He has 4 older sisters.  When he was five, he fell off a scooter driven by his father and suffered a serious head injury.  He showed me the scar, a large, shallow crater on his forehead just beneath the hairline.  In addition to surgery and a coma, he lost all memory of his family and friends.  For nine months, his parents introduced themselves, nursed him to health and reintegrated him into his community. 

A short time later, his father died after a prolonged disease.  His mother sold their home to pay the medical bills.  They lost everything.  Members of the community helped care for him.  A local Buddhist monk taught him rudimentary English.  Mr. T started school as the tallest and oldest person in the class.  He was eleven.  His classmates were 5 and 6.

With no home, his mother moved back to the jungle where she could farm, something she knew how to do.  She asked him to come with her, but he did not.  He wanted to continue his education.  He earned money carrying ten-gallon containers of water from the lake near his house to what I think was either a brothel or a sex trade organization.  He described the place as dark and a bad place, but he did not let himself get involved in the drugs or other activities. He merely sold water to the women, sending most of the cash to his mother.  When he was fifteen, his mother stepped in a bear trap and died from the ensuing infection.

Despite these tragedies, he has, as he said, managed, like the lotus that blooms from the mud, to make a good life as a tour guide while he completes his studies in marketing. When I asked if I could share his story, he said yes because people could compare their life with his and understand that maybe they have a good life. I wasn’t sure how to thank Mr. T for his generosity and help that day.  When we finally returned to the hotel, I asked him to come into the lobby.  I had already tipped him for the guide service.  I gave him another $40.00, but first I told him that Melissa and I would have liked to do something kind for him to let him know how much we appreciated his help.  Since we could not take him out, I asked if he would accept the $40.00 and use it to take his friend with the car to dinner and pay for the gas we used.

Later that evening, the front desk called.  When I went to the lobby, Mr. T, freshly showered and dressed to go out, gave us two rice cakes wrapped in banana leaves, a local specialty made by his landlady for the New Year festivities.  Mr. T told me he was on his way to meet his friend for dinner.