Time. Again it's passing so quickly. I can never catch up with it. It pulls me along, and I, resisting, drag my feet and dig my heels into the ground of experience. I grab at the dirt, the mud underneath me, but it oozes out between my fingers and I have no where else to stuff it. My pockets are full, my shirt stuffed. Even my fingernails and ears are packed good with the dirt of experience. But there is more to see, more to learn, always.

Angkor. What can I say about it that hasn't already been said? All I can write is what we did.

12/11 We bought a three-day pass and spent most of the those three days biking from one temple to the next, then exploring on foot the ancient ruins. We went to Angkor Wat first. It was big and gray crawling with tour groups. Coming upon it after centuries of unuse and ruin, like the French did a hundred years ago, must have been breathtaking. But there were too many tourists, too much tarp and scaffolding to feel much sense of history.

Our next stop, Ta Phram, or the Jungle Temple, was much more awe-inspiring. Surrounded by the moist thickness of jungle, we walked along the outer walls where trees and their roots crawled in and around and through the old, jumbled stones. The jungle chirped and squealed and rustled. Silence aches to be present in a place like this. Or poetry. Deb recited Ozymandias for us and then we walked without speaking.
We left and stopped at a lake, hoping for a bit of rest. But hawker children came with their pretty postcards, coconut-shell bracelets, and impeccable English, and we were suckered into buying. We rode back to Angkor Wat, jewelry dangling from our arms, and we lay in the grass by the reflection pools, basking in the orange rays of the falling sun, took pictures, and got bitten by ants. We rode the 6 km back into town in the dark, weaving through the red tail lights and exhaust of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, and trucks.

12/12 Next morning, Deb, Naton, and I (boys were sick) woke up at 4:15 a.m. and cycled to Bayon Temple. The rode was black black: even the moonbeams were sucked to nothingness by the dense forest around and above. It was by faith alone that we pushed down each pedal. We arrived too early and had to wait for more than an hour for the sun to rise high enough to throw orange rays on the dark stones. Bayon Temple is a temple of faces, or rather of one face--wide staring eyes, flat nose, and thick-lipped subtle smile--chisled 55 times. As the sun rose, the faces woke up gradually, each one taking a distinct expression depending on its angle to the sun.
We went on to Preah Kahn, another favorite of ours. It was jungle-y and jumbled, a bit like Ta Phram, but holier. Doorways were small and became smaller as you got closer to the innermost sanctuary, forcing you to bow. Morning light streamed through seams and cracks of the walls and stone arches, leaving bands of light which cut through the darkly-shadowed rooms. The rooms were small and contained you, held you in, until you left. We went to Neak Pean next, a temple famous for five pools which surround it. There was a famous actor there starring in a karaoke video, or as one man called it, "Forestry Cinema."
In the evening we, and several hundred other tourists, climbed a steep path to the top of the "sunset hill." There were landmine victims along the way, who sat playing Khmer music on thick, glossy leaves held between their lips and held out their hats for money. The sunset was spectacular. As the sun hid its last bit of red ball behind the horizon, everyone exploded into applause and a hearty, "Ahh!" It took me by surprise and I laughed out loud at this innocent gesture of appreciation by my fellow humanity. Something good, something beautiful! That, we all agreed on.

12/13 Last day at Angkor and last day of biking. Dan and I biked with a British couple that we had met 2 months before. Destination--Banteau Srei and River of a Thousand Lingas. It was fun to bike with new blood, and both of us had an extra push to our pedals as we raced on to what would prove to be a day much longer and more demanding than expected. One hundred km, in the end. An appropriate "last ride" to a journey we had started 5 months before. The carvings at the river (along the banks and even in the riverbed itself) were amazing--treasures, cupped and protected by the gurgling stream; lingas, carved in prayer for fertility within the bed of a river, a symbol of life/fertility. It was a place embedded with meaning and beautifully serene. The last 13km road which had led us there, however, was not, and this unpaved, dusty mess we traced back to Banteau Srei Temple. She was dainty, elaborate, and fully female. Her red sandstone, stronger than the grey of all the other temples in Angkor, was still deeply etched with flourishing design. She is the jewel of Angkor.
We sped back to Angkor Wat, edged on this time by a rapidly dimming sky. We sat by the Reflection pools there, reflected on the orange clay which covered thick our legs, the why of insects popping above the surface of water, and the ripploes mady by the snout of a drinking pony. The sun shone brilliantly orange on Angkor for a minute before, and after which it was hidden behing clouds. We said goodbye then to the sprawling gray temple, and sped back to town with tired legs under the towering trees of Angkor.