If you pray really hard to Shiva he won't destroy you.

Yama, eight armed Hindu God of Justice and the Underworld. Three tourists in matching dorky hats. A headless Hindu goddess reverently wrapped in golden cloth. A Buddhist nation. An active Hindu shrine where the Buddhist locals worship. Welcome to Angkor Wat!

Mind you this is just the GATE to Angkor Wat. You ain't seen nothin' yet.

So Angkor Wat, including its Western Gate, has "Apsaras" aka Hindu celestial dancing nymphs galore! And unlike other temples -- Hindu and Buddhist because you know a little ole thing like a change in religion didn't stop these ladies -- Angkor Wat features them in twos and threes, wearing lots of jewelry and make up (okay maybe just the jewelry) and no two alike, supposedly, although I wasn't THAT much of a nerd to test the theory. Also, the artists made a special effort to make them as sassy -- or "coquettish" as my 1920s guidebook puts it -- as possible; or, to put it another way, they tried to make them look like big ho's. You know this because they are all facing front, says my guidebook and Chiev, meaning in Megan-speak that their giant boobies are popping out all 3-D everywhere you turn. No who ever said religious temple hunting wasn't any fun?

Double the trouble ...

Very Britney, that look.

You can't tell from this lousy photo, but this particular celestial nymph has her two front teeth showing. Those wild and crazy 12th century Khmer Empire stone artisans!

Ta Daaaa! We have now successfully wandered through Angkor Wat's Western Gate and ... thar she is.

I look kinda thin and Nancy looks kinda dazed. A good all around photo.

Something wicked this way comes ... (i.e. the Disney horror movie about the carnival from hell, which included lots of roiling storm clouds ... I can't believe that was rated G)

Yeah sure I'll pose for you ... AGAIN!

Look from this angle you can actually see all five of the towers at the same time!!! For some reason it was REALLY important to me to get this shot, probably because the guidebook said it was, so I tortured Nancy lots while she tried to take it.

Quick one off post ... it's the beginning of the end for China's "meteoric rise," one of the more hackneyed phrases mindlessly repeated in stories about the country's development from communist bubble state to land of free market capitalism unbalanced by any commitment to democracy.

I just LOVE being a clever know-it-all ... I remember the three years I lived in China and being overwhelmed by the dedicated, state-sponsored raping of its own natural resources and environment. I remember living on a lake in the southern province of Guangdong my first year that picturesquely swelled with piles of garbage that people just dumped in there (some of it OUR garbage of course). I remember moving to Beijing and being overwhelmed two springs in a row by choking, blinding dust storms that blanketed the city in this scary Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome haze, but with no hero zipping through it on a motorcycle, just millions of cars heating up the atmosphere and making me wheeze. I remember my first winter there, when I was studying Chinese at a university that burned its own coal, developing an undiagnosable throat disease that made breathing nearly impossible at night and talking, horror of horrors, impossible by day. I remember listening to CNN reports as I worked out at my super fancy hotel gym about China's lakes recently shrinking by 40 percent, all of its big, water-producing lakes (heh, "water producing" that's funny, you know what I mean), the lakes that irrigate this land which has faced famine after famine in the past caused by water shortages. And I remember thinking, China is totally going to crash and burn environmentally long before it "arrives."

You can't shoot for an American standard of living for over a billion people. I mean, we're less than a third of that number and we consume the lion's share of the world's resources at the moment. I recently read an essay by this American writer living in China arguing the West focuses too much on China's human rights and environmental issues and that it is a very narrow lens by which to understand China. I agree -- I mean, it's not like every time I turn on the air conditioner I'm thinking "screw it, I'm going to live for the present and future generations can clean up the problems I created because I am an evil, selfish person" -- no, I'm turning on the air conditioner and thinking ahh, that's much better. The people I met in China aren't a bunch of money and luxury-crazed demons ... they just want a sweet life, just like the one promised in the kind of mass media advertising campaigns that make me think face toner in pretty bottles is a really good and necessary idea.

But none of this changes the fact that China's yucky coal by-products are floating into the Western parts of the United States (it's a fact folks) and that it is seriously inhibiting its ability to feed itself. There has been a recent push by the ruling party (the ONLY party, the "Communist" party) to start thinking long term. Like, maybe we shouldn't cut down all our forests to make disposable wooden chopsticks because then the desert winds sweep through our deforested plains and blanket our capital city in a nasty, choking dust every spring. Or maybe we should start regulating factories and what grody things they are up to so, for example, the water supply for a city of half a million isn't poisoned when one of said factories mysteriously explodes (I'm talking about what happened in the northern city of Harbin last year in case you are too lazy to click on the link).

However, I have already read plenty of arguments that it is "too late" for any such measures and that we, meaning China and the world which will be affected as well by that massive country's environmental melt down, are facing a scary future indeed. I'm not sure what "too late" means though -- famine? Unstoppable desertification? One giant land of underground coal fires? I think we will adapt as humans, whatever happens, and that "too late" doesn't refer to a zero-sum situation but one in which our quality of life (meaning quality in a way that counts, like nutritious food, homes that aren't washed away in the floods of an overheated atmospheres and air that doesn't cause mysterious throat diseases) is gradually deterioated past the point of recognition and Tina Turner is singing "We Don't Need Another Hero!" in sexy rags and the children of the world are living in caves.

Here is a shot of the western entrance to the temple. Because Angkor Wat is most likely a funerary temple built for himself by one of the Khmer Empire's Hindu kings it is oriented to the west since the setting sun equals death. And guess what, as soon as the King died the new king ordered a halt to work on it so the back part of the temple is not as elaborately carved as the front part. It's kind of like a new US president halting or actively dismantling policies and legislation enacted by the previous president. It's kind of like Bush halting elaborate anti-terrorism initiatives begun by Clinton not long after (not) winning the election. Oh sorry am I rambling?

What a surprise it's raining. Again.

The Stairway to Heaven! Here they are, The Stairs. They have figured pretty big in my imagination every since a friend of mine returned from a trip to Angkor Wat with tales of a Japanese girl who slipped down these very stairs in the rain and landed at his feet with a broken neck, either unconcsious or dead. So for seven years I've had that lovely image stuck in my head and, wouldn't you know it, it had started to rain by the time we got there ...

These are the stairs leading up to Angkor Wat's central tower by the way, which is equal in height to Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral. This is it, the mythical mountain Meru situated in the middle of the universe. Well, Nancy was not paralyzed by any of my silly fears so she scrambled away and then Chiev rewarded me for my caution with the story of a Korean tour guide who had died just the month before after falling down the steps (he was going down instead of up when he slipped). Nancy, as you may be aware, survived.

Nancy looking down at me, the big chicken wracked by neurotic fears!

"You have not quite an aerial view -- the summit is not high enough for that ... But you can see enough to realize something of the superb audacity of the architects who dared to embark upon a single plan measuring nearly a square mile. ... Worshipful for its beauty, bewildering in its stupendous size, there is no other point from which the Wat appears so inconceivable an undertaking to have been attempted -- much less achieved -- by human brains and hands." ~ HW Ponder, Cambodian Glory: The Mystery of the Deserted Khmer Cities and their Vanquished Splendor.

I'm the teeny tiny blue point off in the distance.

Nancy finds another lone, cute kid. She's really good at that. Apparently there wasn't much to see up top except for this kid. Well, not counting the "worshipful" and "bewildering" view. Okay next time.

Me n' Chiev. Notice the bare breasted Apsaras behind us. They totally think I'm hot, I can tell. This looks like one of those spy photos that super smart spies take of their quarry in all those super great spy movies out there.

Three umbrellas, two beautiful women and a temple. That's the tagline for the screenplay I'm writing.

Maureen considers the cosmos as fashioned by Man.

Nancy and Chiev in one of the galleries of bas reliefs. I really like this photo ...

The battle of Kurukshetra. YOU KNOW, the battle of Kurukshetra! What do you mean you've never heard of the battle of Kurukshetra?!! It's only THE final battle in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, duh! Here you can see the infantry of one of the armies being unhelpfully run over by their compatriots in chariots.

Some monkeys. Or Garudas maybe (mythical bird beasts). No those are definitely monkeys. Who knows, I was too exhausted at this point to ask Chiev any more questions.

Nancy and I before the Ocean of Milk aka Angkor Wat's mostly dried up moat.

Note to mother and father: I still want a horse for Christmas. And my birthday. And I'm still waiting for that tree house to be built while we're at it.

Before my brother asks, I'm the one on the right.

One of two big libraries out front, near where I was playing with the horsies. After two solid days of temple tramping my sense of curiosity had shriveled up and died so I gave it a pass.

Oops somebody turned the lights out.

Goodbye Angkor Wat, I hardly knew ye.

Okay I have to do one more one-off post that has nothing to do with exhaustively cataloguing my trip to Angkor Wat because I have really amazed myself this week at what an expert procrastinator I am. See I have this really big, really straightforward project due TOMORROW and I have been busy ALL WEEK doing everything but. Such as:
1) scrubbing the bathtub
2) responding to all of my emails in a timely manner
3) planning my trip to the U.S. in August, something I never do when I decide to go somewhere
4) setting up a myspace profile and checking it obsessively
5) deleting all the creepy messages and friend requests I get from weird my space men
6) thinking of random things I need to update Nancy on about our relationship and where we are at as a couple and calling her to tell her these things whilst she attempts to travel around Thailand with a visiting friend
7) trying to do a push up -- no dice. I actually just tried that five minutes ago and got up, amazed that I am that hard up for stuff to do.

Guess it's the inevitable -- I'll be up all night trying to finish this thing that I've had more than a week to do! Woo hoo ...

Alright time for a break because I am starting to bore myself with Everything Angkor. A very old (as in from when we were kids, not as in elderly) friend of mine just emailed me some photos of us as kiddies so I thought I'd share, especially since I look so super cute and skinny in the first two, before I started to get creative with my hair (you will see what happened in the third photo). I believe this is from fifth grade perhaps, at my friend's birthday party ... besides the stupid hat and the bad pants that make my butt look big I quite like this photo of myself as pre-teen. If I only had that skin and figure now, with my dress sense I would be such a HOTTIE! Alright, I know it's disturbing that I am pining to have the body of an 11 year-old but welcome to the fashion of the ages folks.

Me at same party with no pants on. And without the hat. Will you LOOK at that tan, LOOK at that bone structure?! WHY did I think I was a hideous fat monster?!! What a waste!

AHHHH the hair! The glasses! GOD! This is me at, I believe, my 14th birthday party since I gave up bangs (and curling them) by high school. If that looks like a giant birthday cake decorated with plastic horses, pretzel fences and a pond made of some kind of jelly-like substance, that's because it is. I guess I opted out of the unicorn cake that year.

On the morning of my second day Nancy, Maureen, our guide Chiev and I hit Bayon temple, another King Jayavarman the Seventh special built in the late 12th century. Like Angkor Wat this is a Buddhist temple and, like Angkor Wat and Jaya the Seventh's other temples, all of the Buddhist images and statues have been removed by a subsequent Hindu king. Bayon is located dead center in the ancient capital city of Angkor Thom, which also houses Angkor Wat (I know, I'm throwing a lot of Angkors at you). My guidebook says Bayon temple is one of the most "enigmatic temples" in Angkor because its symbolism and form are not yet fully understood. Since I didn't really understand the symbolism or form of all the other temples as well this was not a big problem. Pictured you can see how explorers a 100 years ago approached Bayon's famous East Gate -- by elephant and black sedan.

Which way did he go?! This is at the beginning of the walkway that leads to Bayon's East Gate.

UNNGGHH!! A bunch of gods pulling on a serpent. This is technically from a Hindu myth but that never stopped those crazy Khmer Buddhists from incorporating it into their temples! This is one side of the walkway leading up to Bayon's East Gate. (Remember, east good, west bad!)

Here is the gate to Bayon up close. Beyond it is Bayon itself, which is decorated by 200 of these giant, sleepy looking faces, spread across the temple's 54 towers. There are four faces per tower, looking in each of the four cardinal directions, so you know NOTHING gets past these guys. The faces are, according to my handy dandy guidebook, supposed to be the face of a certain bodhisattva -- a kind of Buddhist angel who comes to earth to help us out -- named "Avalokitesvara." (The name we chose for our first child, by coincidence.) But the faces are ALSO supposed to remind people of the omnipresence of the king!

I'm not going to lie, they're a little unnerving. But super cool to look at.

A sleeping Buddha, on site. I doubt this is from the original Bayon complex, since most 12th and 13th century Buddhas were done away with either by subsequent Hindu kings or by Western art collectors. Anyway, you can come and pay your respects, burn a stick of insence and ask Buddha for a million dollars ... all while being watched over by this nice little lady and 200 spooky faces.

A little kid who gave Nancy 15 minutes of Khmer lessons, all for a dollar!

Maureen is blinded by the enormity of it all.

Like Angkor Wat, Bayon is partly known for its walls and walls of bas reliefs ... Bayon, which was built about a 100 years after Angkor Wat is unique because not only does it depict a bunch of boring battles and religious stories but it also shows, in detail, scenes from the everyday life of both the upper and lower classes! Okay I know you are totally amazed at this point, but you have to see these walls of intricate carvings stretching before you in the distance to get a feel for how much effort went into this. Here is a scene depicting the Khmers going into battle against the people of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings. Look, you can see the elephant that they rode around on. Okay, none of this might be technically correct but you get the gist ...

Me and a few of my Apsara girls, just hanging out, looking for trouble.

Off to war! Again! This one is from a naval battle the Khmers fought in 1177 against the Chams, their enemies from southeast Vietnam.

Men fighting in their underpants!

Pig roast. Or monkey roast maybe.

I think this is either a picture of people making offerings to someone important or a market scene (there is a woman crouching towards the right holding a basket). I have no idea why there are fish flying over their heads either. I guess they are underwater. That would make sense.

Dog fightin' ... don't tell the SPCA.

Playing chess. I wonder what happened if you beat the King ...

Here's what happens when you don't wear your life preserver. Note the war ship sailing above the drowned corpse, and the multiple oars. I love that this is essentially a rendering that takes into account perspective and depth. Meanwhile in Europe they were eating unicorns raw and scribbling on cave walls. Okay, maybe not in the 12th century but still!