Tigers and Bamboo Nests - Week 16

Week 15 Thailand (Chang Mai, Chang Rai)
9th to 16 of November

Early morning dawn, announced with the now familiar cock-a-doodle-doo's. I was just savouring the last few winks before little Nina joined us in our four poster, mosquito net covered bed.....followed by her sisters and brother. Another 5 minutes of cuddles turned tickles followed before we really had to get the show on the road!!! 

A 6:30am  breakfast was booked with Thomas (he baked the rolls fresh every morning!!) before  Mr Suchea and his buddy tuk-tukking in. We had to be at the bus company's office by 7:45am to catch our ride to Bangkok.BANGKOK!!! This means we were kissing Cambodia and it's lovely (not!!) southern roads goodbye and crossing over the border at Poipet into country number 8, Thailand!! With a final picture and a last scramble up a tree, we were bobbing about over the single track access road away from our home stay with Channa, Thomas and family.

We booked with the rather expensive NATTAKAN bus company to take us from Siem Reap, across the Cambodia-Thai border to Bangkok. There are various options for this journey, but we decided it wise to stick with one company for the full journey, to cut out loads of walking with heavy luggage and also to a get their assistance in exiting Cam and entering Thai. Luckily the price tag came with full board...so we got some water, breakfast and lunch(very tasty hot fried rice and shrimps, which we picked up from a 7Eleven on our way).

Arno and I a good think about it, and then decided to use Bangkok only as a transit stop. Big cities are expensive and quite hard to get around in if you got limited time. We wanted to get to Northern Thailand to explore the people and mountains a bit more. So our 8 hour bus ride to Bangkok was just half of the journey!! We also made a very brave decision...to wing it!!!! Yep, with the kids in tow... I think coming up to 4 months on the road, we are getting confident that there are not may scenarios left that we would find hard to cope with!!! So we had a plan mapped out, but we had to wait till Bangkok before we could execute it!!!

We pulled into a HUGE bus station, way far out of the city centre, and were basically just dumped there with vague instructions of what way to look to find a taxi. Not much options, so we were a bit ripped off by a taxi company and had to pay 1300 Thai Baht(£25), for a ride, 40 min long, to the central train station. We were still in time to catch the7:30pm sleeper train to Chang Mai( still going according to plan...) .....just that train was full now. Good news....there were another train at 10pm...bad news.... no sleeper bunks left on that one either...good news..... we still could get seats on it...bad news only in 3rd-class... 

Still smiling..............in line to buy tickets......

...ok...3rd class here we come.....Chang Mai!!!!

Ok, so the plan was still in action, maybe not in exact shape and form that we anticipated it to be playing itself out, but at this point we were shutting our eyes and just went along with it!!  Ok, it was a wee surprise to see that third class just has hard benches, and that our booked bum-space on these benches ere not even all together....but too late to moan. We were on a train heading for the northern province!!! Interesting ride. Despite of complete discomfort, all of us actually did manage to sleep a bit ( Alana started her nap on the station floor in Bangkok!!!)

Looks really comfortable??!!!!!!!

Arno needed some Thai massage attention the following day, but once it was morning, we had the best time looking out of the windows and taking in the jungle landscape rolling pass.

(In third class you need to keep the windows open for ventilation...not air con luxury there...

But the warm humid evening breeze brings a lot of little friends along. So we had all sorts of dust and flying things to get acquainted to during our 15 hour trip!!) We became friendly with some local travellers and the children still manage to brighten up the day for many. The latest question we are getting is: two fingers held together, while pointing at Nina and Philippa....No they are not twins!!

Look who slept in 3rd class for one night.....only........

Some other 3rd class travellers......

On a side note: once awake in the morning, Nina had a burning fever. This was the first real health issue that we needed to deal with. She was vomiting a  few times and very sleepy. We just tried to keep her hydrated and cool, with a wet cloth behind her neck. I've got some Nurophen medicine with me, but no point really, in giving it to a child, who can not hold anything down. So we were just trusting God for wisdom and praying for her speedy recovery. (The fever lasted a day and by the following morning she was well again. Praise God!!) 
We did some research, before setting off, a put the issue of Malaria. We decided to go with the advice of the international health board- no place that featured on our itinerary is classified as a " malaria area". Another fact is, that we are travelling in South East Asia for an extensive time with loads of different strands of mosquitoes, so taking one specific drug may also not even be relevant to all the different areas we are visiting. There is another fever, called dengue fever, which is something that travellers sometimes pick up in these areas. You just need to be vigilant and wise. Unfortunately, no preventive medication available for dengue. I've printed off a sheet with symptoms, which we are carrying with us, so we use this as our guideline. 

We arrived round 1pm in Chang Mai and was whisked away in a new type of pick-up truck taxi thing. We were booked into a backpackers hub, Julie Guesthouse, in the inner city. Chang Mai is a rather big city.

The old city is is squared in with a moat and remnants of an old city wall. Innumerable guesthouses, cafes, laundromats and more with a VERY wide variety of price options!! Most travellers use CM as a stop-over destination to take the slow boat into Laos, or to go on 1 to 3 day jungle trekking trip. Around CM is also many options for interacting with elephants...elephant shows( Ellie's painting pictures on canvas(??) and playing soccer) to rescue centres and elephant jungle riding. We left it a bit too late to get space to visit the famous Elephant Nature Park, but manage to got booked into the Happy Elephant Home. No elephant riding here, but just interacting with rescued elephants, feeding and bathing them. More about this later.

 So initially we were staying in CM for two nights before leaving for Chang Rai, even further north, close to the boarders with Myanmar( former Burma) and Laos. 

Since there were no places left to visit the ellies on our day in CM, we had another trick up our sleeves....Researching Chang Mai, way back in Scotland, I found out about the Tiger Kingdom. With mixed reviews about rumours that the tigers were sedated with drugs, we did not really knew what to make of it. Once in CM, we research this park a bit further, using the wonderful service of TripAdvisor and then made the decision to invest into this encounter. It was not cheap, but I can tell you, we had the best time ever!!!!!! Since little people are not allowed to go into the cages with bigger tigers, we just bought the Small-tiger package. This included entrance into the park and then a hands-on 15 minute encounter with two 3 month old baby tiger cubs.

The one baby was really active and playful, while the other one was having one out of his 18 hours per day nap. After our time with the cubs we were free to walk around amongst the other bigger tiger cages. We were watching other tourists having cuddles with giant cats and just marvelled at their beauty!! 
We can vouch for the authenticity of this experience and to our knowledge the tigers are not drugged, but well trained and very well looked after.

Since we were in the vicinity of the snake  park, Thomas and Alana begged Arno to take them there. The little girls and myself were very happy to entertain ourselves outside the "snake theatre". We could still hear the shrieks coming from the viewers...and congratulated ourselves with our excellent choice of opting out!!! The snake charmer invited guests to hold a python and Alana and Arno's got the picture as prove of their bravery!!!
Enough excitement for one day!!

(Jammer Ouma Leta.......)

We were booked onto a minibus for the 3 hour journey to Chang Rai. In travel-day standards, this was a pretty short journey...actually the shortest to date!! We had to be at the old bus station in Chang Rai by 4 pm, to hitch our complimentary ride to our next destination...the Bamboo Nest. Together with 3 other couples, we were picked up and continued to our destination, 23 km towards the Myanmar border. The hour's ride gave us enough time for introductions to our new travelling companions. The French honeymooners were sitting with the driver up front, Canadian couple, Alex and Matt and the Spaniards, Maria and David, with us and the luggage in the back. The road got quite steep, so much so that our luggage had to be transferred to a 4x4 double-cab bakkie (pick-up) and we had to go on foot for the last 500m to our accommodation!!! 

Nok and  Noi has started this mountain resort 5 years ago and YES, everything was made from bamboo, even the beds, doors, windows(with the exception of the toilet and bathroom sink and hammock!!!)

Since they find the Laoh tribe pretty lazy, they undertook this project knowing that they might need to run it on their own, with not much help. Wow, with 8 bungalows, cleaning, cooking (3 meals per day available on menu), doing the daily pick up and drop off run into town AND accompany guests on excursions....they are working VERY HARD.

During our 3 days/ 4 nights at this gorgeous mountain retreat, we hiked to a strong waterfall in the Thai jungle, met some of the Aka hill tribe people in a high village and walked to a Chinese village even higher up in the mountains. Arno took the older children there, while I stayed with Nina and the feverish Philippa. Jip, she got the same illness that Nina suffered of, a few days earlier. It took her as bit longer to recover, but praise God, on day 2 she started being herself again....just like that!!!! We did not do too many touristy things here. Just used the hammocks in front of our bamboo double roomed cottage to get acquainted with the tiresome process of harvesting rice on high hilly terrain.

 I went wandering in the rice fields one afternoon. Man, I was feeling for the men who were thrashing the sheaves of rice. It was a hard hot itchy job. Once the rice grains were lying in a heap on a spread out tarpaulin, the job was still very far from done. Now all the little bits of stalks and grass stems had to be removed, before the rice could be scooped into big sacks. Last, but not least, these huge sacks had to be transported, one by one, on a moto or on the back of a man, to the closest village. The group that I went to visit had their rice terraces quite a distance from the village.

 After taking a few photo's I followed the single track moto jungle path to the village. There I saw a lady working away on her own, cleaning the rice and filling the bags. I ended up helping her for an hour or so. You could see that she was totally not enjoying her job on this afternoon!! After a good while, I was pleased to see that she excepted my company and help...at least I made her smile. I was contemplating the lonely hard life of a lady like her. I imagined that the idea of travelling to Bangkok might not even be an option for her....not even going as far as to think if she ever could have imagined to be zipping off on an aeroplane?? Quite far fetched. And that made me put my life versus her life in perspective. She did not had any control over where and to whom she was born, neither did I... How can I ever look down on anybody and their circumstances? I was created for an specific purpose, and so was she...all that is required from us both is to be excellent in what we are supposed to be doing. We are so different, but also so alike! No place for judgement, but loads of space for admiration and respect!!! Day in, day out..putting rice in a bag...I can only imagine. By the way, after an hour of helping her I was rushing back up the hill for a nice hot shower to get rid of the itchiness and dust. She had an outside cold tap for rinsing off (and washing the dishes) and on top of that she had to get going with preparations for dinner over and open outside fire!! Man alive, my life is so easy in comparison. Respect!!!

Besides loads of imaginary play, swinging in hammocks, going on forest and rice-plantation walks and stuffing our faces with the amazing Thai curries created by Nok (and Noi on Nok's day off), we also had the luxury of sitting around the bamboo fire in the dedicated pit and watching the bright galaxies and stars. The kids absolutely doted on the attention of Maria and David, played UNO and story-cubes with them. Our new Spanish friends were leaving one day before us and we were so sad to see them go, but so happy that our paths have crossed. We can not wait to introduce you to our beautiful South Africa, hopefully we get that opportunity VERY soon!!!

Hard to say good bye to David...

Beautiful Maria braving it into the waterfall with A and A

Adult time around the campfire...good memories!!!!

The Bamboo Nest gave us all plenty of time to relax, catch up with journals and schoolwork, hanging out with a constant stream of new fellow travellers and breathing in plenty of clean Thai mountain air. 

The children had ample opportunity to chat to all the other travellers and as parents we are starting to really marvel in their confidence and ability to interact with people of all cultures, ages and walks of life. Another one of our initial aims and visions for this trip starting to be accomplished...

......and we have still more than a month to go!!!!!!!

'One more temple........' Week 15

Wat did I tell you about travelling days??

I've done some research on tavelling between  Kratie and Siem Reap, so I was well aware of the choices and the consequesnces of them, when we made our decision. Unfortuantely there was no big bus leaving Kratie on our travelling day, so we were forced to go in the notorious mini-bus (more like an African taxi). This was not our choice, but the only option...

We knew it will be a 8 hour journey, although everybody was using their selling techiques and told us that it'll take 4 to 6 hours?? Dhuuu??? We got picked up from the guesthouse just after 7am and keep picking up people and more people and more people over the next hour or so... When mr Taxi driver wanted to squeeze another passenger in between himself and the door, the 5 Westerners on the bus started shouting at him for good reason!!! We were already 25 passengers (plus two sleeping babies) in a minibus design for 18 or so people.....including our luggage!!! Unfortunately for the unlucky gentleman, he had to hang onto the back of the bus, together with the driver's sidekick, who was hanging off the extra-luggage rope already. 27. 
The added bonus was Nina spitting up all over Arno, Philippa and another passenger about 1hour into the journey!!! With no clean clothes in the immediate hand luggage, the little girls were wrapped up in sharongs, for makeshift dresses and Arno had to go bare chested till the lunch stop. He then managed to pull a sweaty shirt form our washing bag. At least he could get accecss to it!!

So, beside the  breakneck speed, 27 passengers and half clothed family, we reached our destination just after 3 pm...nice and early. After a little bit of a stand off with tuk-tuk drivers - nobody wanted to help us to make a local phonecall to let our hosts at Channa's at Angkor Homestay know that we have arrived- Arno found a cellphone shop and they helped him out, no bother!!! Not a good first impression of Siem Reap.

One of the roadside sights

Our host, Thomas, met our tuk-tuk's to guide them to the homestay. The house is tucked away from the busy road, halfway between Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor in the Archeological Park. Thomas, emigrant of Denmark, has bought the land almost 20 years ago. First he had to clear it from veggetation, before he could start with building a small brick house. Over the years, he settled down with Channa, they needed more space and aditional income to support their growing family, so he came up with the idea of extending the house to two stories - wooden structure over the top of the brick rooms - and start inviting tourists to come and stay. Thus, creating Channa's at Angkor Homestay.

This was just the place for us! In true Cambodian way, except sleeping upstairs in our two rooms (fitted out with musquito nets) we spend most of our time sitting at the downstairs outdoor kitchen table, watching the children climbing trees, drawing in the sand and cooking food over little self-made fires. Breakfast was a welcome afair with the smell of Thomas' homemade breadrolls calling us over. The children's "table" was a big grasmat spread out beside our table.  

The kids were absolutely delighted to have 3 playmates - busy 10-year old Amanda, sweet 5-year old Anita and little 2-year old Anton. These children are fluent in Danish, Khmer and English...how cool is that? Every Cambodian super sumer the family relocate to their house in Denmark for three months. The kids are booked into school and summer camps straight away.
Thomas, with and architectual back ground, was employed to help with the deactivation of landmines in Cambodia. He fell in love with the country and remained to stay!! Unfortunately he is still regard as a foreigner, and does not even qualify for the local fees to enter the temples of Angkor. Besides running the homestay he also work as an English-Danish technical translator. We absolutely loved to hang out with this family and so hope that our life-paths will cross again soon.

So what's happening in the north of Cambodia to draw in nearly 4 million visitor's every year?

The ancient kingdom of Angkor and it's remains. Let me lure you in with a little bit of background history. If my imagination took me away on a trip down the ages in China and Mongolia, Angkor captured my faccination with the scale of a nearly forgotten society and culture.

The Khmer have inhabited Cambodia since the beginnning of recorded history. During the next centuries the culture of Cambodia was influenced by the civilisations of India and Java. Th Funan (1st to 6 th century) and  the Chenla Kingdoms (7-8th century) were followed by the Ankorian era(9th to 15 th century). In the 10th century Ankor became the seat of the Khmer Empire. During the glory years of Angkor, Buddhism was the predominant religeon. Todady we just have a glimps into the vast political, religious and social center of the ancient empire. Angkor was a city that at it's zenith, housed a population of over a million when London was still just a small town of 50 000. Only the gods had the privaledge to dwell in structures of brick and stone, so not much is left to tell the tale of the wooden houses, palaces and public buildings.

So in 1113 Suryavarman II started with the construction of Anngkor Wat, today the world's largest religious building. It is dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. After a surprise attack from the Chams (which is a lost kingdom today) they occupy the city of Angkor for 4 years. The Chams got defeated and the new leader, Jayaverman VII was crowned in 1181. He is still viewed by many Cambodians as their greatest leader. He was responsible for building the city of Ankor Thom and many other massive monuments. Unfortunately, after the era of the so called God King, the riches of the land became exhausted, deforestation was the main cause for the silting up of the 'hydrolic city' of Angkor. It is said to have had the most extensive and advanced canal and underground water system known to man, streatching over 1000km2. (We witnessed some of the most elaborate in size, man-made lakes and islands.)

In the 16th century the Khmer Kingdom was finally moved south to he region of Phnom Penh. Ankor was too exposed to the elements of nature, too close to the expanding Thai kingdoms and a new setting on the rivers of the Tonle Sap and Mekong would create better conditions for trade with China. At it's hayday, the city of Angkor expanded over 3000km2. Not much but a few hundred temples survived the centuries....and this was why Angkor was included into our itinerary!!!

 Our Lonely Planet guidebook's introduction to Angkor: " with the epic proportions of the Great Wall of  China( check!), the intricate detail of the Taj Mahal ( still waiting for us!) and the symbolism and symetry of the Pyramids in Egypt ( not this time) all rolled into one."
Under statement...I was EXCITED!!

Thomas introduced us to Mr Suchea and his neat little tuk-tuk and we struck up a wonderful relationship with this gentle and generous taxi driver. We negatiated some deals and booked his services for our 5 days in the North. Again following some good advice from our guidebook, we decided to leave the BIG MAMA for last. It is possible to get a 3 day ticket, to be used over a week, so with a map of the temples of Angkor we were good to go.

On our first day we did the small circle, excluding Angkor Wat. We went straight to the Bayon, which is in the heart of Angkor Thom. As the last empire of the Khmer stronghold, Angkor Thom took munumental to a new dimention, 10km2!! Jayavarman VII, built this city as reaction to the surpise sacking of Angkor by the Chams (1181-1219). With the great scale of the causeway, moat, the towering gates he decided that his empire will never be vulnerable at home. So at the heart of Angkor Thom is the Bayon, the state temple of Jayavarman VII. The 54 gothic towers are decorated with 216 faces of a Hindu god that bears resemblance to the king himself. Quite a breathtaking building!!

Can you spot a few of the faces??

The kids were too little to get access to the Baphuon, pirimade temple, representing Mt Mera. The whole thing was more or less destroyed during the Khmer Rouge years, so the world's largest jigsaw puzzle was put together by the French reconstruction expets. Arno, climbed up the steep high steps and stumbled upon the 'sleeping Buddha' (60 m) at the back. The kids and I went to explore in the former Palace Garden, walked along the 350m Elephant Terrace, just to saw Mr Suchea scooting pass us, with a waving Arno in the charriot!! The sun was beating down on us big style now and the little peope were starting a rebellion!! At the end of the Terrace of The Elephant we had to exit through the maise of the Terrace if the Leper  King. The front retaining walls to this terrace are decorated with 5 tiers of meticulously executed carvings of  celestial nymphs (apsaras)' kings and princeses. As we were finding our way through the maze,the kids ran ahead and I had a few moments to take in the amazing details of these carvings. It looked like it was just yesterday the stone masions were still chissling away here.

We exit the Angkor Thom complex through the East ( Victory) gate. The lovely green gras of th Chau Say Tevoda temple provided us with a lovely lunch time picnic spot and some facy back drop for a game of : What's the time Mr Wolf!! 

We manadge to convince the kiddo's to explore " one more temple", Ta Prohm. (Over the next few days, this phrase became legendary!!!) This was the temple I was most looking forward to explore. I've seen many pictures of people posing infront of these tree-root covered ruins over the years, and this was what I was after!! Built in 1186, Ta Promh is a temple of towers, enclosed courtyards and narrow corridors. We were tracing in the footsteps (together with the other 3000 visitors) of ancient explorers. Indiana Jones would have been proud of us!!!

On day two Mr Suchea took us further afield to the Ladies Temple of Banteay Srei. This jewel is cut from pinkish stone and includes some the of most delicate and finest carvings to be found on earth. Round about 23km norht of Angkor, it took us almost and hour in the tuk- tuk to reach it, but 100% worth it!! 

 On the way there we made a stop at a Butterfly world. Our tourguide, Simon, took us on an very informative excursion into the lifecycle of the butterfly. They harvest the eggs, keep them away from the preditor insects in tiny little plastic boxes. Once the catipillars spin themselves into a cocoon, the cocoon's get super glued to a stick and put into the pupa cuboard. After 3 weeks the butterflies are released into the garden. We learned that a butterfly just live for 2 weeks. Awwww!! 

On our way back to Siem Reap we made a quick stop at a palm sugar village. Here the men get sent up palmtrees to pick the fruit. The sap get drained into bamboo cups. Once a big quantity is collected it gets boiled over an open fire for a good few hours. If it gets to the desired consistency  it gets poured over little leave-made forms. The fudge-like syrup set into the most delishous sweets. The 'packaging' to sell the treats in, are also natrually made out of woven leaves!!!

Just two more temples!!!!

On our way back we stopped at a temple that was recommended to us by our fellow guests, Svenya and Henrik, Preah Khan. This temple ended up being our all time Angkor favorite. Mr Suchea was kind enough to mind the 3 fed-up children, while Alana came to explore with us. Even bigger than Ta Prohm, but in a more derelect state, with huge trees towering over the walls, small little dark corridors and fine carvings, it just captivated us. It was now late afternoon, the light was golden, other tourists few and the beautiful forest sounds took me right back to the 10th century. With no distraction, we really enjoyed exploring al the nooks and crannies, scrambled over big stones and just sat quietly. Beautiful!!

Our loast stop was at Preah Neak Poan, 12 century giant "water park". JayavermanVII let his imagination rip, with an humongus man made lake, a little causeway over, then a man-made island inside a smaller squared lake, with four smaller squared lakes surrounding this......all inside the huge lake. Crazy, I know!!!! Thanks again to Mr Suchea and his amazing babysitting services.. a sweet few childless minutes of exploring...luxuary!!!

Enough of temples. The kids were really enjoying the free play in the lovely tree filled garden of Channa's. Thomas offered to watch them, while Arno and I cycled into Siem Reap for a few essentials!! Later on the afternoon of day 3, Arno took us all for a sqeemish 'treat' at Dr Fish. We got our feet 'massaged'( bitten off!!!) by a crazy lot of mennace fish. The kids struck it lucky with the little fish tank, but I had to put my feet into a tank filled with VERY hungry HUGE monsters. I was the first to stick my feet in the tank and the fish were nearly jumping out of the tank in eagerness to get knibbling at my dead skin. This kind of slightly freak me out...for good reason!!! It was the most ticklish... no that is not the accurate descriptive word for it..... freaky-outy experience I had to persevere!!!!  I just could not believe the owner, when she told me: "You'll get used to it!" Sure enough, after 5 minutes of severe torture, it actually became very enjoyable!!!!

And then it was D-Day!!! Arno and I started our day at 5am, to streatch our experience of Angkor Wat from sunrise to the setting of the sun!! We cycled the 30min by torch light on a very busy narrow access road, but we were not on our own..."tourist town" were awake and moving. Plenty of busses, tuk-tuks and other cyclist were making their way over to witness the specticle of nature. We arrived just  fore 6am and found a nice spot to settle down and to enjoy the "show". It was just breathtaking to witness the day coming alife behind the towering delicate monuments of stone. Spectacular!! When all the "sunrisers" made their way back to their hotels and guesthouses, we grabbed the opportunity to explore the Khmer national symbol. Unlmlie the other eAngkor monuments, it as never abandoned to the elements and has more or less been in use since it was built in 1113.

Angkor Wat is surrounded by a mout, 190m wide. Surrounding the main temple complex, is a an 800m-loong series of bas-reliefs. Its reccommended to view them in an anti-clockwise direction. The symetric towers are joined in unity by  31m central tower, which rises over the others from the third level. Access to the third level is between 7:30am to 4:30pm. The rest of the temple is open to be explored from sunrise to 5:30pm. We tagged along guides and their customers, eaves drop..... wander further along quiet majestic hide-a-ways. The sandstone blocks which Angkor was built with, were quarriedore than 50km away and floated down the Stung Siem Reap on floats. At the que of our rumbling tummies we asked a few helpful guides before we could allowcate the one and only smiling(with teeth!!!) apsara. It took us a while, but this was in preparation for the treasure hunt planned for later in the day. We needed a few tricks up our sleeves to end our visit to the temples of Angkor on a high note!!

When Mr Suchea came to pick us up, even Nina caught on to the joke of: Only one more temple!!! Noooooooooo, at least with a smile!!! (Mr Suchea, with a big grin on his smily face, would greet her everytime with these words, even when he came to pick us up for dinner or finally taking us to the bus station!!!)
We had the most enjoyable afternoon together with the little explorers. I've picked up enough interesting facts during the morning, listening to other guides as we were passing them, to keep the kids intersted. Alana pretended to be 12 and joined Arno on the thrid level, while the rest of us took silly pics amongst the greatest back drop. I took and shoulder covering t-shirt along, not thinking that my shorts might not cut it in Buddha-land. Never mind, once Arno and Alana came down the VERY steep steps, they encourage me to go up high as well...I changed into the bigger t-shirt,and pulled the other strappy one on like a dress! Problem solved!!! 

And the grand finale...finding the smiling apsara!!

Sunrise to sunset. A day burned into our memory bank.

One more temple........