"Meri Kurisumasu"

That would be Japanese for Merry Christmas. An appropriate title for this blog entry, as I spent the bulk of Christmas Day in a large shiny tube hurling thru the atmosphere towards the land of the Rising Sun.

I actually did not mind having to work the holiday, because I was still able to spend Christmas Eve with my mom and ladyfriend and for the past 10 years I have worked Christmas Day, so I guess I am just used to it.

I was lucky to have a great crew on my flight over to Tokyo. My friend Jay was onboard. We have been friends since 2001, but this was the first time we got to fly together. The rest of the crew were new to me, but everyone was festive and brought gifts and snacks for all. I brought hummus and crackers for everyone.

Our flying time over was 13 and a half hours, and it's daylight the whole way. Kind of a needy crowd, perhaps they were infrequent holiday travelers. Normally the people sleep most of the way (we shut the window shades shortly after departure... sort of subliminal sleeping suggestions).

Tokyo was cold and windy. My friend Jay wanted to slam-click (airline language for stay in his room and sleep) but I insisted we get out and do a little walking around. We decided to skip going into town because it was so cold, and instead went with a few other crew members to the Aeon Mall, nearby. I have always wanted to go to the Daiso Store (where everything is 100 yen, sort of like a Dollar Store here). When we got to the mall, this Russian sounding gentleman, who kind of looked like a mobster, came up to us and put his hand on our co-worker Peter's shoulder, and asked for a light for his cigarette. Being Americans, we are into our personal space, and being flight attendants, we hate for people to touch us, so we backed off from this guy pretty fast. He and his Russian mobster friend followed us into the Daiso Store though, so we hung out in the knife section in case they wanted to rumble. Perhaps our threatening body language sent a clear message that we did not want to be messed with, because they left us alone after that.

I got a grey ceramic cat figurine for my ladyfriend Kirsten, and a countdown timer and a keychain flashlight for work. I wanted the countdown timer because people are always asking me how much longer... how much longer til we land? I was sad to learn that the timer only went to 1 hour, so there is 100 yen I will never see again.

We finished up at Daiso and went to Justco, the supermarket, where I got some seaweed rice crackers and peanuts and then caught the shuttle bus back to the hotel. The basement of the hotel has a cafeteria just for airline crew, so we went there and had a few beers and dinner. Jay suggested the Magic Salmon, which is served on a skillet with cabbage and sprouts. It was very good. We ran into a few people from the later flight and visited with them. Around 9pm, I went back to the room and went to sleep, because at this point I had been up for over 24 hours and I was tired.

The coolest thing about the room is the toilet. Every time I see a Japanese toilet I think of my friend Ingrid. When she went to Japan, she fell in love with the toilets, so much so that it got a mention in their Christmas card. Without getting to specific, these toilets can "hose you off" after you are done with your business.

I woke up early the next morning, at like 5:30am, and watched a Netflix movie I brought along, The Time Machine. Then I went downstairs to the fitness center to work out and stopped at the cafeteria to visit with Jay while he had breakfast. Our pick up was at 11:30am and we headed out for the airport. It was still very cold and very very windy. Windy days are the one big downer about wearing hearing aids, because you hear the wind blowing so loudly.

We were full coming home, just like our flight over. I was hoping there would be a Japanese style entree left in first class, but the passengers nabbed them all up. Since we fly into the night on the return leg, most people slept, which left us with a lot of down time. One of our three First Officers, Mike, spent his break burning CD's from his vast collection of iTunes, and he was kind enough to make a few CD's for me. We had time for some picture taking as well :)

I joked with Jay that he can retire now, since he has achieved his lifelong goal of working the Duty Free cart with me.

I slept like a log on my break in the bunks. Normally I never sleep, but I laid down and the next thing I know it is two hours later and they are calling us in the bunks to wake up.

Our arrival time happened to coincide with a major thunderstorm over the airport, so we circled over Northern Texas and Southern Oklahoma for over an hour before we landed. Our flight home was scheduled for just under 11 hours, but we blocked in with 12 and half, so we picked up some time, which I was happy to get since I am over my guarantee. Anything over 70 hours is paid at an incentive rate, which is a little bit higher.

Not so much fun in London

Just returned from my scheduled trip to London on Sunday night. The trip was a challenge from the beginning. We were late to depart off the gate on Friday with a mechanical and we had Captain Redneck who loved to make announcements and was almost too informative to the point the passengers were ready to throw their shoes at him. They finally fix the oil leak and we push back from the gate and are taking our turn onto the runway, when we get a call that some bags were loaded on our plane for passengers who did not board, so they had to be pulled, and thus we had to go back to the gate yet again. We waited for about 30 minutes for a gate to open up that could accommodate a plane of our size, and then when we parked, we had burned too much fuel, so we had to be refueled and given another maintenance check before heading over the pond.

We got to the hotel about two hours later than normal, about 1:30pm UK time. I took two of the girls with me to Sainsbury, a local supermarket, and then made my obligatory visit to get my friends Hunter and Terry their Remegel antacid from Boots. I finally laid my head down around 3:30pm and slept until 6pm. My friend Leatha was supposed to be working the trip as well, but she ended up getting sick, so I decided to scrap our plans for dinner and the theater.

I went down to the crew room to put in my bids and check my emails and saw my friend Jan who was laying over as well, and we visited for a while before I decided to go get some food. The pizza place near Kensington Park was closed that I go to sometimes (who closes at 9pm on a Saturday night?) so I ended up getting a chicken sandwich from Burger King (I am almost ashamed to admit it) before heading back to the hotel where I had a date with ambien.

Our flight home the next day was torturous, and it took us over 11 hours gate to gate. We had a granola family in coach that was upset their Lactose-free Vegetarian meals were not catered, and that all I had was regular Vegetarian meals. They later had their two year old running around without a diaper or bottoms on, so that should give you some insight into the quality of people they were!

Then with about 45 minutes to go, the Captain informed us he had given the wrong landing time, and we thought we still had an hour and 15 minutes, so I had to serve 191 pizzas rather hastily, but it got done with time to spare.

I did get to see the new A380 pull up to a gate in London. It made me realize I would rather eat my own foot than fly on a plane with 600 plus other people.

Aloha!

So after the monsoons from my last Hawaii trip, I decided to give it another try. This time, the weather was actually quite pleasant so it turned out to be a fine trip. The crew I flew with was real nice and we all went to a great restaurant for dinner the night we arrived called Chuck's Cellar (http://www.restaurantswaikiki.com/ChucksCellar.htm). Our purser, Ric, had been there before and said it was a great place to eat. They have an early bird special (not a problem for the crew as they were "older") with a fixed menu. You get a choice of entree and they have a great soup and salad bar. Live entertainment is also a staple of this joint too. I had the mahi-mahi and a baked potato.

After dinner we strolled along Waikiki back to the hotel. It was quite a difference from the week before when the place was almost deserted because of all the rain.

I went back to the room and wrote out a few postcards before turning in.

The next day, I went down to the International Village to do a little shopping and then met Judy, another one of my co-workers for lunch at the Pacific Beach hotel. They have a great restaurant that sits in front of a two story aquarium and during lunch time, a diver goes into the tank to feed the fish and rays. http://www.pacificbeachhotel.com/Content.aspx?path=/ServicesAttractions/TheOceanarium. The tank holds over 280,000 gallons of water. When we left, we got to see a little display of the 12 days of Christmas (Hawaiian style) made of frosting.

I wanted to head over a shop near the hotel called Del Sol, which sells shirts that change color in the sunlight, but they were closed for construction, although they did not appear to be doing any construction at the time, so I am not sure what that was about.

I went back to the hotel and tried to take a nap before flying home, but could not fall asleep. I ended up watching Wall-e on my laptop, and then went down to the Fossil store to get my watch band replaced and then walked down to Diamond Head before getting ready for pick up. Arriving back home to below freezing temperatures was less than ideal.

Hurricane in Honolulu

I took my sister Jennie on a layover with me to Honolulu last week. It was my Christmas present to her. Normally, getting to and from Hawaii is hard on an employee pass because the flights are always full, but I guess there is a calm before the storm so to speak, and the loads were quite decent.

The crew was pretty nice and before we left for Honolulu, the Captain let her sit in his seat in the cockpit, but she was afraid to touch anything. My sister must have good non-rev karma because she got a seat in first on the way out. Given that the flight is over 8 hours, I was glad she could be comfortable. The purser and the other aisle flight attendant wined and dined her, to the point that she got a little upset stomach even. While she was enjoying the good life, I was back slaving in coach selling sandwiches and chips for $10 a pop.

We landed in Honolulu and were immediately transformed by the tropical air (or perhaps it was more gratitude for not being in the 30 degree weather we left behind back home). One of the ladies on the crew, Suzanne, had a favorite sushi place she liked to go to, where you could get all the made to order sushi you wanted for $20. We had planned to join her and some of the other crewmembers, but when we got to the hotel, we learned the owner had closed up and went home to Japan for the holidays.

We joined Cindy, Suzanne, and Sonia by the pool with the pilots from the earlier trip and had some wine and then went to the restaurant at the hotel for a quick dinner before retiring. Jennie had lobster rolls and I had calamari and a Kona Pale Ale.

After dinner we walked along Waikiki down to one of the many ABC Stores so Jennie could do a little souvenir shopping.

We wanted to hit Pearl Harbor in the morning and so we arranged for a shuttle to take us, as it was cheaper than a cab, but faster than taking the city bus. Since our body clocks were four hours ahead, we figured we could make the 7:30am opening at Pearl Harbor no problem and arranged a 5:45am wake up call (9:45am body time). We both slept like logs.

Things went downhill rather fast when we woke up the next morning to see intense wind and driving rain outside. It reminded me of when a hurricane would come ashore when I lived in Florida. Still we would not let the weather get us down and we departed the hotel at 6:45am for Pearl Harbor. If we knew at the time the island of Oahu was experiencing massive power outages, flooding, landslides, and traffic accidents, we might have opted to stay in.

I brought an umbrella, thinking that would keep us dry, but when we got to Pearl Harbor, we had to stand outside in the driving rain and it was like someone was throwing buckets of water on us or spraying us with a hose. We were soaked to the bone. The Park Service finally let us all wait inside the building under cover, where we found a lady selling ponchos. Would have been nice to have those sooner.

Because of the weather, the Navy was not running the boat out to the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, so we were only able to tour the museum and see the short film about the attack on Pearl Harbor. Finally, due to rain and flooding, they closed the entire complex, and Jennie and I were forced to wait under a little covered hut for our shuttle back to the hotel. It took Elmer the driver forever to get to us due to weather, and we watched as tour group after tour group left the complex. Finally he showed up, but then we had to go to the airport first and pick up some folks before heading back to Waikiki.

Once we made it back to the hotel, we changed out of our soaked clothes. My socks were so wet, I had to wring them out and hang them out to dry. It was still raining so hard. Jennie gave up and got back into bed and quickly passed out. I was a little worried that the bad weather would somehow affect our flight out that night and had visions of something happening and Jennie not getting on, and me leaving her stranded in Honolulu (I think our mother would probably kill me), so I went down to the lobby and used the free wifi to check and make sure everything was ok.

Finally, a few hours later, there was a break in the weather, so we got back out and walked along Waikiki and the beach area. We would have liked to have gone to Diamond Head, but the weather was too iffy and we did not want to get stuck again.

We had dinner at Wolfgang Puck's outside our hotel (I get a little discount) and then went back up to rest and get ready for our flight home.

Suzanne, from our crew surprised us each with a real flower lei and Jennie lucked out and scored one of the crew rest seats going home (going to Hawaii the flight is over 8 hours so we have four seats that are designated for us, that have a better recline, foot rest, isolated cabin, etc., however coming from Hawaii the flight is blocked at under 8 hours so those seats are up for grabs, but the nice HNL ground staff blocked the seat for her). Jennie wanted an ambien after take off, and quickly passed out, but had a super hard time waking up when we landed the next morning in Dallas. It kind of made her loopy the whole next day.

We had sad news upon arrival with a message from my dad that our Grandpa Pete had passed away earlier that morning. He had been in declining health for a long time and at 96 his body had just given out. :-(

London

My first trip this month was a trip to London. My airline offers two daily flights from my base to London Heathrow, and this trip was the later one. We left at 7:30pm and flew all night arriving into the UK at 10:30am. We weren't full so it made things a little more relaxed. We were at the layover hotel by about 11:30 and I was asleep by noon. I had planned to sleep for just 3 hours, but I ignored my 3:00pm wake up call. When I did wake up, it was dark, but was only just after 5pm.

I cleaned up and went down to Sainsbury to get some bath and shower stuff I liked called Original Source (www.originalsource.co.uk). I had gotten addicted to these products when my friends Carla and Steven were living in Scotland and I would go and visit. Now they are living in the states again, so I have no suppliers. Original Source has a whole line of new products out now so I wanted to stock up. After leaving Sainsbury, I went over to Boots and got some antacid products called Remegel for my friend Terry, one of the guys I play cards with every month (he eats them like they are candy, but swears by them). After Boots, I headed to Waitrose for some snack items for breakfast and then headed back to the hotel to drop the stuff off.

I wanted to go see a musical I had been hearing about called Avenue Q (http://www.avenueqthemusical.co.uk/). It's kind of like an adult version of Sesame Street. I took the Picadilly line down to Leicster Square and went over to the box office at the Noel Coward Theatre, where the show was playing. The bad news was that the reserved seats were sold out, but they had a will call cancellation for one seat and it was in the front row. I scored the seat for twenty pounds (which with the falling British Pound is now down to about $30). The show did not actually start until 8:30pm, so I killed some time and went over to a Cyber Cafe and checked my email and Facebook page, and then went to Pret A Manger, a chain of delicatessens in the UK, and had dinner before heading back to the theatre.

The cast is comprised of puppets and live actors and they sang some great songs like "Everyones a little bit racist" and "The Internet is great....for porn!". It was so hilarious. The whole audience was roaring with laughter.

All the shows in the West End kind of let out at the same time, so the area was really hopping at 11:00pm when I left the threatre. There was a bomb threat on the Underground, so London Transport had closed the Picadilly Line temporarily. When it finally reopened, the tube was packed, and I had to wait for about another 30 minutes before I could finally get on a train. I made it back to the hotel a little after midnight and went to sleep by 1am (which really is only 7pm on my body clock).

Pick up was at 10:50am the next morning. London is the once place where we are required to follow the liquids/gels/aerosols exemption that passengers have to follow, so I had to check my rollerboard as I was prohibited from taking it on the plane. We go thru a special crew clearance lane on the tarmac and don't actually go in the terminal, so after we cleared security, airline personnel tagged my bag and I just left it right next to the right landing gear of the plane. Kind of an uneasy feeling, wondering if I would ever see my bag again.



10 hours and 17 minutes after we left the UK, we touched down at home and miracle of miracles, my bag was waiting for me in the Customs Hall and only one of the bottles of shower gel had actually opened and only leaked a little bit, so it was worth it.

He's a Real Nowhere Man, Sitting in his....

That should be my new name, basically because the last time I worked was the 7th of October, when I flew from Tokyo to Dallas. I was on vacation the rest of the month, but since returning from vacation, I started my reserve rotation and for the month of November, I have not gone anywhere.

I am starting to get a little stir crazy. When you make your living by traveling from place to place, to be stuck at home is a little numbing. Please do not worry about my finances though, as I have to be paid for 75 hours, or my guarantee, if I do not fly the minimum threshold.

I have been first to go for the past week though so I am hesitant to leave the house for long periods of time in case I get "called up to the majors".

SE Asia Slideshow

I took over 150 pictures over the course of our vacation. Obviously, I could not use all of them in my blog posts, so I created two slideshows (put to music with the help of the Allman Brothers, Paul Simon and Louis. B. Armstrong) so everyone could see ALL the pictures from the trip.

The Long Journey Home

On Monday, October 27th, it was time to head home. We would be in for a long day. We left Cambodia at 8:30am and flew back to Kuala Lumpur on Air Asia, our new favorite low-cost carrier, and of course Stu had his usual halal dog.

After arriving back at the Low Cost Carrier Terminal, we had to get ourselves back to the main terminal, which was not close. We could have taken a bus for 25 cents, but we were a little pressed for time and with all our luggage, we splurged and took a cab. It was still a 10 minute cab ride.

We made our way to the Cathay Pacific check in counter and passed a group of Chinese travelers surrounding a member of their traveling party who was having a meltdown that put all of our meltdowns to shame. She was upset about something! We were using our Staff tickets, which are for standby travel, but the flight had enough open seats that we were issued boarding passes on the spot.

Our flight to Hong Kong was about three and a half hours long. Stu and I watched the Will Smith movie "Hancock", which was pretty funny. We had a nice lunch including what was the best dessert I have ever had on an airplane. It was a vanilla ice cream bar, covered in a chocolate magic shell.

We landed in Hong Kong with about 5 hours to kill. We must have waited for what felt like an eternity for our luggage while Marty and I got a little punchy.

Since Hong Kong is the hub for Cathay Pacific, we proceeded to a special staff counter they have for airline employees to check-in and standby for their flights. Things went from great to not so great rather fast when the rather surly agent informed us the flight to Los Angeles was now oversold by 25 to 30 people, and our chances of getting on were terrible. When we checked the status the day before, everything was fine, but now, things were not so fine. The airport in Hong Kong is like a mall, with lots of things to do, but we all had the wind taken out of our sails at this point and I got a case of nervous stomach (aka non-rev tummy) and made frequent trips to the bathroom.

What was even more distressing was the fact that we had no back up tickets out of Hong Kong. When you are outside of your airline's network, you have to have all of your tickets issued in advance. Earlier that day, we had commented on how the trip came in under what we had all budgeted, but now we were looking at a $500 hotel room for the night in HKG and then a $621 one way full fare ticket to Tokyo the next day to connect to our airline back to the states. So much for the savings.

We were either at the point of insanity or acceptance because we resigned ourselves to our fate and figured we'd get home one way or another. Stu was the only one with a positive attitude and he said all along that we would get on the plane. At 11pm, we were all called up to the standby counter, and as luck would have it, the flight ended up closing with 5 open seats, so the three of us would get on, albeit in middle seats and not together.

The 14 hour flight back across the dateline really rocks your world. We left Hong Kong at 11:45pm on the 27th, and 14 hours later, we landed in Los Angeles at 10:00pm on the 27th, so we arrived before we left. I made it thru my uncomfortable circumstances with the help of Ambien and probably slept for about 8 hours.

Our arrival in LAX was not a crazy as we thought it would be. Of course our bags were the last ones loaded on the plane, but apparently the last ones to come down the conveyor belt in LA. Given my previous experience in flying thru LA, it has always been insane. We were pleasantly surprised to see our airline's terminal was nice and quiet, so we checked our bags and zipped thru security in time for our red eye flight home. We were wide awake of course and Marty and I enjoyed some cocktails and played cards most of the way.

Given that no one wanted to pick us up at 5am, we took a cab back to Stu and Marty's house, where I left my car. I managed to stay awake enough to go do early voting, and then grab my dog Gretchen and head home before falling into a coma.

This was an incredible trip. In the course of 10 days, we covered about 24,000 miles and managed to circumnavigate the globe. The Cambodian people were so gracious and friendly. The area was safe and while not very developed, it still offered incredible sights and unique experiences that made for a memorable vacation.

Tonle Sap Lake

We spent our last full day in Cambodia on Tonle Sap Lake. It is a huge lake in the middle of the country (to give you perspective, to go from one end to the other by boat would take six hours). The lake is connected to the Mekong River, and is vital to the economy of Cambodia. In fact, UNESCO declared it a biosphere in 1997.

The lake is unique for two reasons. First, its flow changes twice a year. Second, the portion that forms Tonle Sap expands and shrinks in a dramatic way depending on the rainy and dry seasons. To give you an example, during the dry season, the lake is about one meter deep and covers 2,700 sq. km. During the rainy season, that depth changes to nine meters and the coverage expands to 16,000 sq. km.

Because of it's proximity and connection to the Mekong River, when the water reverses its flow in the rainy season, the sediment and and rich soil of the Mekong drain into the lake. As a result, it is a productive inland fishery and provides Cambodia with 75% of it's fish catch, and 60% of the protein for the Cambodian people. Directly and indirectly, the lake supports the lives of over 3 million people.

One of the most amazing thing about the lake is the people who call it home. An entire group of people call the lake their home, living on floating houses that they move around depending on the water level and time of year. Most draw their living from tourism or fishing. The backgrounds of the people living here include ethnic Siamese, Vietnamese, and Cambodians.

We signed up for a tour with a company called Tara Boats. What impressed me was their goal of promoting sustainable tourism, while at the same time preserving the life of the people that live there.

We were picked up by our guide at the hotel and he drove us out to Chong Khneas. We stopped at the GECKO Center, which is a little floating building that promotes the environment and shows visitors the importance of the fragile ecosystem that these people call home.

We then proceeded to a small boat that would take us thru the floating village, with a stop at a fish and alligator farm. It was amazing to get a peek into the life of the group of people that live on the lake.

While it is poverty by our standards, you got a sense that the people living here really were happy with their lives. What I found interesting was that everyone had a television. They used car batteries to power their electrical appliances, and our guide explained that once a week, they take their batteries to various floating shops where they are recharged for about 50 cents. The charge lasts about a week and then they repeat the process. Water boats head thru the village several times a day so folks can buy fresh drinking water. We saw everything from floating Catholic churches to schools and even a floating basketball court.

We docked at a retired riverboat called The Tara. It was actually used during the Vietnam War to help Vietnamese escape into Cambodia (and many of those who fled now call this lake their home). It now serves as a floating restaurant.

When we docked there, Marty was having a bit of a meltdown because their second camera had apparently broke, leaving them with no way to take pictures. Later, I would load the film and everything was fine (the real issue appeared to be Stu's improper loading of the film). We had lunch on the boat, but then it was my turn for a meltdown because there were all these bees everywhere and they scared me. I drank some Lao Beer, which was pretty good and did my best to avoid the bees.

There was a little bookshelf at one end of the boat, and I actually read an interesting pamphlet from the UN about the war crimes trials for the former Khmer Rouge leaders. During the era of the regime, Pol Pot and his leaders murdered over three million Cambodians. Only now, 30 years later, are the surviving leaders being brought to justice. The whole process is very much controlled by the UN.

We boarded the smaller boat and headed back to town after lunch. Our guide drove us back to our hotel, just in time for the afternoon rain storm. I spent part of the afternoon packing and gathering all of my stuff together . We were leaving rather early in the morning so I wanted to make sure I had everything in order.

We were pretty pooped so we had an early dinner before turning in.

Seeing the sights around town

After a day of going non stop at the temples, we were kind of happy to take it easy with a day of strolling around town. Our hotel arranged for a Tuk-Tuk driver (Mr. Khun) who picked us up and took us around town. We wanted to go to the National Museum. It had just opened, and it was a great way to help us understand what we saw the day before.

The bad part was that they take your camera when you arrive, so we were not able to take any pictures of the artifacts that we saw. The building was fairly new (it still had that new construction smell). We went in the morning so as to get started and be finished before the rains of the afternoon arrived, and missed the rush of people from the organized tours (which were full of ugly Americans anyway).

After spending a few hours at the museum, we had Mr. Kuhn take us to a place for some souvenir shopping. I got some gifts for people back home and Marty got some charms for her bracelet. One of the places we wanted to hit was the Hotel D'Angkor because we wanted to go to the Elephant Bar. The property is owned by the Raffles Group out of Singapore and we wanted to have Singapore Slings, reminding us of the Long Bar at Raffles in Singapore. I had been there in 2006 with my friends Carla and Steven. Marty and Stu had been there in 2002. We were sad to learn that the bar did not open until 4pm, but from 7-9 it was Happy Hour so we decided we would go back that evening.

Mr. Khun took us back to the hotel, and we relaxed for a few hours. Based on the suggestion of my friend Carla, we signed up for a trip to the Floating Village on nearby Tonle Sap Lake, for the next day.

That evening, we headed back to town. We visited the Elephant Bar and had two Slings that went right to our head (ahhhh the beauty of gin) and then went to a little restaurant Marty had read about called the Khmer Kitchen. It is supposed to be the favorite place of Mick Jagger when he comes to visit. It was a mix of tourists and locals, so we knew it would be good. Marty and Stu had curry and I had a fried garlic meal. It was fun to people watch (we saw an American man and his local gal pal, who we think was a hooker) and see the gecko lizards walking on the ceiling.

Angkor Wat

When we finished up with Angkor Thom, we headed to lunch. It was the perfect time because as soon as we sat down, it started raining hard. Like Biblical downpour hard. Thank goodness we were under a cover.

I had some fried rice, which seemed like a safe bet. We took our time because we really had no desire to go out in the rain and we had no idea how long it would last. To the credit of the little street children, they were gathered outside the restaurant waiting for us with umbrellas and ponchos for sale. I had a rather distressing bathroom visit, as it was swarming with mosquitos, and I was afriad I would get a skeeter bite on a certain part of my body while I was trying to pee.

Then just a abruptly as it started, it stopped raining. John, our tour guide, and our driver (whose name I never learned) rounded us up and we were off to see more ruins.

The second part of the day was spent at Angkor Wat. Probably the more famous of the two sites, it sits on a patch of land surrounded by a moat 2.2 miles long. As a little history, it was built in the 12 century, by King Suryavarman. The temple was actually based on early South Indian architecture (at the time that Angkor Wat was built, the Khmer kingdom was big time into Hindu beliefs). It was dedicated to Vishnu, a Hindu god, before being altered to pay homage to Buddhism. It is the most well preserved temple in Siem Reap and is the most recognized. It's even on the flag.

The named Angkor Wat means "City Temple", and under the rule of Suryavarman, it became the center of religious life for Khmer civilization. In the late 12 century, the Chams (ancestors of the Thai people and long time enemies) sacked the Khmer society and took over the area. When Jayavarman came to power, he adopted Buddhist principles, and then went onto construct his own city at Angkor Thom.

At Angkor Wat, we saw more Bas-reliefs, the very ornate wall carvings that depicted stories. Like at Angkor Thom, they depict battles, creation stories (The Churning of the Sea of Milk). The World Monuments Fund is currently doing extensive restoration on some of these Bas-reliefs and other parts of the Temple structures.

The interior part of the site has more ornate carvings, including the Aspara, the Hindu version of concubines. They sprang forth out of the Sea of Milk (or so the story goes).

As we were leaving the site, we saw a little monkey. He was making the rounds from trash can to trash can looking for food. And of course, as we waited for our driver, the little children surrounded us trying to sell their wares.