Day 11: More like a continuation of Day 10

Our LonelyPlanet guidebook described the road from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap as ''very comfortable...like a tarmac...thanks to recent upgrades''. Boy were they wrong. Our bus left at midnight, and we arrived in Siem Reap at 6 am, completely exhausted after not being able to sleep on the bumpiest bus ride of our lives. Not only was the road terrible, but Ashwin's seat squeeked with every bump, and the group of Australian women behind us kept giving off overly audible sighs of annoyance. With so much negative energy directed our way, we were kept up all night.

Upon arrival, we decided to make the most of the day and not catch up on sleep before commencing on the tour of Angkor, the 1000 year old capital of the Khmer Empire. This added the benefit of being able to see the temples without the rush of tourists akin to a busy day at Disneyland (Asia). We rented a tuk tuk driver who drove us from temple to temple for the next 9 hours, occasionaly stopping for food and coffee to keep us nurished and alert.

Angkor is absolutely stunning - an impressive feat of ancient architecture, construction, and artistry. Angkor Wat, the largest of the temples, not to mention the largest religious site ever erected, is truly an engineering marvel and a site to be seen. The man-made moat surrounding the complex puts any medieval castle's system of protection to shame. After the first few hours of peaceful, even introspective, touring through temples, the crowds began to accumulate, and the wonder and mystique dissipated with them (much like our experience with Machu Picchu last summer).

Ashwin's self-proclaimed haggeling skills inherited from his eastern roots were put to the test when we went to purchase some trinkets from one of the nearby chotchky (a word Ashwin has recently adopted from Danny's yiddish roots) tents. Ashwin quickly became emotionally attached to the product, and was immediately made incapable of any reasonable bartering skills, despite his high volume purchase. Meanwhile, Danny was asked by a bored tuk tuk driver whether the two of us had the same father because we had the same skin color (again, really?). We still find it odd why he assumed we only shared a father. Danny, adement to show off his bartering skills, cold-heartily approached a different stand and had the woman down to half of Ashwin's price in less than a minute - even without purchasing in bulk. Ashwin retains that his ''wasted money'' (as Danny calls it, which by the way was all of 3 dollars) went to a worthy cause, as these people are seriously living under tarps.

At each temple, a hoard of local children would run up to us, shoving their little trinkets in our faces, and describing, in what seemed like perfect English on the surface, why we needed what they were selling. ''You want water?'' ''We already have water.'' ''But you need more water, and my water is cold!'' Sounds like a conversation you could have with a native speaker, right? Not quite. This was the extent of their English abilities. When asked simple questions unrelated to their microbusiness, they had no idea how to respond. Even to a simple ''How are you?'' or ''What's your name?'' their faces would go blank and they would return to essentially begging us to buy their products. In fact, when we would get back into the tuk tuk to depart for the next site, their prices would plummet faster than the DOW in October '08 (''Two bracelets, one dollar.'' would literally become ''Twenty bracelets, one dollar.'') We still didn't give in.