Dearest Family & Friends,

Ready for more temples? I, stuffed with salty scrambled salmon eggs and my friend stuffed with her usual banana pancakes, were ready and off by our usual 8 am. Again, it was a day of four more destinations – but very different day from day one. Theara stopped by the side of a lake and instructed us to visit two temples while he went to have breakfast. We obeyed, of course. Our first, Banteay Kdei is a “Bayon-style” (more Bayon later), late 12th – early 13th century temple with an enormously cool tower with a large carved face at its east entrance. Lots of Buddhas were added later and we began to be acquainted with the “Asapara” dancer carvings that are everywhere on the later temples. When done, we walked across the street, through the we had now dubbed as “the gauntlet” (the masses of children selling bracelets, postcards, books, silks, etc.), and over to view the King’s lake. A beautiful man-made lake decorated with nagas and lately cleaned by a Japanese NGO was serene, gray and reflective.

Next we braved throngs of tourists to view Ta Prohem – a temple similar to the previous day’s last temple but more organic – there were amazing trees growing everywhere. It was notable more crowded – apparently trees are very popular with annoying tourists (present company excluded, of course) – especially if these trees and their temple were famously seen in the Angelina Jolie Laura Croft: Tomb Raider movie. I haven’t seen the movie and have heard it was not good… but admit that the chances are now that I will. My friend and I spent more time than we really should have gaping at no, not the carvings or the temple, but two strange tourists that I felt were Italian. The man was tall, dark, broad-shouldered, well-manicured guy with a long sleeved, pristine white shirt, dark designer jeans, a pair of black-pointed suede shoes on, with a huge camera slung around his neck. (How those shoes remained unmuddied is a mystery to me). His female companion had on small pointed heels, the tightest pair of jeans in history that nicely bared her tiny, tanned mid-drift and were decorated with vertical snake skin stripes lined with lace. Above her mid-drift, she had on a front-flowered bustier with tracings of black ribbon in… strategic spots… and her dark hair had been highlighted about 7 months ago… and the highlights started well away from her crown. This couple and their amused guide kept stopping for pictures but as far as we could tell, didn’t bother actually looking at the temples. And to think, I had worried that my bare shoulders were scandalous within temple walls (they aren’t preferred but I was modestly dressed and well able to whip out shoulder covering if necessary). Anyway, we didn’t stay long at Ta Prohem and were relieved to find out that Theara had a timing strategy. He had actually figured out when the bus tours visit the popular temples and drove us around this. See what I mean? A national treasure. --L