more angkor pictures

As promised, more pictures. But fucking blogger doesn't seem to want to publish this, and I have been trying for, like, 9 hours now, so you may actually never see this. Which sucks. Cuz it's kind of cool, sorta.

An altar in Ta Prohm. I took alot of pictures of these. So amazing, the way the light streamed in through the ruined walls. Light banishing dark. The bright color against the grey stone. The smell of incense and aged rocks, (and in some cases, pee). It was overwhelming in every sense.

Silk cotton trees growing through the ruins of a temple. To me they looked like white ghost skeleton hands digging into the buildings. They were very pale against the rock. Destructive beauty.

My little Cambodian pal. This little girl followed me all through a temple, peeping over walls and through windows, giggling and hiding. I finally 'caught' her by taking her picture and then showing her the picture of herself in my digital camera screen. (This, by the way, is an EXCELLENT way of communicating with folks in other countries where you don't share a language. Ask to take their picture, then show it to them after you take it. Guaranteed smiles. Digital cameras rule. ) Once she saw herself, she wanted to be my model and pose for me. As you can see, she was a natural.

Another shot of the monkey. It's climbing up to the Buddha. I like the balance of man, statue and critter.

Here's the larger shot of the temple, with the Buddha face in the temple tower. This is the Bayon again. Every tower had faces in it. So cool.

We had a fairly restful weekend back here in Norway. Still fighting the jet lag a little, just shows itself in us waking up too early. I went for some brisk walks, I really love it and it ups my mood tremendously. Especially with the iPod in tow. The weather is cool and crisp, the low to mid 50's, which is such a change after SE Asia. Refreshing.......

It's interesting how safe I feel in Norway. Thailand, well Bangkok especially, feels like one of those places where if something bad happened to you, you would just disappear. So busy, so chaotic, so foreign, that you could just get swallowed up in it. No one would know who I was or speak my language, I would just be lost and swept away. It was a bit scary at times and I have actually had a few wierd dreams about it. Back here in small safe antiseptic Norway, I know I won't get run over or die of some strange tropical disease. And I can read the language so I can understand what's going on.

Some of this feeling comes from this book I read called "Forget You Had a Daughter" by Sandra Gregory. She is this British woman who stupidly agreed to carry some heroin out of Thailand, got caught and spent 11 years of a 25 year sentence in Thai and British prisons. Her story is harrowing, unsettling and at times actually painful to read. I read it on the plane back from Bangkok and oy vey, it's stuck in my head.