We spent an hour or so clamoring over the ruins by ourselves (again, yes, with the kids as guides), then settled down to just kind of enjoy the fact that we were in one of the more remote parts of Cambodia, a generally remote country in its entirety, and sitting among the ruins of a temple complex built over 1,000 years ago. Even more amazing is that the towers that I'm sitting next to have maintained their integrity enough to still see the faces in them. 1,000 years in the jungle.


Our lovely friends basically just wandered with us, and did do a fantastic job of holding back until we decided on a direction, then running ahead of us as if to 'lead' us to where we were going anyway. It was sort of cute, but sort of annoying. But hey, they provided some entertainment, like when they all went running off after large grasshoppers, putting them into plastic cup for later roasting. As a bonus, one kid was nekkid the whole time.

The guy in the yellow shirt and black pants held himself out as our guide, likely because he had the largest English vocabulary, at a whopping 17 words by my count. He did, however, rely heavily on the girl in purple. She would tell him where to go, at which point he would look at us and point exactly where she was pointing already. It was relatively comical, as it happened about a half a dozen times. In the end, we gave her a larger tip than him, because, really, she did all the work.


The site was literally riddled (sp?) with rocks, as the collapsed complex created large piles of hewn stone. What was amazing is that, as we climbed around the site, we would look down to gain our footing hopping from stone to stone, and see the remnants of a 1,000 year old carving, just laying on the ground in a pile of other stones.