Siem Riep. And the cat.

So first of all, since clearly this is a pressing issue: the cat did not get to stay. I was on board with this cat, but one of my roommates wasn't at all and the other was only selectively, like when the cat was being cute or pitiful, and that was just not going to work. I couldn't handle the idea of taking the cat back in and nurturing and loving her, only to have to put her out again as soon as she inconvenienced someone or shat in their sink or whatever. Which, honestly, was probably bound to happen, given the vindictive and slightly unbalanced nature of this particular sorry creature. So I'm 1-1 on impulsive adoptions, batting 500 if you will, down but not out, still standing by the Cricket adoption as one of my (and my mom's) finest moments as any of you who have met her can attest, but at the same time ready to admit defeat and maybe just buy a stuffed animal.

In other news, this weekend I took the Angkor Wat plunge, which just means I finally went to see these damned temples that everyone keeps raving about. The fact that I'd been in the country nearly two months and hadn't paid homage to Cambodia's crowing religious and architectural achievement was kind of blasphemy as far as most people were concerned, so I said fine, took a few more days off work (and speaking of work, i know i never talk about it, but it's just not the mass-email worthy, unlike my never ending supply of cat stories: i write little snippets about extractive industries in cambodia or how the global financial downturn has affected my NGO, pretending i know about these things enough to keep getting assignments from my boss, and i edit reports that my coworkers write in broken but amusing English, and i try to be helpful in various other ways but the truth is it just doesn't take up all that much time and probably doesn't merit a whole lot more parenthesis space here either so...) and headed up to Siem Riep, the town in the center of Templeland.

Siem Riep is a cute place, and although we arrived in the midst of some of the worst flooding it's seen in a long time, it somehow managed to retain much of its charm. You would think that a couple of feet of standing floodwater might be a little gross, and I guess objectively it was, but it was also a lot of fun watching everyone trudge along through the river of a main road, splashing and horsing around and falling over on each other like it was some kind of planned event. Everyone came out to watch these splashy proceedings, so the town felt lively and busy and generally celebratory. And they had Mexican food there, and Mexican food means margaritas, and margaritas means a party no matter what flooded country you're in. So a good time was had by all. Oh, and the temples were magnificent, of course.












And then yesterday I came across the Cambodian version of old people dancing in the park, and let me tell you, if I thought that Chinese 70 year olds waltzing was the pinnacle of delightfulness, I really underestimated what the Cambodians are capable of. This was something altogether beyond my expectations: hundreds, literally hundreds of people of all ages, from wobbly infants to wobbly senior citizens, but mostly (surprisingly!) really hip teenagers, engaging in mass jazzercise after work, or school, or daycare, or whatever. Where we have happy hours and soccer practice and bingo, they have communal dance aerobics...this country just keeps getting better and better! I'm definitely planning on joining in, but I need to buy a couple sweatbands and some one-shoulder neon workout shirts, and maybe a scrunchy, before I will really be presentable. I will make sure to take pictures.