I’ll start by celebrating the people in my life who are currently living abroad. I am so impressed by the number of adventurous souls in my life who are living outside of their comfort zones, learning about the universe, and sharing their warm spirits. My first night in Phnom Penh, I got to see my friend Dave, with whom I studied at Berkeley. He is doing micro-finance work in Southeast Asia, and is living in Cambodia for at least a year. What a bad-ass.

I got to spend most of my time in Cambodia with my friend Dan, who I know through our mutual friend Corie Schneider.  Corie is living on a boat in Australia; Dan is spending eight-months traveling around Asia.  Life ain’t bad.  Dan is a person in my life with whom I can have sincerely profound conversations on privilege, religion, altruism, love … and then share a beer, play pool, and laugh hysterically at something menial.

Dan, Sara, and I took a six-hour bus ride north, from Phnom Penh to Siam Reap, passing wooden huts on stilts, long stretches of dry land dotted with palm trees, and occasional roadside venders, selling pineapple and watermelon. The famous Angkor temples are twenty-minutes outside of Siam Reap. Our first night in town, we braved the “pub district” of the city, all of which is changing rapidly with the spread of tourism.

At one point during our meal, we were approached by a teenage boy wearing a tank-top and a pair of dirty shorts. He was Cambodian, and wanted to sell us a book on the Angkor temples. We politely told him no, thank you. He looked at us, pensive with penetrating black eyes, and asked us where we were from. After we replied, he began naming the most recent presidents, in backward order, and stating sizes and populations of the various states. It was mind-boggling to listen to him recite knowledge that most Americans do not possess. I asked him his name. Tom told us that he loves history and studying, and that he never met his father. There was no ploy or pretense on his end; when we asked him questions about his life, he was genuinely enthusiastic that we cared. We didn’t buy his book. He told us that he wished he could stay to talk with us, but he has to try to get his books sold. He only goes out on the street to work on nights that he does not have homework.

It got me thinking about the extent to which education systems in impoverished countries perpetuate the cycle by teaching children how to beg. Someone taught Tom the information he knew for the clear purpose of impressing sympathetic, American tourists. Tom could have been learning science, or math, or Cambodian literature … instead, he was learning that Reagan came before Bush, and that Texas is the second largest state.

I’d like to study this further.

We had one full day in Siam Reap/Angkor and we planned on using it fully. Dan, Sara, and I arose at five AM to the sound of Sara’s alarm playing “Teach Me How to Dougie.” We hopped into a tuk-tuk driven by a man named Lee, a shy Cambodian man who agreed to drive us around the temples all day for twenty bucks. Dan snuck away before Lee arrived to get us coffee at a local gas station. What a hero.

Being at Ta Prohm for sunrise was breathtaking. Most people go to Angkor Wat to get a sunrise shot, and all alone at Ta Prohm, we felt like we were discovering the temple for the first time since the Khmer Empire’s reign. We climbed on ancient heads from a thousand years ago, breathed, and prayed in front of the innumerable Buddhas that speckle each temple.

After visiting Bayon temple along with a plethora of Chinese tourists, we drove outside of the main Angkor area to visit Banteay Srey, one of the more secluded ruins. We drove through local communities, playing a game in which we had to be the first to spot a naked baby, a pig, or a dog sleeping somewhere other than the ground. We must have looked strange, screaming, “NAKED BABY!” from our tuk-tuk and pointing enthusiastically. The temple was crowded with Cambodians attempting to sell bagged pineapple, books, and baggy pants to tourists, most of whom were too hot to be friendly. We left quickly, after appreciating the intricate designs on the temple walls.

On the way back, we asked Lee to stop somewhere where we could get noodle soup. He pulled over at a restaurant with five-dollar noodle soup, way out of our price range. We walked a few meters to a restaurant with a less impressive facade, passing women selling chicken, ragged-looking dogs sleeping, and rice being cooked on giant vats on the cement floor. We wanted to buy Lee some soup, but he was vehement against coming and eating with us. He didn’t speak any English, and I think we made him nervous.

After lunch it was to the finale: Angkor Wat.

Outside of Angkor Wat, we were greeted by a macaque monkey in a tree.

Angkor Wat was the center of the Khmer empire in the 12th century. The Khmer Empire spread over most of the Southeast Asia until it fell to either the plague or water shortages (due to canal infrastructure not being able to sustain the rapidly growing population). It possesses a unique mix of Buddhist and Hindu archaeology, having been a temple utilized by practicers of both religions during the last nine centuries. We spent our time at the temple resting against ancient stone walls, posing like the smiling, stone Buddhas surrounding us, and taking endless pictures.

We got back to Siam Reap filthy and exhausted. After sneaking into the pool of a resort (some things never change), we attempted to fall asleep at our hostel, which had no electricity or water pressure. Intense.

The next night, after traveling back to Phnom Penh, Dan and I went out to play a few games of pool. As Dan and I are wont to do, we stayed out much later than we had planned. At one point of the evening, walking down a dark street hiding ex-pats and young, Cambodian prostitutes, Dan looked at me and said, “Want to get weird?” He nodded toward a group of young Cambodian women outside of a pool hall. Next thing we knew, we were playing pool with two of them in a dark, empty bar. Although at first, they both thought that I was a lesbian and that Dan and I were interested (trying to distract me by posing suggestively over my shots), they quickly realized that we were there to play pool and talk with them. I asked Ain, the most beautiful of the women, if she was happy. With Dan’s help, we successfully conveyed what people might consider happiness. She said that most of the time she is, largely because she lives with her family. There was so much more to her story.

That night, before going dancing at a smoky club playing electronica, I was dumbfounded at the number of Cambodian prostitutes on the street, eating food in groups of three or four, staring pointedly at the white men passing them slowly, surveying. The women were beautiful, and the men, well, the men seemed to be acting on grimy, base emotions that they can only follow on the concealed streets of Cambodia.