Dispatches from Siem Reap - II

It's been a day of jumping out of bed at 4 am, sitting in a Tuk-Tuk that rattles your bones and wrapping shawls tightly around to shake off the piercing morning chill.

Then on to getting Passes with bleary eyed and wide smiling faces and on through the broad roads, only to see a shadow of the great wall, across the black moat that surrounds the ancient monument.

Stumbling on the ancient causeway, we make our way through darkened entrances where no Agarbati can fully mask the mustiness left behind by creatures of the night.

As one, we move with travellers who've come from across the world, to see that age old spectacle of the rising sun as it lights up the Angkor Wat, one of those monuments that leave even the most arrogant of the human race humbled.

Fingertips tracing ancient scripts and with heads bowed down to deities that are centuries old, we tread softly through corridors that tell us tales of bygone eras. Overwhelmed, we walk a few metres away, trying to comprehend, how the first Non-Khmer who saw it's Gopuras rise through the dense forest must have reacted.

Faces look down on us, following our footsteps, a knowing smile in place as we pick our way through the mazes and the spirit of balanced chaos that abounds at Bayon.

Skilled artisans and benevolent kings as those master builders of yore might have been, at the end, we are forced to accept that it's always Mother Nature who has the final word.

Tomorrow will be a new day, with much more to see...