Ok, so maybe they have a point

The Gods live at Angkor.

The tuk tuk will pick you up at your hotel at 5:00 am, rush you over just in time to see the fireworks. The three spires of Angkor emerge as black pinacles against the fleeting masterpiece of color behind; and you feel like you may actually be standing with one foot on Vishnu's palm and the other on Buddha's. Like they're holding you up, peeling their fingers forth to lead you into their shared dwelling the new day reveals. You stumble forward, temporarily unable to walk, away from the crowds of humanity and toward the supernatural. You shrink more and more the closer you come, until finally you're there, up the three flights of stairs (cliffs?), standing beneath the furthest spire watching the burning ball rise up above the horizon and feeling like a speck of dust atop a mountain. This is what God's house is like.

Finally airborne, the sun has shed its light on the largest religious structure in the world. But you'll be back for that later; you run off to begin the marathon viewing of divine history at another temple nearby. The carvings. The massive stonework. The remains of crumbled walls covered with sporadic instances of artistic genius. The dancing Buddhas. Hindi Gods. Warriors. Apsaras. Elephants. Lions. Singhas. They're all here to inspire. The first stone was placed in Angkor 1200 years ago. Today, smells of incense still warm your soul and believers still come to pray. The city is only half ruins, the other is very much alive.

Stunned by my own appreciation for this ancient kingdom (Typically, I do not enjoy ruins. See "Hung" - August 12, 2005), I manage to spend 18 hours in 2 days exploring. This is enough to force even the most devout soul to recognize he will never see it all, and to do so would be ludicrous, so he should take what Angkor has given him and move on. I ended my tour with a trip to a temple left to the jungle - with trees that put jack's beanstalk to shame claiming rooftops as their soil. The phenomenon simply cannot be of this world - which is fitting.

Content to never try to build a giant stone temple in any insane attempt to outdo Angkor, I instead bought a bus ticket for tomorrow that will carry me over the supposedly heinous road to Bangkok, where this whole thing began. From there, I will keep moving...