The day I should have had my camera

This is Hi, my tuk tuk driver

On day 3 of visiting the Angkor temples, we went to the farthest out temples.  The tuk tuk ride to the first temple was over an hour long and we passed through several small villages.  If I had my camera, I would have taken 100s of pictures of the rice farming, fishing, village life, etc.  But instead, I just enjoyed the scenery.  The hour went by quickly. 

The first temple was the most well preserved temple in the Angkor complex and it gave you and idea of what the temples must have looked like when they were used.  It was a very interesting temple, particularly with the help of an interpretation center that identified who all of the deities were and what the pictures meant and how the various temples in the Angkor complex differed in style from one another.  This would have been a good place to start.

After the 2nd temple, Hi disconnected the tuk tuk and I sat on the back of his motor cycle.  Hi had proven to be a safe, slow motorcycle driver and we were well out of the city.  He warned me the day before that part of the 3rd day would be on motorcycle.  I was under the impression that he was going to take me to the large lake for a boat ride to the Vietnamese floating village while he went to his friend's wedding in a near by village. I must have misunderstood him, because he took me to the wedding party.  I wasn't dressed for a wedding.

I sat at the wedding party with my bare legs buried under the table cloth because I was so embarrassed partly for being under-dressed and mostly from being the only white person at the dinner.  We watched the bride and groom greet each of the guests as they arrived at the dinner party (outdoors in the heat, of course).  During the 2 hours that we were at the wedding reception, the bride and groom wore 4 different gaudy costumes:  orange, then turquoise, then green, and finally silver.  They wore large, plastic, brightly colored gems that accentuated the gaudiness.  The bride wore an obnoxious wig and orange lipstick.  The wedding party also changed clothes to match the color of the bride and groom.  A stack of napkins (toilet paper in Thailand) was sitting on a table beside the bride and groom.  It was so hot yesterday that the groom used more than one package to wipe the sweat off his face.  Each dinner table had a packet of napkins for the same purpose.  The sweating was profuse. 

The dinner consisted of several courses of meat:  lunch meat, beef tripe (surprisingly good), chicken, beef, fish and finally chicken soup.  No one got a plate.  Instead everybody picked from the same platter with their chopsticks.  That created another potentially embarrassing moment because I'm not that adept with chopsticks.  Thais use a spoon to eat with.  But I picked up the roasted cashews flawlessly with my chopsticks.  Used napkins, pop cans, chicken and fish bones, and all other forms of garbage were thrown on the ground. 

When we finally left the wedding party, we walked across the road to get the motorcycle, and the buddhist nun asked if I needed to go to the bathroom.  Her toilet was out behind the house. Interestingly, they assumed that I knew how to use a squat pot and flush it.  To her delight (she even hugged me) I used her toilet.

So off we went to pick up the tuk tuk and visit the last temple.  When we got there, a film crew was setting up to film a movie with a hot Cambodian actor.  The stands that people sold food at were cleaned up, brightly colored baskets were carefully arranged and lined with banana leaves.  Hi seemed mesmerized by the whole process of setting the scene.

We arrived back at the hotel at 3:00.  I really didn't feel like going to the Tonle Sap and the floating village.  I had enough adventure for one day.