A dog's life

My friend Thong and I went to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Some of the outdoor restaurants were already opened when we arrived. We sat and had coffee and breakfast. The woman at our restaurant told us she started at 4:30 in the morning and finished at 6 p.m. As sad as that is, it was heartbreaking to see how many children were already at the temple working. It's bad enough that these kids spend all day pestering tourists to buy cheap bracelets and postcards. It's sickening to think they start before sunrise.

Here are three little girls playing with a dog. Shortly after this photo was taken they gave him some food. He stretched out on his belly in the cool dirt and enjoyed his breakfast.


Then the dog's owner, presumably the mother of one of the girls, came over, took the dog and told the girls to get back to work. The dog's white fur is puffy and clean. It's wearing a matching pink leash and collar. The children, on the other hand, are wearing filthy, torn clothes. One of the the girls, you will notice, has no shoes.

The government here needs to realize how badly this reflects on their country. People come from all over the world to see the magnificent temples and learn about the golden age of the mighty Angkor empire, but what they also end up taking home with them is the painful and tedious experience of dealing with hundreds of dirty, poorly-clothed, poorly-fed children who are begging when they should be in school.

First-time tour guide

Shortly before I left Saigon I was sitting in a coffee shop doing internet nerd stuff. Two gorgeous young Vietnamese girls were sitting next to me. I tried not to stare so I locked in on my laptop and hammered away. I was successful blocking them out. I know this because the waitress got my attention and asked me if I would talk to the girls. Apparently they had been trying to get my attention. They saw me working and rightly assumed I was an English teacher. They wanted to practice speaking English.

I talked to them for about two hours. We swapped email addresses and phone numbers. Shortly thereafter I moved to Cambodia. I never saw either of them again.

Imagine my surprise, then, when one of them contacted me and asked if I would be willing to show her around Cambodia. She was coming to visit for the first time and needed a tour guide. It just so happened she would be in town during my term break so I agreed. I wasn't sure it was such a great idea. I don't actually know the girl after all. Four days with a complete stranger could be a long time.

Her name is Thong, which she discovered is an unfortunate spelling when dealing with English speakers. It's pronounced Tawm but when written it looks like she was named after provocative women's undergarments. (The hotel where I lived in Saigon was named after the owner, an elegant woman whose name is pronounced Yoom but is spelled Dung.)

She would only have three full days for sightseeing. She wanted to see Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat. I explained that it could be done but we would have to move quickly. She seemed game.

We spent the first day touring the city. She was late getting started so we didn't get to see everything, but we did see what I consider to be the most important sights. We started at the Royal Palace. She was keen to see the Silver Pagoda. On the way out we heard someone playing a traditional instrument like a marimba. We walked up the stairs of a small wooden building to check it out. The weather-worn, toothless old man seemed thrilled when the pretty young girl asked if she could jam with him.


After we went to the Killing Fields. I had been there before and honestly had no desire to go back. It's something you want to see once and only once. I realized though that if people come to visit me they will want to go there, so I should just accept that I will likely be making multiple trips there.

The rainy season has started here. One effect of this is that, as the rain washes away the soil there, it exposes fragments of bone and teeth from the victims.


As we walked along the trail we encountered scraps of victims' clothing that had been exposed by the rain. Almost 8,000 people were murdered here between 1975 and 1979. Here we are in the year 2010 and nature is still revealing evidence.



On my two visits tourists have been suitably respectful, but apparently not all visitors are so well behaved. How sad that a sign like this is necessary.

You can see more victims' clothing in the path to the right. After we went to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. I really didn't want to go back there. The creepy, funereal atmosphere of the place was enhanced by the hordes of bats that had taken up residence in the stairwells.


I walked through most of the museum with her but by the time we got to the last building I'd had enough. I sat outside and waited while she toured the last few exhibits.

I was happy to accompany her to Siem Reap. I had spent a total of six days visiting the the temples of Angkor on two previous visits, but it had been more than a year since my last visit. In order to have enough time we had to take an overnight bus from Phnom Penh. Thong is one of those fortunate people who can sleep anywhere. I rarely get a good night's sleep even under the most advantageous conditions. When we arrived she was feeling fresh and excited. I was tired and grumpy.

We went to a cheapie hotel I had scouted on the internet, checked in and immediately took off for the temples. We started at Bayon, the second-most popular temple, famous for its towers featuring the face of King Jayavarman VII, seen here in a staring contest with Thong. (He won.)



One of the few negative aspects about visiting Angkor is the mobs of people selling, well, crap. In the course of a day you will be attacked by literally hundreds of people all selling the same books, the same cheap bracelets, the same refrigerator magnets, and so on. Most of them are children who should be in school. The government is clearly unaware of how poorly it reflects on the country for visitors to the country's main tourist attraction to be constantly harassed by begging children.

One of the few things I actually buy is fresh fruit. We bought a pineapple and green mango with chili from this woman on the bicycle. We paid $2, twice as much as we should have. I don't mind paying extra to a woman who pushes around a bike laden with fruit in the hot Cambodian sun all day.


She hit the jackpot with a large Korean tour group that came just after us. She was making a killing when a security guy came along and told her to move on.

Wait a minute: It's OK for children five years old to sell me bracelets but not for this woman to sell me fruit? I've noticed that in Cambodia their enforcement of the law can be arbitrary or hypocritical. Recently it was decreed that prostitutes in Phnom Penh can't wear short shorts or miniskirts or dye their hair blonde. But they can still be prostitutes!

We stopped for an early lunch. Since we were the only ones at the restaurant we were besieged by kids selling baskets of worthless junk. The best way to make friends with kids abroad is with a digital camera. Here Thong is reviewing her photos from the morning as an enthralled little boy watches.


I wanted to visit a small, secluded temple called Ta Nei. Our driver didn't know where it was -- even though he takes tourists to the temples every day -- and I got lost. We stumbled upon this forgotten rampart in the forest. In virtually any other place in the world this would be on the tourist trail, but because there are so many magnificent temples in Angkor, this tiny structure doesn't even appear on the map.


We had decided to save the best for last and visit Angkor Wat at the end of the day. If you start there the rest of the temples look ordinary. By the afternoon we were hot and tired and temple-d out. Visiting so many temples overloads your brain. They all start to look alike. Thong perked up when we stopped at Sras Srang reservoir on the east side of Angkor Wat. Something different!


Here is my friend in the obligatory shot in front of the reflecting pool at Angkor Wat.

On my previous visits I could not go up into the temple. I was thrilled to find that the main concourse was open. This was taken inside the temple, looking out towards the entrance.

As impressive as the temples are, the color palette is dull. It's all browns and greys. It's always a joy to see monks in their colorful robes, but in the temples they add a vivid and welcome dash of color.


Additional color is added by large tour groups who wear identical shirts so their guides can keep track of them. Here two monks pass by the tail end of a huge group all wearing garish pink tshirts. Yet another reason to travel alone: You don't have to wear ridiculous, matching shirts!



I try to be discreet about photographing them. I am appalled at the way tourists walk up to them without asking and jam giant camera lenses in their faces, then walk away without offering them money or even a simple thank you. The monks don't get upset. They're Buddhist monks after all.

We went to a temple called Bakheng to watch the sunset. The builders did not consider the needs of elderly tourist when they built the staircases.

The steps are high and narrow. These women literally crawled up the steps. There was a large group of monks there. Thong's camera battery had run out so she was using mine. She took about a bazillion photos of the monks. Tourists were jockeying for the spots with the best view of the sunset. The monks congregated in the shade...

Most of Cambodia is flat. There are few even small hills in the area around Angkor. Bakheng offers the only view of Angkor Wat from above.

The only other way to get a bird's-eye view is to go up in a hot air balloon about a kilometer away from the temple.

Watching the sun set over nearly featureless farmland from Bakheng was a disappointment.


The next morning we got up early to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat, which was infinitely better. The temple was packed leading up to the sunrise. Then everyone left! We had the place almost completely to ourselves. It's hard to get good photos of it during the day because of the lack of color. The fierce sunlight washes out any detail.

The early morning light cast the temples in softer shades of light and shadow. Photographs show details that vanish in the afternoon sun. It was quiet. It was peaceful. It was cool. It was heaven.


We just sat there for the longest time, enjoying the tranquility. I have visited the temple perhaps a dozen times but this was the first time it felt like a temple.

Angkor Wat is considered one of the world's great architectural achievements. It's design and mathematical proportions are said by those smarter than me to perfectly represent the Hindu view of the universe.

Nonsense.

I discovered a design flaw. The courtyard enclosing the temple is too small. I squeezed myself as far as I could into the corner but found it is impossible to take a photo with three towers in it.

Amateurs.

Note the moon is still visible on the right side of the photo. After Angkor Wat we took the 23-mile trip to visit Banteay Srei. It's quite a long ride, especially in a tuk-tuk, but it's worth it. Most temples in Angkor were built by the kings and are massive. This temple, on the other hand, was built privately, and is almost miniature in scale. It looks like it was built for children. The detail in the stone carvings is astonishing, considering it was consecrated in the year 967! Imagine what this lintel looked like before enduring over a thousand years of Cambodian rain!



Thong loves to take photos of people taking photos. Here's a shot she took of a man taking a picture of his wife with three Khmer kids at the temple.


I got in the spirit and took a photo of her taking a photo of people taking a photo of the temple.


Our last stop was at Neak Pean, a unique site at Angkor. It's a circular monument surrounded by a series of reservoirs. When I was here last these pools were full, but during the dry season they are empty. Archaeologists were taking advantage of the dry conditions to excavate. They won't have much longer...


Even with tarps over the trenches digging in the dirt in the Cambodian sun is hot work. When the sun is at its highest and most merciless the workers take to the shade of the trees for a well-deserved nap.


I think Thong had a good time. I hope she did. For me it was fun to play tour guide. I hope it's not the last time!

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

A friend of mine from Saigon came to visit me. It was her first time in Cambodia so of course she wanted to see the temples at Angkor. She didn't know much about the place, but she had seen her friend's pictures of sunrise at Angkor Wat. The one thing she wanted to do was get those same photos.

She was on limited time so there was only one morning we could go. We were unbelievably fortunate with the weather, considering we are officially in the rainy season. We had two hot, sunny days for sightseeing. The guys working at the hotel said we would have to wake up at 4:30 and leave by 5 a.m. to see the sunrise. They arranged a tuk-tuk driver for us. He agreed to meet us at 5 a.m.

There was a knock on my hotel door at 4:36 a.m. It was the tuk-tuk driver. We were supposed to leave at 5, I said. He said, no, we were supposed to leave at 4:30. There was no point in arguing. I said I would be ready as soon as possible. I showered quickly, which is easy when you have no hair, threw on some clothes and went downstairs.

I asked where my friend was. What friend, he asked? He woke me up but he didn't wake her up. I knocked on her door. She too was confused but she got ready in record time. We were on the road by 4:50 a.m.

Unfortunately the sun was already coming up as we were leaving. We were late before we had even left. I was &%$#ing furious. I had made it abundantly clear that the one thing my friend came all the way from Vietnam to see was sunrise at Angkor Wat, and we missed it. She handled it much better than I did. (She's a much nicer person than I am.) We got there for the tail end of the sunrise, but we missed the best part.

How on earth could the guys at the hotel screw this up? They only make these arrangements every single day of the year! Even if we had left at 4:30, as our driver wrongly said we had agreed to do, we still would have been late! We would have gotten up at 2 a.m. if necessary to be there on time.

Hard to believe, but we weren't the only ones there.


There was a steady stream of tourists, many of whom were suffering from sunrise sickness. This is my phrase for people who are so obsessed with seeing and getting photos of a sunrise that they revert to a barbaric, pre-human state. I had first noticed this phenomenon on Poon Hill in Nepal. Civility, courtesy and basic human decency vanish. It's as if all the boys in "Lord of the Flies" were given cameras, loaded on a bus and dumped off at the temple.

By the time we got to the reflecting pool it was light out. This is the number one spot for taking pictures of Angkor Wat. Everyone who visits here has their photo taken here with the temple in the background and reflected in the water. Good luck getting a decent shot at sunrise!


The time mixup was just the beginning of a series of mishaps with our tuk-tuk driver. The previous day we had a similarly bad experience with another driver. If you go to Siem Reap, I don't stay at the King Angkor Villa hotel. If you do stay there, don't use their drivers. Find your own.

More on my experience as a first-time tour guide in later, longer post.

The Secret Treehouse

When I was in Siem Reap in December the owner of my guest house told me a few secrets about Angkor. One was the bike path on the wall where I ran into all the monkeys. Another was a tree house near the east entrance.

I tried to find it once but got completely lost. The landmines problem in Cambodia is well known. Amputees are everywhere. Everywhere. If you were going to list the five worst places in the world to get lost in the jungle, Cambodia would probably make the list.

I got lost.

I stuck to the trails, but I was still a bit panicky. I found a little village off the main road and asked for directions. No one there spoke a word of English (and I don't speak Khmer) but I was asking directions to Angkor Wat -- you know, the biggest tourist attraction in Southeast Asia?

I pulled out a map and indicated where the temple was on the map and asked how to get there. There was a crowd of about 10 people around, laughing at me, and understandably so. One guy took charge and confidently pointed me down the road.

I was confused. I pointed in another direction. He shook his firmly and again pointed the other way. So off I went, not realizing until later that he couldn't read the map and was trying to save face in front of his friends and family...

So I crashed through the brush for about an hour. The sun was starting to set. The thought of being trapped in the Cambodia jungle at night focused my thinking. I could see the sun. I could hear cars. If I walked in the direction of the sun (towards the temple) and the sound of the cars I would come to a road.

I eventually did, but literally miles from where I thought I was. I was really, really lost. I hailed a tuk-tuk driver who charged me way too much to take me back to my bike and headed over to Angkor Wat to watch one last sunset. When I got back to the guest house the owner and I had a laugh over the story. He told me I was basically looking on the wrong corner.

When I went back to Siem Reap for one day last month I decided to find the treehouse. To get it you go to the east entrance of the park. I asked a little girl who selling guidebooks where to go and she motioned for me to walk parallel to the moat. After about 100 yards I saw a narrow path leading into the woods. You can see the treehouse from moat, but you have to look pretty high to see it.

I was expecting a platform 20 or 30 feet off the ground.

Oh no.

This thing has six levels connected by incredibly steep steps and it is high. I'd say at least 100 feet. There were three local kids coming down who got a big kick out of watching me navigate the steps. They were coming down as I was coming up. They were gone by the time I reached the top. I had the whole thing to myself.



The view of Angkor Wat wasn't the best, but it's a view few people see.



I've met many, many people who have been to Angkor Wat but not one who knew about the treehouse. So my thanks to Erich, the owner of the Prince Mekong Villa, for letting me in on the secret. Which is no longer a secret, of course, since I would need both hands to count all the people who read this blog.

When I got back to my bike I thanked the little girl who had helped me. I taught her the word 'treehouse' and gave her some money. I made a point to hold up the money and point to the treehouse. I saw the light go on in her head. She realized she might make a little money by telling tourists about it. Or so I hope

Monkeys!

When I visited Angkor in December the owner of my guest house told me about a trail on the ancient Angkor Thom city wall that very few tourists use. I pushed my bike up there and rode along, completely alone, until I saw a fat old monkey.



He would waddle for about 20 feet and then turn around and honk at me. I thought he was trying to scare me off, but he was actually warning the other monkeys. I rode about 100 yards further on and it was Monkey Rush Hour. Dozens of them in the trees and on the path. They didn't pay much attention to me so I just watched them for a while and then rode on after they started heading into the jungle.

When I returned I wanted to see them again. And this time I wanted to Make Contact. I rode up on the wall and there they were. I parked my bike and sat on a rock to watch.



There were a couple of mothers with tiny babies who didn't seem bothered by my presence.



The younger ones seemed braver. I could approach them easily. It seemed as if they were posing for the camera.





I stuck out my hand to see what would happen. A couple small ones tentatively approached and grabbed my finger.



The ice was broken.



It's not easy to take a picture of yourself with a monkey on your shoulder. But then I couldn't keep them off of me. It's really hard to take a picture with three on your head.



It was a little scary, because they wanted to play fight, which means play biting. Their heads are tiny, so their teeth are too, so I wasn't afraid of getting mauled, but I was afraid of them breaking the skin.

It's not easy to shake off a monkey. They live in trees. They're good at holding on. Shaking off six is pretty hard.

I had been monkeying around for over two hours and had used up my entire camera battery so I got on my bike to leave but apparently they didn't want me to go.

Siem Reap

After I messed up my Vietnam plans I returned to Siem Reap, Cambodia, the town by Angkor Wat. I'm glad I did. I spent a day riding around to revisit my favorite temples. When I was here in December I felt really lousy. So even though I'd been to these temples four or five times I still felt a giddy excitement seeing them again, without nagging back pain.

I really like the town of Siem Reap. The Siem Reap River runs through town, but it doesn't appear to flow in either direction.



There are some beautiful parks here, which are swept and tended every day. I'm in a "poor" country in a town with more civic pride than Baltimore. How sad.



My hostel in Siem Reap is not the best place I've stayed. They screwed up my laundry, they screwed up my travel arrangements, and the brillant owners decided to put a pool table right outside my bedroom. So it's a great place to stay unless you want to, you know, sleep.

But it sits next to Wat Bo, a working temple, which is kinda neat. This is the view from the second-floor balcony.



The monks must love to hear Britney Spears blaring from the hostel at 11 p.m.

The town is touristy, on the cusp of being too much so, but you can walk through the market without being attacked by vendors. The tuk-tuk drivers are as obnoxious as anywhere else, but in general people here don't seem as jaded or resentful towards tourists as I've seen at other places.

Maybe that's because tourism is still new here. The oldest pub in town is called the Angkor What? (Get it?) It opened in 1998.

For many years you couldn't travel here, not that you would have wanted to during the nightmare days of the Khmer Rouge and the aftermath. I had read about the landmine problem in Cambodia. Tourists are strongly encouraged to stay on the trails. You don't need to look hard to see why. Amputees are disturbingly common.

I was standing in the street today when a man approached me. I turned to give him a polite brushoff, when I saw that he had a tray of books he was selling. Both his arms were missing above the elbow. He wasn't wearing a shirt so tourists could see the gruesome scars across his torso. A large chunk of his abdomen was missing. I didn't need a book but I helped him out anyway. It's heartbreaking. While I was eating lunch today I saw a young boy begging, on crutches because he was missing a leg.

I really love the kids here. I generally am pretty cold to hustlers and vendors -- people who just want my money -- but it's hard to be tough with these kids. To begin with, they're so young. I've had kids try to sell me bracelets who couldn't be more than five years old.

They're all over Angkor, with baskets of magnets, bracelets, Buddha figurines, postcards, etc. They're so friendly and engaging that it's hard to say no. And they're enthusiastic about learning. They know things that kids their own age in the US don't know. One girl who sold me postcards could count to ten in ten languages. She's eight years old.

The conversations go much like this:

"Mistah, where you from?"
"I'm American."
"Ah, America. Very good. Obama very good. What state you live in?"
"It's a little state called Maryland, you probably --"
"The capital of Maryland is Anna-pole-is. The population is 5 million. The capital of America is Washington. The population of America is 300 million. The president of America is Barack Obama. If I tell you the capital of Uganda you buy bracelet. Three for two dollar. Good price for you."

Hard to argue with that. My favorite encounter was with a little girl named Mom. I bought a Coke from her. When I came out of the temple she tried to get me to buy something else. I told her I didn't need anything else.

"You give me one dollar."
"I'm not going to give you a dollar. I already bought a drink."
"You no give me one dollar my family no can send me to school. You come back in ten year I still here."

I gave her two. I was defenseless against her cold, ruthless logic. In America she'd go far. In Cambodia, well, she's probably right, she'll probably still be there in ten years.

I'll go back to being a cold-hearted bastard tomorrow.

The temples of Angkor

Angkor Wat

I've been temple hopping in the ruins of Angkor for three days now and I haven't made a dent. Angkor was the capital of the Khmer empire which dominated Southeast Asia for about half a millenium, from the early 800s until it was captured by Siam (Thailand) in 1432.

It was home to about a million people in its heyday so it's just too huge to cover without wheels. One way to get around is to hire a tuk-tuk driver for the day. They'll drive you wherever you want to go for $15-20 per day.

Or you can ride a bike. The good news is that my guest house provides free bicycles. The bad news is this is the bike:



This is the primary mode of transportation for millions of people throughout Asia. It weighs as much as a battleship and only has one gear but it's indestructible. I thought riding this would be like a day in the Dick Cheney Suite at Guantanamo Bay but it hasn't been so bad.

The principal attraction here is Angkor Wat. The name means "royal city [that is] a monastery", putting it on the short list of "Most Disappointing Translations".

It is the largest religious building in the world, covering about half a square mile. It is surrounded by a stone wall and an enormous moat. There's really no way to adequately convey the scale involved. This aerial photo (which I stole from the net) helps.



There are two pools in the grassy area on either side of the causeway on the far side of the temple. The photo above was taken on behind the pool on the right.

The frontal view of the the temple is the iconic image of Cambodia and is even on the flag. (There are actually five central towers, or prasats, but from two are hidden from view when viewed from the side.) This photo was taken at about 4 p.m. -- check out the moon!


To the right of the center tower there are scaffolds where restorations are being done. Work is being done all over the temple, but it's all not so visible. And while I applaud the effort to spruce up one of the world's architectural wonders it's ruining my picture. Sheesh.

The outside of the temple itself is an enclosed walkway, the walls inside of which are covered from top to bottom all the way around with intricate carvings. Imagine what they must have looked like when they were carved, about 900 years ago, before time, vandalism and the tropical climate took their toll.



In fact, most visible surfaces of the interior were carved and decorated as well. Much of the stone used for the carvings is sandstone, which was carried by elephants and floated on rafts from over 30 miles away. Stone made of sand, it turns out, is not the ideal material for carvings in a country with a monsoon season...

It's something else I always wanted to see but never thought I would. In this trip I've been to Red Square, Tiananmen Square and Angkor Wat, three places that were inaccessible until recently. What a trip. And I'm only halfway done!

The Khmer empire was Hindu for most of its history and so most of the temples are as well. But King Jayavarman VII was a convert to Buddhism, so when he reigned the empire and all its monuments were converted. Most temples bear traces of both religions. Or so I'm told.

The temple of Bayon is Buddhist and definitely bears the mark of Jayavarman. Boy does it ever. There are 54 towers) each with four carved faces, pointing in the cardinal directions. The faces are believed to be a sort of melding of the king and a boddhisattva he identified with. No, I don't know what that means.



If you only see one other temple here, this is the one. Though the structure itself is large it's fairly small inside, all nooks and crannies and narrow walkways, with towers looming on every corner. It's like walking through a giant birthday cake.



No matter where you stand you are under the gaze of multiple likenesses of the former king.

Ta Nei is a small temple off the beaten path, literally. Most temples are accessible by bike but to see this one you have to park and walk about a mile. It's worth it, because most tourists don't know it's there or don't want to make the effort. I was the only one there. Though the site is under renovation, it at least gives some idea of what the area might have looked like when it was re-discovered by the French in the mid-1800s.



Angkor reminds me of Tikal, the Mayan city in Guatemala, but with a vastly greater amount of detail in the stone carvings. As with the various ancient ruins in Central American, in order to build cities in the Southeast Asian jungle it was necessary to hack away hundreds of square miles of thick rainforest. It was a constant effort to keep the it that way.

In the jungle, when humans move on plants quickly move back and "reclaim" the area. The implication is of a passive process by which the plants slowly creep back into areas from which they've been cleared.

At the temple of Ta Prohm it looks like all-out war. It looks as if the trees, enormous and majestic fig and silkwood trees, are waging a concerted attack on the temple. They are systematically tearing the temple apart, stone by stone. There's the sense that an intelligence is at work and a palpable sense of malice in the air. It looks like something out of a science fiction movie. In fact, it calls to mind the scene in "The Lord of the Rings" in which the Ents storm and destroy Saruman's fortress at Isengard.




I hired a tuk-tuk for a day to visit some of the more remote temples, including Banteay Srey, which is way outside of town, but worth the trip. Unlike most temples, which were built by kings, this one was privately built by two wealthy landowners. It's much smaller, then, than most of the temples, and has a cozier, more intimate feel. It was the first of the Angkor monuments to be rebuilt, in 1931.



The name means "Citadel of Women" because the locals were fascinated by carvings of devatas, or goddesses. It's a shame the ancient fashions haven't come back into vogue.


The carving here is considered to be the best of all the temples. The detail and the depth in this lintel carving is astonishing considering the temple was completed in the year 987.



I'm going to stay here for a few more days to visit some of the more remote ruins and go back to Angkor Wat again. When I was planning the trip I had a fairly set itinerary in mind up to this point. I've already seen what I expected to be the "highlights" of the trip. Now I'm not sure what to do!

I think I'll go south through Cambodia and circle counter-clockwise up through Vietnam, into Laos and back into Thailand. Then again, I might not. We'll see.