Ode to a Lost Friend.

Back to the temples... let's see. Where am I? Oh yeah, I'm in Korea! It seems as if I'll never make it out of Cambodia, but there has been a lot going on here. These pictures are much better than anything I've taken since, so enjoy them as I meander through the painful experience that has occupied my mind and kept me off the blog. I've never had any kind of drama in my entries, but have been so hurt and down from a recent event that I want to get it off my chest and share it with the world. Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a rough ride...


Maybe a week or so after I returned from my vacation, I was out in my veranda area talking to my boss (which is customary) when my neighbor Zach arrived with some strange news. Zach announced that he had seen a crab in the street, and Haji and I were astonished! We went out to the street to see for ourselves, and sure enough there was a little crab that had somehow made it onto the street outside. We decided to rescue him from the street and I made it my mission to give him a home. He was really excited and happy to experience love after his lonely and toilsome journey.

Haji brought outside an empty aquarium, and we set to task to make the new guy a home. I named him Herman... seriously, what else would you name a crab? We poured the standard white and blue pebbles in the aquarium, and added a stick for Hermie's enjoyment. The aquarium was a virtually playground for Herman, and I've not seen a crab so happy. The next morning I added an eggshell thinking the protein in the egg white would be good for my little crab friend. Hermie made this his home. He loved spending his days hiding underneath the eggshell.


Herman was a very bright and resourceful crab, as he used the shell for protection from predators as well as his own personal enjoyment. How he loved basking in the gentle warmth of his eggshell abode! Herman would play a game where he would see if he could spend the entire day in his home and would run away playfully when I'd move the shell and poke him with a stick. One night, as I was out on the veranda talking to Haji, I witnessed one of the weirdest things. Herman's aquarium was located on a staircase directly in my view and Haji had his back to it. As I was listening to Haji speak, a noticed out of the corner of my eye a long, slender animal creeping up the stairs.
I kid you not that this animal was no other kind but a weasel! With it's tail it was a good two feet long. I interrupted Haji's story with the only thing one can say when they see a weasel on the porch: "HOLY S**T!!". It startled the animal almost as much as Haji and it scurried away before Haji could turn around. After this incident and knowing there is an abundance of alley cats in the neighborhood (Cats are like rats here... they're basically wild animals.) I decided to bring Hermie into the hallway. It was a week later that I played my eggshell game with my little friend and he didn't move. Hermie was dead. How was I supposed to know that I needed to feed him? Whyyyyyyyyy!?!?!?!!? Needless to say, I was shattered. My life as I knew it had changed forever and there was no way of undoing the damage. This is a tough thing to deal with, as anyone who has ever grieved before knows.



So the last few weeks have been a very painful period for me. There's been the initial grief, which was overwhelming. Then came denial. I couldn't admit to myself that it was over and Hermie was really gone. After that came anger, where I lashed out at the world for causing me so much pain. Now there's nothing left but an empty aquarium and a wealth of fond memories. I'll miss Herman, but have moved on emotionally since the tragedy. Oh, by the way, this temple was really neat, but I forgot the name of it. The upcoming temples are entirely unforgettable, however. Prepare for the temples of Angkor Thom, followed by the mother of them all: Angkor Wat.

Christopher Perlow and the Temples of Angkor

I arrived in Siem Reap Friday afternoon after a six hour bus ride which was reasonably comfortable. Siem Reap is the gateway city to the fabled temples of Angkor, and is booming economically in comparison to the capital. I spent Friday evening cruising around on a tuk tuk soaking in the scenery. The photos are unspectacular at best, so I'm not going to bore my five readers with them. I took it easy Friday night and was tired after an early morning and a long bus ride. I made an arrangement that evening for a driver to pick me up at 6am to take me out to one of the most distant and ruinous temples.

The accompanying photos are of Beng Melea. If I remember my history properly, this temple was built by Mexican conquerers around 1449. Later around 1967 it was destroyed by a renegade group of Canadian mounties and has been overrun by jungle ever since. Seriously this temple was cool because it had a primitive, Indiana Jones feel too it. At least that's what the Lonely Planet told me. The cool thing about these temples is that everything is accessible. One can climb freely on these ruins and I climbed to the top of these.

I climbed to the top of this particular ruin and had to swing on a vine to get to the next one. It was there where I crawled down a hole and discovered a golden idol surrounded by booby traps...mmm... boobies. Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, I avoided the poisoned darts and ran down a shaft where I tumbled down a hill. It was there where some creepy Frenchman took away my idol with the help of his aboriginal cronies with blowguns. Luckily, I held up a dollar bill and was instantly swarmed by children and the aboriginal mercenaries let me go back to the temple to look around some more. They did make me delete all of my pictures of them first, which was a bummer.
I didn't see anyone else except for a group of Korean tourists, who are known around Asia as the most annoying. They travel in groups, know zero English, and bring their own food. Not to mention that they keep with their local tradition of standing in doorways when you want to get through. On a side note, I once saw three Koreans at Suwon Station having a conversation at the top of an escalator right where people get off. They didn't move, even though there was about 30 square yards of space behind them, and people were either falling over or pushing through. I just yelled: "Get the hell out of the way you jackasses!". Of course they didn't understand a word.
Where was I? Oh yeah... the temple. This place was really quiet after I climbed away from the tourist group. It was fun to wander around on the rocks and soak up the jungle atmosphere. This would be the first stop on a very scenic three day tour. If you are wandering why this blog has been so meandering, it's because there really isn't much to talk about other than the creepy Frenchman, the aboriginals, and the annoying Korean tourists. There aren't many stories to tell about Siem Reap, but there are a ton of pictures. By now I had learned to avoid eye contact with any locals to avoid being harassed (unfortunate, but true).

So expect many pictures in the upcoming blogs, but not so many words. That's the way this tour was, scenic and not very social. I took over 300 pictures without hardly saying a word to anyone. The temples are spectacular, however. This one pales in comparison to what I would see in the next couple of days.