Notes on Siem Reap

Sometimes being outside of your element can make you recognize things you might normally take for granted. This is the truly great gift that travel offers. It provides you with an opportunity to recognize and scrutinize those small details of the everyday that are so commonplace that you simply accept them as part of your reality that you never really question their origin, their purpose, their importance to you and their impact on your overall satisfaction in life.

Take nachos, for example.

I want you to think long and hard about the last heaping plate of nachos you had. I bet it was served hot, with beautiful, glistening marbled cheese dripping over a mountain of golden tortilla chips sprinkled with chopped olives, tomatoes and jalapenos, a trio of dipping bowls containing salsa, guacamole and sour cream standing ready to be dunked and gutted. Covered in a layer of grease, your fingers reach hungrily for the most coveted chip of them all, the one imbued with the largest glob of melted cheese on the plate, the one that is most reluctant to be taken away and holds steadfast to its brethren through a series of thread-thin strands of cheese that don't ever seem to want to snap and when they do always seem to land on your chin.

I want you to think about that plate of nachos and be grateful that at any moment you can simply up and leave your home and relive that experience as many times as you might choose during the course of a day, week, month or year (although, I might advise limiting your nacho intake to one a day - actually, to tell you the truth, one a day might be over-doing it. You don't want to waste a good thing, but you don't want to overdo it either. Health concerns aside, you might risk devaluing the inherent worth that a good plate of nachos has).

I, of course, do not have the same luxury. Finding a decent plate of nachos in Southeast Asia is like trying to find nutritional value in a Big Mac. It just can't be done.

And God knows I've tried. More than once, which just goes to show you how desperate I've become. It's simply a concept that has never quite caught on here, perhaps due to the sheer distance between here and Mexico. I'll give credit to some restaurants and bars for trying. At least they've recognized the niche for such a plate. But alas, melted cheez by-product does not a good plate of nachos make.

There is, however, an exception to this phenomenon. Despite decades of poverty, war and genocide, leave it to Cambodia to get it right - the nachos that is. Best plate of nachos I've had in nearly a year.

These are other things that both Laura and I miss about living in Canada:

Big salads at restaurants
Backyards
Cul-de-Sacs
Second-hand stores
Used book stores
Used record stores
Good comic book shops that don't suck (okay, well, Laura doesn't really care about that one)
Bands that don't suck
Independent coffee shops
The smell of propane barbecues
Buttered movie popcorn
Garage sales
Variety of quality microbrew beers

Temples of Angkor

The Bayon, Angkor Thom




Ta Prohm







Ta Keo




Ta Som



Angkor Wat






The Urchins of Angkor (Photos courtesy of L.L.)





Barb and Dave, The Patron Saints of the Urchins of Angkor (whoever ends up with the wooden flute, please email me a picture of you playing it)



Stegosaurus