These 4 AM mornings are going to kill me

Pitch black but for the myriad stars. Outside the gates of our guesthouse (where we ate a most fabulously delicious Amok (a traditional Kmer dish, some sort of beef or pork in sauce with a side of rice)) Pon, a twenty four year old Cambodian who learned English from tourists conversations in restaurants and can't afford to pay $400 for a year of English class (its about that much per month in Korea) and our hired tuk-tuk driver called my name. I saw two little red beads of light hovering in the air. He and David were having a little breakfast smoke.

* * *

Still pitch black we arrive at Angkor Wat (city temple). Here, says Pon. Quite confused and disoriented we head towards a bobbing light nearby. It belongs to a couple Japanese girls. They agree to let us follow them. We cross the a huge bridge across a moat that would humble any medieval lord. Suddenly two great coned shapes loom above us. A chill runs down my spine. The gates of Angkor Wat. A Cambodian man offering to sell us coffee and breakfast without invite leads us through the dark to what he proclaims to be the premier sunrise location within the grounds. The one you see in the postcards, he says. When we get there, little boys immediately swarm around us with plastic chairs and invite us to sit down. Those of us not paying deny. Apparently this spot is no secret and when the tour buses arrive it's suddenly alight with flash bulbs and chitter chatter. There is still some thirty minutes until sunrise so I get up for a walk around, cursing that stupid invention for stupid people, autoflash.

* * *

The squeaking of bats in the hundred nooks and cracks of the long decayed pointed stone ceiling above my head. Endless black hallways to my left and to my right. Alone, I wander through the temple, mesmerized. An occasional flashlight bobs in the dark. All is quite save the bats and the crunch of my footsteps on loose sand. I sit on a ledge on the far outer wall of the temple and watch the sun rise pink and orange over the treetops. I feel unreal.

* * *

For over twelve hours we traverse the massive ruined city on foot and in tuk tuk. Pon waits for us and naps in hammocks in shaded restaurants. He seems honest and kind. He reminds me of a Mexican boy I used to play soccer with. David confesses the same. Perhaps that is why we agreed to pay him, though we could probably have gotten cheaper elsewhere. I can't bargain with these people. After seeing the wretchedness of PoiPet, it would feel like stealing from the Red Cross Santa at Christmas time. So I end up paying more here than in Bangkok. I lose David in the morning before asking for the sunscreen, so I try to stay in the shade while wandering in and out of endless abandoned ruins. I don't see him again for four hours. By evening, I'm exhausted, roasted, and thoroughly amazed, staggering through the ruins like a ghost, too tired to take note or photos.

* * *

She made a fool of me. When I refused to buy a shirt, she began quizzing me on the US capitals. I failed miserably. She, on the other hand, not only named them all (except South Carolina) but also the capitals of many nations, South American, European and Asian. Then she started speaking in Spanish, then Polish. Her English of course was excellent. And she couldn't have been more the ten. With this little Cambodian girl David and I spent our last hour at Angkor. In some remote temple I never learned the name or significance of. She lifted our spirits. Among the throng of children selling books, shirts, cards, memorized eloquent speeches on the nuances of the reliefs in the walls, we could pay only a few, give a couple pens, and walk away and ignore a great many. It's truly humbling. So she, this little girl named Corn, received the last of our expendable money (100 baht and 1000 real), those not owed to our faithful driver. And in return we received a pair of pants and a souvenir T shirt. But it was the presence of her spirit that sold us. That rare, jubilant spirit that promises hope for the rest of us. She drew us flowers for good luck and wrote my name in Kmer. The sun set behind the fallen walls and it was time for us to leave.

Hasta la vista, she said.