Angkor Wat and Taipei

B and I just recently got back from Southeast Asia. After being in Bangkok for four days, we proceeded to Cambodia and the ancient site of Angkor Wat. It was really impressive and enormous, and I loved it very much. If you've seen Lara Croft: Tomb Raider then you have an idea of what Angkor Wat looks like, as the movie was shot there. The temples were abandoned to the jungle for 500 years or so, and so massive trees grew up on top of the stones are now so intertwined it's hard to tell which is temple and which is tree. We stupidly forgot our camera, but B's dad had a new digital one and took about 500 pictures, which he will send to us.

Cambodia is really poor and undeveloped: there are many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) there, as the government is corrupt, impoverished and incompetent, so everything that gets done is done by foreigners. It is even poorer than Vietnam; the "middle class" consists of those with enough rice to eat (but nothing else). However, since we were with B's dad, we were insulated from the hardships of daily life and stayed at nothing but really nice five-star hotels, with beautiful pools, landscaped and extensive grounds, and delicious food. It was fun (if rather strange and at times uncomfortable, since I'm not used to flunkies) to live like the rich for a while.

Because Cambodia is so poor, all sorts of handmade stuff is really cheap there. I bought two blankets, a silk shirt, various animal knickknacks, handmade chopsticks, and placemats: for me that's a lot of stuff!

Then we all returned to Taipei, and B's dad stayed with us for a little while. I had to work, but B took him to the most notable sites, like the National Palace Museum (best collection of Chinese art in the world: thanks Nationalists for shipping all the emperors' stuff out of China and thus saving it from the Cultural Revolution!). He just left, and tonight B and I went to a Chinese puppet show. It was very interesting to see, but unfortunately was only in Chinese, so I'm a little fuzzy on the plot. I think it had to do with a poor traveler pretending to be the emperor and in this guise seducing a nobleman's daughter.