However, there were many monks sitting and chatting with tourists in the central tower. I met an 18-year-old monk who insisted that I was Japanese and kept on speaking Japanese to me. He apparently teaches Japanese to the other monks. It was quite amusing.

I really enjoyed sitting outside Angkor Wat. Riding a bike there can be physically tiring if you are not fit. I tried it and it almost killed me. I also didn't want to my bike to get stolen so I sat with it by the lake. Then a bunch of Cambodian men/boys came and sat and chatted with me. It's nice to be traveling alone and watching a wonder of the world without being disturbed!

I went to visit Angkor Wat during Khmer New Year. There were so many Cambodians there. It was too crowded!! But the wat is still very impressive and looking at it every time just hits me how beautiful it was, and with the breeze how good it felt to be there.

I could have sat there reading forever!

As the sky behind the temple lightened, I was one of the first to break away from the silent crowd and walk down the ancient stone walkway toward the heart of the temple. As I mounted the steps at the temple base, flanked on either side by massive stone balustrades carved with the shapes of seven-headed serpents, I thought to myself, "This very moment, I am ruining hundreds of photographs."

The temples themselves, and the jungles with which they seamlessly blend, are stunningly atmospheric. In this irony-soaked age, it can sometimes be hard to remove one's tongue from one's cheek long enough to muster the sincerity necessary to describe a moment of genuine wonder. I'm on vacation, so I'm not even going to try. My guidebook had an apt quote on the subject, something along the lines of Angkor Wat being like an epic poem, grand in structure, exquisite in detail, etc. I concur. Visit Angkor Wat. It's spectacular.

At the top of the Bayon, a temple famed for the dozens of massive carved faces that gaze down with unworldly smiles from its heights, I watched a British hippie explain to a monk that they shared a spiritual heritage.

"I don't go to church, and I visit a lot of temples, so I guess I'm mostly a Buddhist," the hippie offered, spiritually. Radiating a transcendant love for the universe and all its inhabitants, the monk hit the hippie up for some money.

As with most major tourist destinations, if you wander a little bit off the main circuit, you can find yourself utterly alone. With the aid of my bicycle, I soon found myself on top of Phnom Bok (phnom means "hill"), the site of a small unreconstructed ruin. Crumbingly statuary lies in the tall grass on top of Phnom Bok. Heaps of dragon heads and shattered female nudes are covered with blossoms from the frangipani trees that sprout from the roofs of the temple buildings.

Also on top of Phnom Bok are two pieces of artillery, presumably left there by the Khmer Rouge. The shocking thing about these pieces of artillery is their newness. They are not like material left over from World War I, rusted into monuments. The rubber tires are shiny and hard. Oil drips from gaskets. Grease coats the bearings. Cyrillic writings stands out sharply on the dials, and a ghostly crosshair is visible on the thick piece of untarnished glass in the sight.

By cranking the handwheel on the right side of the gun, I could sweep the five-foot barrel across the horizon. By cranking the handwheel on the left, I could change the barrel's angle of inclination. With a local child as my co-gunner, I stayed for a while on this bizarre piece of playground equipment, taking aim over the countryside.

Angkor Wat, the Great Temple, encompasses a full square mile and is said to be the largest temple complex in the world. Its three spires--shaped like elongated pineapples--are seen on postcards, in TV travel films, and on travel posters the world over.

Begun in the early 1100s, my guidebook said, Angkor Wat took 37 years and the labor of some 25,000 men to complete. And, though what’s now known as Cambodia is a Buddhist country, Angkor Wat was built as a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu. (Hindus and Buddhists, I’m told, have long co-existed peaceably in this part of the world. Indeed, according to my guide, the 12th-century Buddhist kings wanted a place of worship for their loyal Hindu subjects.)

On first approaching Angkor Wat, I thought, "IT’S NOT AS BIG AS I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE." Then I realized: though I was standing on the edge of the moat surrounding it, the temple itself was still more than half-a-mile away, at the end of a long causeway. It wouldn't be until the next morning, as my guide and I walked toward it, that I would appreciate its true size.

Guide Son Bunny wisely approached Angkor Wat from the rear, east side, to take advantage of the morning sun. Even from behind, the famous triple spires were clearly recognizable. Entering the temple required ascending ramps of 20-25 degrees, without handrails but wide enough for all but the most balance-impaired. We found ourselves at the junction of two long, massive corridors, 8-10 feet wide, between the inner and outer walls. Negotiating them required climbing, or stepping over, stone steps up to 15-16" high. Fortunately, my guide had considerable experience in assisting mobility-impaired visitors, and he urged me to explore several passages I might not have attempted on my own.

Good thing! Many of them opened into the temple’s inner courtyards, where one could watch the caretakers and monks at work. And, the main corridor of the lower gallery was festooned with ancient bas-relief art, much like the temples at Luxor and the Elephant Terrace at nearby Angkor Thom. Within the temple were several small shrines where locals often come to meditate.

You’ll need to buy a pass to enter the Angkor Wat complex by car. We paid, I believe, US$20 for a two-day pass. You’ll need the better part of a morning for the main temple itself. You’ll probably want to return to your hotel for a mid-day break: it’s only a 15-25 minute drive.

Allow about three hours for an afternoon tour of Angkor Thom, Tap Rohm, and other nearby attractions. This should put you back at the west portal of Angkor Wat in time for a sunset view--but be prepared for crowds.

"Angkor Wat," my reference booklet said, "represents the high point of Khmer architecture." I’m convinced--except, possibly, for Angkor Thom.