You Weren't Expecting Angelina Jolie, Now, Were You?

In The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot's eponymous speaker laments, "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."

Most of us, I believe, have measured out something or another in our lives in ways that have nothing to do with the metric or Imperial systems.  Me, I've gone on bike rides that I didn't measure in miles, kilometers, minutes, hours, days, pedal strokes or calories.  

As for the latter, I have followed the example of an old riding buddy and measured out my rides in bananas, water bottle refills, "gorp" or trail mix packets, dark chocolate squares, pizza slices or other foods consumed during the ride--or what was consumed afterward. 

I have also measured rides in the number of climbs or amount of climbing, temperature changes or the number of chateaux I visited. 

You know which country I was touring when I was counting chateaux.  Although the country where I've ridden the last few days was a French colony for a bit less than a century, that method wouldn't work very well. But there is a parallel method of measuring a ride in the vicinity of Siam Reap, Cambodia, where I am now.  


To wit:  I have been able to gauge my rides, more or less, by the temple ruins I've visited en route.  Only one of my rides so far have included none at all, though that one--the PURE countryside tour--took me to a currently-operating temple and monastery.  My other two rides both included the "big one": Angkor Wat.


As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my ride with Grasshopper Adventure Day Tours began with sunrise at Angkor Wat. (Interesting fact:  Angkor Wat is really a nickname. It means "city of temples".  Its original name, in Sanskrit, was Parama Visnuloka.)  Stuart and I, led by Vichea, rode a series of trails that Vichea knows about because he rides and races in this area.  Those trails took us to other temples that have at least some relation to Angkor Wat.  

They were actually part of a complex called Angkor Thom.  If Angkor Wat is the "Temple City", then Angkor Thom is the "Big City"--literally.  It's Angkor Wat on steroids--and at least one other mind-altering drug (at least according to my amateur knowledge of psychopharmacology).  It covers 9 square kilometers, or 3.5 square miles: roughly the size of Manhattan below 14th Street. 

Since it was designed as a city, it has  ports, if you will:  gates leading to  bridges lined with carved images.  All of those bridges and gates have more or  less the same architecture and carvings, which depict the deities involved in the Hindu creation myth.  

Once inside the gates and cross one of the bridges--we came in through the North side--possibly the most striking monument is Bayon, which is full of ecstatic depictions of Hindu deities.  The style of the place is often described as "baroque", in contrast to the "classical" Angkor Wat.  The latter has a symmetry that Bayon lacks, but it's hard to imagine Bayon built, or its carvings rendered, in a more restrained way.

Then there is a temple you might have seen even if you've never gone anywhere near Angkor Wat.  At least, you might have seen it on a screen much bigger than the one you're using to read this post.  Now, though, you get to see it with me in it.  Who needs Angelina Jolie, right?

I'm talking about Ta Prohm, more commonly known as the "Tomb Raider" temple.  Aside from its intricate structure, it's known for the trees whose roots ravel themselves around and under various walls and other parts of the temple.  Next to one of those trees, Jolie's Lara Croft character picks a jasmine flower and tumbles through the earth into....Pinewood Studios.  Hmm...I don't recall seeing that in Dante's Inferno.

I saw other temple ruins with Vachea and Stuart.  But Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm were enough to make the ride a monumental one, however many kilometers we pedaled, tree roots we rumbled across and mud we flung from our tires.  Oh, and just as nature re-conquered the Ta Prohm site once dominated by Khmer kings, at least one creature showed us who really has the run of this country, however slick we were at riding the trails and roads!

Give me a home where the (water) buffalo roam!

Temples And Bikes

Another temple, another bike.

No, I didn't buy another bike--or a temple. (If I could afford to buy a temple, I probably wouldn't have flown economy class!)  I did, however, managed to ride third different bike in as many days.  After mounting the machines provided by the organizers of the rides I took the previous two days, I did some exploring on this machine.

Here in Siem Reap, as in much of Cambodia, hotels and guest houses have bikes for their guests to use.  They are the sorts of bikes ridden by people who live here:  heavy and completely utilitarian.  Then again, most places charge only a dollar or two a day.  The hotel in which I'm staying provided the one in the photo for free.

You can tell this bike was not maintained in any systematic way.  Fragments of brackets for parts and accessories long gone are still clamped to the bike in various places. Did the bracket on the front hold a basket?  A light?  And the old shifter pod on the handlebar:  Was it for a three-speed?


The hotel desk manager actually knew enough to fill the tires before letting me ride it.  He even helped me to adjust the saddle. And the chain was surprisingly well-oiled.  But, as I found out when I dodged a tuk-tuk, a dog and a motorbike at the same time, about a kilometer from the hotel, the brakes weren't.

Fortunately, I found a hardware stall in a market strip.  The gentleman tried three different wrenches, all brand-new, before finding the 10mm open- and box-end wrench that fit the front brake's cable fixing bolt.  When I asked his price, he waved his hand.  So, I insisted on buying the wrench.  His price?  2000 rials, or 50 cents.  For good measure, I noticed he had a cooler full of cold beverages for sale.  I took a small can of lychee nut juice, which made for a grand total of one dollar.

(Most day-to-day transactions in Cambodia are done in dollars.  Rials are used only for amounts less than a dollar.  So, for example, if you buy something for $7.50 and pay with a $10 bill, you will probably get two dollars and two thousand rials in paper notes for your change.  Coins seem not to be in circulation in either currency.)

After adjusting the front--a simple side pull--I went for the rear and found what appeared to be a kind of disc brake in which the pad rubs the outer rim of the disc rather than the sides.  I didn't need the wrench to adjust it: I simply turned the cable barrel.

Then I was on my way.  First up:  the Ta Prohm temple.  I had already visited it with Vichea and Stuart, but it was along the route I happened to ride.  I certainly didn't mind seeing it again and, because I have a seven-day pass, I didn't have to worry about paying to get in.

Note:  The admission prices for what is known collectively as the "Angkor Wat complex" seems high:  $25 for one day, $54 for three and $72 for seven.  But those passes allow admission to the Angkor Thom temples (which include Ta Prohm) as well as others nearby.  Also, the seven-day pass is for seven days of visits, and can be spaced out over a month.  I figured that if I spent three days in any of the temples--which I have--I will have gotten my money's worth.

Anyway, there was no sign of Lara Croft, so the temple had to make do with me.  All of the temples are interesting in their own ways, but this one has what might be the most maze-like internal structure.  And, of course there are those trees that twine themselves around and under walls and other structures.  While all of the temples had things growing on them and creatures (and, probably, people) living in them when the Europeans found them, they didn't look like Ta Prohm.  Even there, some of the trees were cut away.  The ones that remain couldn't be cut or removed without damaging or destroying the structure.  A debate lingers as to whether the trees should be removed if a way can be found to extricate them without sending the walls tumbling down.

From Ta Prohm, I rode along varying combinations of pavement, dirt, ruts and rocks to Banetay Kdei.  Whatever its architecture or other attributes, it makes sense as a Buddhist temple for its peace and quiet alone.  It lacked the crowds of Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom.  It's so quiet, in fact, that you can hear the chirps, caw-caws, moans and other sounds of the surrounding jungle!

It was built in the late 12th and 13th Centuries CE  by Khmer King Jayavarman VII, who also built Angkor Thom and completed Angkor Wat.   So, not surprisingly, some features of Banetay Kdei, including the gopuras, or face towers at the gate, echo those of Angkor Thom.  Some go as far as to say that Banetay Kdei is a sort of Angkor Thom in miniature.

From there, I got some guidance for the rest of my ride--and day.

Somehow they managed to steer me back to Angkor Wat.  I didn't mind:  I mean, it really is one of those places worth returning to, crowds be damned.  Also, seeing it again helped me further appreciate the other temples I'd seen, which in turn helped me to further appreciate the Angkor Wat.

As for the creatures:  They're not as nice as they are cute.  (I've dated a few people like that.)  A few hang around Angkor Wat.  As I was leaving, one jumped on a tourist.  One of her traveling companions swatted at it, but it finally let go when another companion tossed a pineapple chunk onto the ground.  Good thing that monkey was hungry! 

I Paid Again (Don't Tell Anybody!)

Yesterday was a milestone for me:  It was the second day in a row I did an organized ride I had to pay for. I pride myself on not paying to go on a ride unless there's a very, very good reason--say, an event or cause or some ride I purely and simply want to do. (That's why I paid the five-dollar fee in a couple of the early Five Boro Bike Tours.) And it would have been against something--I won't say my religion, because I don't have one--to pay to ride two days in  a row.

 The way I rationalize this second consecutive day of pay-to-ride that I am in a completely unfamiliar place.  I can get around Paris almost as well as I can navigate New York.  After spending a day riding with a guide, Rome wasn't so difficult to figure out from the saddle.  Ditto for Montreal.  But Siem Reap is a whole different experience in every way--from the traffic patterns to the language, of which I can use about five words.

Also, I have no qualms about this second consecutive paid ride because it's very different, in almost every way, from the one I took the other day.  I enjoyed both, but some of you might prefer one to the other, for various reasons.

Yesterday's bike ride was run by a company called Grasshopper Adventure Day Tours, which also organizes rides in other countries.  The first point of difference between the ride I took with them, and the one I took the other day with PURE, is that yesterday's ride was supported en route.  The driver even picked up me and Stuart, the other participant in this ride, from my guest house and his hotel.  

The driver brought us to Angkor Wat, where we watched the sunrise. Well, we saw the dawn, or the beginning of the day, anyway:  A curtain of clouds cloaked the sun and allowed a few orange and pink rays from its fringes.

Oh, well.  For me, it was two days in a row of clouds blocking the sunrise at Angkor Wat.  It's a cliche, but you can't do anything about the weather:  In January, when I went to Florida, I had two days when the temperature didn't get much past 5C (40F) and two nights when it dropped to -4C (25F).  

After that sunrise, we had breakfast.  Yogurt, cereal, bread condiments, juices, coffee and tea were provided, and the driver made omelets (good, in fact) for me and Stuart. But the show-stopper, if you will, was a plate of sliced fruits, including the small but succulent bananas that grow here, as well as papaya, pineapple, a couple of melons and a white dragonfruit I'd never had before.  I could have eaten any of them all day!

That breakfast made me feel like I was part of a racing team.  Perhaps that wasn't a coincidence: Our ride leader, Vichea, is a mountain bike racer here in Cambodia. At least, he is when he isn't leading tours like ours or working his regular job as a teacher.

Before we set out to ride, he took us on a mini-tour of the main Angkor Wat temple.  I complimented his commentary; he demurred, saying, "Well, I  know this because I've been here all of my life."  

He also knows the trails in this area.  Grasshopper promised that this ride would take us away from the crowds.  Indeed, it did:  Even when we arrived at the temples, we were ahead of the biggest throngs of tourists.

Stuart is a regular mountain biker in his native Australia.  I once was semi-regular, but I haven't been since I sold my Bontrager 15 years ago.  Since then, I've stuck to road and street riding.  But I felt comfortable riding with Stuart and Vichea as we bounced oer rocks and tree roots, and navigated the steep turns, on dirt, mud and rock trails between the main Angkor Wat temple and its satellites, including Bayon.  We even rode through jungle but didn't see elephants, lemurs or even big snakes.  Near the end of the ride, though, we did spot some water buffalo.

By the way, in another contrast with my PURE ride, I rode a GT mountain bike with disc brakes and a mid-range suspension fork. When I registered, the Grasshopper administrator asked for my height and I noticed that Stuart, who is taller, had a bigger frame and Vichea, who is shorter, had a smaller frame than mine. I did the  PURE ride on a local-brand "city bike", which is kind of ironic given that the ride ventured  into the countryside.  That bike probably came in only one size.


We concluded with lunch at a roadside restaurant: a Khmer chicken-and-vegetable dish for me, accompanied by a small fruit plate, as every Khmer meal seems to be.  Not that I'm complaining:  I enjoy getting at least a taste of fruits I don't find often, if at all, when I'm at home.  

Now I'll admit that I feel at least one point of pride about this ride:  Stuart and Vichea both complimented my riding. I hope--and suspect--they weren't slowing down for me or tamping the intensity of those trails just because I am nearly two decades older than Sturart and he, in turn, is about a decade and a half older then Vichea!I  Then again, they probably didn't know that about me, if I do say so myself.

Saturday Ride: Empires And Connecticut

It's one thing to be reminded of Paris when you're in New York--especially, say, if you're walking down the Grand Concourse in the Bronx and looking at the Art Deco buildings--or pedaling along Ocean or Eastern Parkways in Brooklyn.  As I have mentioned in other posts, these places were inspired by the Grand Boulevards of Paris as well as the wide residential boulevards of London and other large European cities.

Also, I was in Paris a week and a half ago, so I have an excuse for thinking about it.

Now, it would be fair to ask what would cause me to think about Cambodia during a bike ride to and from Connecticut.  After all, there isn't much physical resemblance between the two places.  You might think that because I was riding on a cold day--the temperature didn't reach the freezing mark the other day, when I pedaled to the Nutmeg State--I was taking a trip, in my mind, to the warm weather I experienced in Southeast Asia.

Actually, I wasn't thinking about that.  Something I saw in the Greenwich Common reminded me, in an odd way, of something I saw in the land of the ancient Khmer kingdom.

Bare branches furled themselves around a monument to young men who marched, perhaps bravely, perhaps blindly, into their own slaughters.  In another year they are mourned, their young bones turned into mud:  They remain only as names on these stones after dying to capture hills and other terrestrial features that are recorded only as coordinates on a map or, perhaps, dates and times.  

All right.  I'll get off my soapbox.  When I see a war "memorial", I can't help but to think of what a colossal waste of lives--especially those of the young--result from the rise and fall of nations, of empires--whether said entities consist of real estate or simply numbers traded and sold from one electronic screen to another.

At least all those Greenwich residents who died too soon have names, at least for as long as those stones stand.  What, though, if the trees--not unlike the ones on the Connecticut state coin--were to wind themselves around those monuments?  What if they continued to grow, as they would if no one touched them, while the stones bearing the names of the lost were to crumble?

Somehow I don't think similar questions ever darkened the mind of Henri Mouhot.   He is often said--mistakenly--to have "discovered" Angkor Wat.  Of course, he no more "discovered" it than Columbus "discovered" America:  There were thousands of people already living in its vicinity, and they all descended from people who'd lived in the area.  Moreover, other French explorers and missionaries had seen and documented the temples decades before Mouhot.  He did, however, popularize Angkor Wat in Western imagination, in part by comparing them to the pyramids.

I have to wonder, though, what went through his and his colleagues' minds when they first saw Ta Prohm.

We know the name of the King--Jayavarman--who commissioned it.  Those who cleared the jungle, cut the stones, carved the statues and made the meals for those who did all the other work are anonymous to us now.  So are those who fought to build and maintain the Khmer Empire (or almost every other empire).  What we have now are what Mouhot encountered 160 years ago:  Trees reclaiming their home from monuments humans built.

Now, of course, I am not complaining about having gone to see Ta Prohm, or the rest of the Angkor Wat complex.  It really has been one of the great privileges I've enjoyed:  The temple sites are awe-inspiring in all sorts of ways, and the people are inspirational.  It should be remembered, though, that its glories, much like those of the Vatican and the grand cathedrals of Europe, as well as the pyramids, were the result of now-nameless people whose lives began and ended as fodder for the empire.  

And, I must say, it is ironic to be reminded of an ancient marvel in a tropical climate on a cold day in a modern suburban downtown--while riding my bicycle.

To The Temple Of Women

Nobody here should be impressed with me. (Actually, I don't think anybody should be impressed with me.)  But the people I've talked to all seem to look up to me, and not because I'm taller than they are.  

Sometimes it's because I'm a professor (university lecturer, actually), as educators and, more important, education are revered here because so many can't get it, or get enough.  A couple of people were in awe when I did something a lady isn't supposed to do:  reveal my age.  One woman--about whom I'll say more later--said her mother is ten years younger and "looks older."  Days spent in hard, repetitive tasks in the sun, heat and humidity will do that to you. And then there are those who think I'm other-worldly because I live in New York City.

Sokhana (sp?), who works at Green Park Village, the hotel where I'm staying, was simply astounded that I rode a bike about 85 kilometers.  She simply had to tell her co-workers, the manager and everyone about it.  If you've been reading this blog, you know that I've done much longer rides than that.  If anything, if they want to admire me, it should be for going that distance (about 53 miles) on the bike I borrowed from the hotel.  Yes, that one. And, perhaps, that someone from a temperate climate pedaled through the heat, humidity and rain (late in the afternoon).

I could have taken the tuk-tuk.  I'm sure the driver would have known how to get to the Banteay Srei temple.  But I simply felt like riding.

The town and district are named for Banteay Srei, hence the name of the Butterfly Centre I mentioned in yesterday's post.  My ride took me into the countryside, much like the PURE bicycle tour I took.  A curious visitor ambled up to the side of the road:

Just meters away, a farmer waded through a rice paddy, barefoot.  His manner of growing the grain, and the ways in which he tended the cow (if indeed the cow was his) probably don't differ much from those of farmers at the time the Banteay Srei temple was built, in the 10th Century CE.

The temple is known as the "Citadel of Women."  There are indeed many carvings of female figures, but they are mainly divine nymphs or celestial dancing girls knows as aspara or minor female deities, shown standing and called devata. 

The real reason why it's known as "The Citadel of Women," though, would not pass today's standards of political correctness:  It's because of the temple's small size, at least compared to Angkor Wat or Bayon, and the intricacy of its carvings, which have survived remarkably well.  

That detail was possible, in part, because most of the temple was built from red sandstone, which lends itself to such work and at times looks like wood. So, although it is relatively small, the reddish color and those details, visible from a pretty fair distance, give Banteay Srei a striking, unique experience.  You might say that if Angkor Wat is the virtuoso and Bayon is the show-stopper, then Banteay Srei is the crowd-pleaser.

And, yes, you can enter it with a valid Angkor Wat pass. 

On my way back, I passed the Butterfly Center and stopped at the Landmine Museum, but not to look at the exhibits.  The young woman at the admission desk remembered me and allowed me in when I asked to see another young woman who works in the gift shop.  An Youn and I had a very friendly talk when I first visited, and she really liked the pendant I was wearing.  This time, I gave it to her.  Rarely has anyone been so happy for such a small favor from me.

Of course, I didn't tell her the real reason I gave it to her:  I was trying to lighten up the load for the rest of my ride back to the hotel! ;-)

Not Bolted Down

The Angkor Wat, which I visited five years ago, is definitely a marvel.  Of course, I was awed by its architecture, history, art and overall aesthetics, as well as its importance to the identity of a people--and the human race. But even if I didn't care about such things, and I concerned myself only with materialistic, quantitative and practical matters, I probably would have been just as awed as I was:  The temples were built without the use of cement, nails, screws or any other materials to fasten or bind the blocks to each other.  Rather, those stones were so precisely cut, and fit into each other so perfectly, that the temples have withstood a millenium (or more) of heat, humidity, torrential rains, wars, invasions and the ravages of the Khmer Rouge.

It doesn't take much for me to remember the Angkor Wat: It's one of those things you don't forget once you've seen and touched it.  But something in particular brought back, to my mind, the temples' construction. 

Since you're reading this blog, you've probably figured that something is a bicycle, or something that has to do with cycling.  But, aside from the fact that one can ride pedal to the monuments (I know, I did), what does a bicycle have to do with monuments built to Hindu deities and later re-purposed as Buddhist shrines?

Well, the bike in question is constructed without bolts.  At least, that's how it looks.

The two-wheeler in question is indeed a real bicycle--one that pedals, with no motors or other assists anywhere on the premises.  It's billed as the "world's most bespoke bicycle":  Not only is the frame fitted to the customer's exact measurements; so is everything that's fitted to the frame.  Some of those components, like the special-edition Brooks C 13 saddle, are modified versions of what you can buy in your local shop or an online retailer. But most of the other parts are custom-made.  As an example, crank arms usually come in lengths from 165 to 175 mm in increments of 2.5 mm. But for this bike, the length of the arms can be specified to a fraction of a millimetre.  Ditto for the handlebars and stem, which are 3D printed.

Also, the maker of this bike claims that it has the world's first fully integrated brake system:

Now, the way I spelled "millimetre" should give you a clue as to where this bike is made--and where you'll have to go if you want to be fitted for one.  Gaydon, a village in southern England, is home to, well, not much.  Nearby are the British Film Institute's National Archive (which includes some highly flammable nitrate films) and the former RAF V Bomber base.  Oh, and there is the British Motor Museum, home to the largest collection of historic British cars in the world.

That last fact is a clue as to who is involved in making the bike in question.

J. Laverack builds titanium bike frames nearby, and is teaming up with a local company to build the bike.  That other company is--wait for it--Aston Martin.

Yes, the same firm that made the vehicle--a DB 5--James Bond drove in 1964's Goldfinger.  The same firm that has had a Royal Warrant, since 1982, as a purveyor of motorcars (how British) to Prince Charles/King Charles III.  Why?  Because his wife simply would not be caught dead in a Mercedes-Benz.

All right, I admit, that last sentence was a tasteless joke.  But I couldn't resist. Well, OK, I could have but, really, why would I? However, I promise nothing like it again on this blog.  Really!

Anyway, the bike can be finished in any Aston Martin colour. After all, you can't have one vehicle clashing with the other.

Across Rivers, Oceans--And Aeons

It's funny how a bit of travel can make you see a familiar bike ride in a new way.

So, for that matter, can doing the ride with new partners--or with partners if you'd previously done it solo.

That's how I found myself seeing the roads and trails of the Palisades when I pedaled them with Bill and Cindy the other day.

It's also the first time I've ridden with either of them in a while:  They've been spending their weekends in a secret hideaway they told me about. 

Seeing this plant--a giant fern, a small tree or something else--made me visualize, if for a moment, some of the flora and fauna I saw while riding in Cambodia.

And this sheer rock face made me forget--even though I've seen it before--that it's just across the river from the Cloisters--which, in turn, can make you forget that you're in Upper Manhattan.

The further you ride into the trails, and the closer you get to the river, the easier it is to feel you're not within a few kilometers of the George Washington Bridge.

But something one of them said really made me see this old familiar ride in a new way:  "You can almost imagine what it was like when the native people lived here."

Yes, sheer rock faces and colorful plants seem like eons as well as worlds away from the West Side Highway.  It almost seems possible to remember that whatever structures were in the area weren't made of steel or glass--or even brick.

As we were imagining people who are long gone and vistas changed, I found myself thinking back to Cambodia, where most of the population are Khmers, the people who have lived on that land for milennia.  Much of their landscape hasn't changed in centuries, whether in jungles that haven't been touched or the Angkor Wat and other temples, which were standing for centuries before the land we rode yesterday was called "New Jersey" and the other side of the river was named "New York", or even "New Amsterdam."  

Those temples still stand today, seemingly as much a part of the land as the rock face we saw.

Note:  The penultimate photo was not, of course, taken on the New Jersey Palisades.  The others, however, were.

The Angkor Wat photo, as well as the first two in this post and the "blueberry" photo near the end, were taken by me.  Bill took the others.

Waves Rise, Empires Fall, Temples Remain

Some do it because they must; others do it because they can.  Sometimes it's easy to tell who fits into each category.  Other times, not so much.

I'm thinking now about the folks who live on Tonle Sap, often called Cambodia's "Great Lake".  Like the Great Lakes of North America, it has its own climates and ecosystems.  It also has its own distinct human communities which, for all I know, Ontario, Erie, Huron, Superior and Michigan may also have.  

I took a tuk-tuk to the shore of Tonle Sac, about an hour from my hotel.  The ride took us from an industrial area on the edge of town into expanses of rice paddies and forests.  At times, the pavement on Highway 6 gave way to dirt, which turned to mud when it began to rain.

The road also narrowed, which meant that my tuk-tuk driver had to follow the unwritten, unspoken rule of the road in this country:  You move over for anything that's bigger than what you're driving (or pedaling).  That, at times, meant swerves through potholes of some liquid about the same color as an iced blonde macchiato at Starbuck's.

(Why am I mentioning the Evil Empire of coffee when writing about Cambodia?)

Oh, and all manner of living things cross the road--including oxen and cattle.  One of them might've impaled me on his horns had my driver's reflexes been any slower. 

But he got me to the shore.  I didn't uncross my fingers, though: It seemed that we'd been riding in and out of downpours.  

That tuk-tuk ride was a harbinger of things to come. Or maybe I hadn't "seen nothin' yet".  For all I knew, Tonle Sac might be like an inland sea, with all of its caprices in currents, tides and the like.  

Turns out, I knew more than I realized.  The boat I took could've been built by a Khmer farmer a century or two before any Europeans showed up.  The only difference was that it had an engine.  

The driver of the boat took us through a community of floating houses, which includes the school he attends.  He is 16, he told me, and had been driving the boats since he was 13.  He enjoys it, he said, but he wants to continue his schooling to so he can "help out" his family.

Would "helping them out" mean getting them out of that floating community--or simply finding a way to live better in it?  

One thing I must say for him is this: He isn't stupid.  I asked him to take us out into the open lake, where no land was visible.  There, choppy waves turned into walls of tide that bounced us like a beach ball off the nose of a circus seal.  He told me he could continue if I wanted to, but I could tell that he would have preferred not to.  And I didn't blame him, so we didn't.

But I did get to see fisherman unfurling, fixing and casting their nets; women cooking and cleaning. (On most of those houses, at least two sides are open.

Out in the open lake, all four sides are open--to the wind and storms as well as the decisions made by young captains and their passengers! 

Once back on shore, my tuk-tuk driver suggested two temples about a third of the way back to Siem Reap: Bakong and Preah Ko.  

Bakong, one of the oldest temples, has been called the "Khmer Pyramid" due to its shape.  It also has, perhaps, the steepest stairs to climb.  Like Angkor Wat, it was originally built as a Hindu shrine; other temples constructed for Buddhists tend not to have such steep stairs.  My theory is that Buddism stresses the importance of learning and--in some branches, anyway--an ordinary person is capable of becoming a Buddha, or enlightened one.  Hinduism, as I understand it, is like other theistic religions in that it says people have a long, steep climb to reach the Gods.

Preah Ko was built a bit later than Bakong, but is still one of the oldest Khmer temples.  King Indravarman built it late in the 9th Century CE to honor members of the king's family, whom it relates to the Hindu god Shiva.  Interestingly, it was built from bricks on a sandstone base, in contrast to later temples made from sandstone and lava.

(Note:  Both of these temples are accessible with an Angkor Wat pass.)