I'm Dreaming of a Scorching Christmas

I woke up at 4:30am this morning, Christmas morning. It was not to see what Santa brought me for Christmas, either. This morning I was privileged enough to see the sun rise over Angkor Watt, the most famous temple in the world; a historical landmark so awesome that it has been the subject of books, text books, documentaries and scholars.

Let me back up a little. It’s Christmas Day. There’s no red and white decorations. No twinkling lights. Certainly no snow. It’s business as usual here in Cambodia with the exception of the occasional Santa hat balanced on a waiter’s head or a rare tattered sign stating “Merry Christmas!!!” (I suspect that they have not yet realized how politically incorrect they are. What would Buddha say about this Christian greeting!) In fairness to our hotel, they gave Christmas decorations a valiant, albeit rare, effort by resurrecting about a hundred balloons on strings in front of the hotel. Balloons for Christmas. Hmmm. That’s a new one.

I am sitting here, sweating, enjoying the occasional reprise from the wimpy fan that happens to blow my way every so often, listening to the restaurant stereo that toggles between Top 40 American hip hop and Bob Marley. Beats cheesy Christmas carols by a mile (depending of course on which Top 40 song is playing).

And while I am sad to have abandoned my family again for Christmas, I wish more that they were here then I was there. That would probably just about make this Christmas perfect. So mom, dad, Lynae, Hayden, Mike, (not Josh- I’m ignoring you right back) Grandma, Uncle Rob & Ron, Aunt Debb & Selene, and families...here’s a personal Merry Christmas, I love you, miss you, we’re thinking of you...you know, all that jazz.

For Christmas Eve last night I treated myself to a lobster dinner and 2 glasses of Cambodian wine. It was ironically enough the best meal I have had in Asia thus far, all for the total price of $7.50. Delicious! I’d take lobster over turkey any day. I could definitely get used to Christmas in this climate very easily.

But back to Angkor Watt. It’s simply mind boggling. It’s completely unbelievable to see what human beings built 1000 years ago without the technology we have today. These temples are huge and ornate and so numerous... I won’t bore you with the details. Google it if you’re interested in more info on the temples themselves. Instead I will be generous with the picture posting.

Since Angkor Watt is massive, so we hired a tuk-tuk for the day to take us around. It was amazing to see the sun rise (first sunrise I have gotten up for in years). I mean, these dudes designed and built this particular temple with a lake in front of it so that the sunrise would always be spectacular and reflect in the lake.

One of the temples has massive tree roots growing all through and around it, further destroying it. It’s incredible to see. We even saw a portion of a temple where a scene from “Tomb Raider” was filmed.


We climbed one of the temples to the top. The problem with the steps leading up is that Buddhism demands that you bow down to Buddha in the temples. They accomplish this by building stairs so steep you have to hunch over to climb them, thus bowing. These steep stairs are therefore a treacherous climb to the top. It was fun, but man, just another potential death trap here in Asia.

Speaking of death traps, we saw some local children playing in one of the temples. They were giggling and squealing and playing tag and running around. I’m not an overly safety conscious person, but I thought to myself, “Jeepers, those kids are playing in all these big, heavy stones with 10ft drops. That can’t be safe.”


Within five minutes I heard a clunk and then some crying. One adorable little girl had fallen from about a 10ft ledge and hit her head on a rock. Kevin helped clean her up until her mom came. All day he has felt bad for her. “She was a mess,” he said. He thinks she’ll be okay, but she was pretty banged up. Her mother was operating a pineapple stand nearby so we were concerned that she wasn’t going to get the medical attention she needed. With the size of the goose egg on her head, it could only mean a nasty concussion.


Other than that, all day we tried dodging literally hundreds of peddlers trying to sell us the same stuff, but we did interact with the locals a bit more and have warmed up to them. Once we told them we didn’t want their stuff, we were able to ask them a little more about their lives and culture. It was fun.

Ok, I am way too hot to think here. Tomorrow we catch a bus to Bangkok and part ways. So sad. Then a day in Tokyo for me and back to the cold. Hmph.