Visit two more temples in the morning, both older than Angkor Wat and dating back to 800 A.D. One of them has stone thresholds covered in an ancient sanskrit script, I'm still amazed that we can walk through and touch these monuments - feels weird, a bit like the time in Morocco's Moulay Idriss when I was walking through Roman ruins with colour tile mosaic left completely exposed to the elements (namely full-on, direct sun).

But here at least preservation is happening with funding and resources from countries like Japan, Germany, India and the US. In future it sounds as though some temples may be better protected with a coating of sorts over at least the bas relief and writing.

After hearing Sophea explain the ingenious ancient irrigation systems, the building of massive reservoirs and the reversal of the flow of the local river to water crops, I can't help but wonder if the water and sanitation systems were more complex than they currently are -- now it seems that washing, excreting, swimming and fishing all happen in the same waters here. We spend the latter half of the afternoon in a small boat heading to the "floating village" of Kompong Pluk where all the houses are on stilts-- and trying not to get beached, as it is the dry season here. Floating Village ? Not so much!

After an hour or so of navigating hairpin turns along an almost dry riverbed, we come to a sudden stop -- and it turns out we have LOST our boat's propeller in the muck that we are moving thru. Stuck again! Our agile teenaged captain jumps into the mud, starts tromping around, and soon finds the prop with his FEET! 10 minutes and a nail later, he's patching it up, and we are moving forward again! (For a view of our intrepid captain in action, see photo...)

We finally make our way to Tonle Sap Lake - a very large, muddy lake where we make a pit stop for a quick beer and rest before heading back. Notice that everyone runs all their electricity off car batteries - and charge their cell phones off them too! Sophea stops to chat with Kompong Pluk family on the way back, they were hosts of a Swedish family who were on a reality show called "A World Apart" (Sophea was an interpreter) - the Swedes spent 15 days with the family and lived as they live. No toilets, running water - and the only electricity is "off the grid" style. C. and I are trying to find this on YouTube...