Lingas, Landmines and Light Rain

It was a long, bumpy ride to The River of A Thousand Lingas, our speeding tuk-tuk trailing a cloud of martian dust all the way back to Siem Reap. For those of you wondering, a linga is a phallic symbol (a cock), so yeah, the place is called The River Of A Thousand Cocks. More accurately, it is a sacred object or carving that embodies a wide range of meanings and carries a rich history. It's also the magic rocks (Shiva Linga) that get stolen from the town in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. While the river was nowhere near as exciting as IJatToD (alas, no cutting of a rope bridge with a machete and hanging on for dear life), it did have a pretty decent waterfall, which are hard to hate.

More temples materialized out of the forest. Temples of rust-colored stone, intricately carved, where the sound of strange strings and wooden flutes floated on the air. These were places populated not only by tourists and trinket hawkers, but barefoot monks, musicians, and those mutilated by landmines. One temple, which appeared flooded, consisted of four square ponds positioned around a central lake, small shrines rising up from the water. Mia mused that it might've been the king's private sauna, while I thought it looked more like something out of The Legend of Zelda.

But the best was yet to come. Towards twilight on our third day, Bechet smiled and told us, “one more temple.” It started out fairly standard, as Angkorian temples go, the requisite stone cobras and headless sentinels ushering us inside, but soon revealed itself to be the most spectacularly ruined temple in the complex. The sun-bleached carcass of a monster tree trunk had a collapsing doorway in its death-grip, each locked in a mutually dependent embrace. Stones were bigger here, designs bolder. A two-story columned structure still stood, admirably, on the fringes. With dusk closing in, a light rain began to fall, darkening the stone by degrees in sync with the sky. After the rain came we realized something wonderful—we were alone. There was not another person in this place. It was ours. We made our way to the back of the site, where a truly massive tree rose up from a wall like the outstretched neck of a brachiosaurus, feeding on the highest leaves. I couldn't take enough pictures.

That night, we said goodbye to Bechet, the tuk-tuk driver (I slipped him a 10) and went to a buffet and traditional Khmer dance show. The food was uninspired, but the show was mesmerizing. Girls in golden crowns made slow, swirling motions with their wrists, flicking flower petals in little bursts as they flittered about the stage. There was also a dance of courtship, in which a masked man repeatedly tried to win the affections of a pretty girl, who at first rejected him, and then fought with him, before finally taking him as her lover. We left, bellies full of bland, and perhaps a touch tantalized from the performance, in search of a new hotel.