Angkor, here I come

I arrived in Siem Reap tonight, after an entire day of travel, and I'm off for Angkor Wat tomorrow morning. I'm not sure if I will be able to sleep much tonight because I am TOOOOOO excited! I have longed to see these ruins for so, so long. And, to boot, I have a guesthouse room with television and one of the channels is a music one, playing (hopefully, I was briefly there before bouncing for the streets for some celebratory Angkor beer, a stroll along the river, and a much needed bite to eat) endless live performances of beautiful Khmer singers, belting out some classics, a few that I recognize. I'm pretty darn sure I will have one of them lull me to sleep and hopefully become a part of one of my dreams.

I have only four nights in this thus far wondrous country. It is noticably poorer than Thailand. The road from Poipet, Cambodia (the bordertown I crossed from) to Siem Reap was, quite easily, the bumpiest, most potholed (some potholes, from my vantage, looked like they were as big and deep as half a bathtub) road I've ever, ever seen. The three hour taxi ride I procured to Siem Reap must have done more damage to the car's shocks and struts than an entire year of driving a car, everyday, in the States. I was tired after the ride, and my head felt a little uneven from swaying and bumping, to and fro. To the sides of the road there was nothing but kilometers and kilometers of undeveloped land, few trees (a noticeable difference from Thailand)most probably because of all the landmines our army littered, many years ago (I've read that there are signs along the road, advising people not to walk off the road because of the mines, but they were in Khmer so I couldn't confirm).

The sun had already set by then, leaving the sky in swabs of eerie blue and gray and it was incredibly sad yet hauntily beautiful to me. I wanted to cry, for all the suffering that has happened here (well, our country is no different, really; our textbooks just focus more on Pocahontas and Thanksgiving instead of the genocide that occured all over "our" country; one of the reasons we focus so much on the Jewish Holocaust is to divert our attention to the one that happened on our lands), by our government's hands. To make matters worse in that sense, the Khmers are quite, quite amazing: overly cheerful, curious, and seemingly carefree. This is saying a lot because I thought the Thais were very kind, but the Khmers are shooting them out of the water right now, from one night here, and I am so endeared to them.

I can't wait to see the temples tomorrow!