Tales of the Heart...

Many years ago on a warm (at least that's what they say, but really it is all relative) summer day two young and crazy adolescents vowed to love one another until the cold hand of death would tear them apart. They swore before God and a cloud of hot witnesses that their love would surpass the love of so many others who abandoned ship at the mere rising of the waves or potential flooding in the basement. They promised to love passionately through health and sickness, plenty and want, joy or sorrow. They left the gathering inspired to go forth to the world spreading little petals of love to all they encountered. What a fairy tale they had! The first two years were truly a wedded bliss-contrary to what so many had warned. Feeling comfortable in their love they took this bliss to a new level and went to worlds unknown to many who loved them. They went off on this adventure planning to spread more petals. But alas, as all fairy tales go (can we really read a story without a conflict), deep and dark evil awaited them. They arrived in this new place with smiles on their faces-they frolicked in the rain and puddles for many months. They laughed at the heat until it was too much, and then they cried. But it was all as one! They would not be parted-what a thought! It came on very slowly...so slowly she did not even notice it. Oh, silly her! If she looks back now she can see the seeds-but what can she do? A man needs his fun-this is unarguable. And the woman allows it-and she is fine with that. But oh, must she love and adore and comfort and nourish in this situation? Choices, my friend, there are choices we make and we must account for them. And this was his choice...this is self-inflicted WHILE SMILING. It was not as if something terrible prevented him from preventing this. No! With his own free-will he did this. And now he looks for pity with that silly little smile on his face. He expects a nice little healing session where she rubs soothing lotion on the wounds and brings cold water for his parched lips. He expects so much from her disapproving eyes. But must she change her stance? Must she uncross her arms, soften the eyes and change the positioning of the lips? If she caves in-will he try it again? Does she ban the evil bike?

So I ask you my friends, what should she do? Does this really fall under the canopy of those vows?!?!?!

The parting moment at Angkor Wat...apparently this is best time to take the picture-I suppose there is something to be said for actually having the correct sort of camera while taking the picture as well. In order to really be amazed, you need to go.

The moat to enter.
The first view.

The writings on the wall-wait, I am half asleep here, these are obviously not writings-bas reliefs is what I meant to say. They go around the whole temple. These artists must have had some serious job security at the time.

That's right, a hallway. (Note: The stones on the ground are uneven a) because this place is a thousand years old and b) the city of Siem Reap does not have a plan water usage. As the spiffy new hotels go up, the ground and history sinks down. This is going to prove to be a serious problem if something doesn't change.

Here is the temple that was left for nature to take over. The trees grow anywhere and many of the stones are crumbling down. This is the tree used in the movie Tomb Raider...at least I think it was...they all start to look the same after awhile!

Another temple. The story behind this one is that this temple would have been bigger than Angkor Wat but it was never finished. The reason for this is unknown, but some have said it was because the king died. Another story involves something with the amount of lightning strikes the workers experienced during construction.

The Bayon temple has a (a number of faces that skips my mind right now..53? 54?) lot of stone faces. They, funny enough, represent not only the god the temple was built for, but also the king in charge of building it. Hmmm...

This is back to the temple that was left to nature. I know, the pics should be together but apparently when you delete something on this blogspot thing the edit/undo button does not work. This was not a happy lesson I learned today.

Some monks outside Ankor Wat.

Temple after temple...it was along day. We hiked up a "hill" to find another ruin and a great view of Ankor Wat.

Here is a little guy we met sitting by the river.

Here are some pics of the soccer teams that we coached. We only had a few games but the students had fun anyway!