[jimbulljag]

not a lot of sleep in the temple the first night even though we were all pretty exhausted. Good joking about tigers coming in and dragging one of us off. Since i was biggest i figured that no tiger would want to work that hard and take me. Nevertheless good jungle noise all night but plenty of mosquitos (at least i was under the net and had been taking my malaria pills).

Next day we hiked around the temple checking out the ruins, made coffee and headed out. We ran into the HALO guys clearing mines on the road outside the temple so no further warnings were needed about blazing our own trails. Not sure about those guys doing that kind of work but glad someone is willing to do it.

We found out that our intended trail was underwater so we had to take the long way (including 40k of deep sand). Heat, humidity, and sand got the best of me and i was running over my tongue and hitting the ground a couple of times. Frank from Spain and I managed to take a wrong trail and spent an hour in circles. However we left his business card on a branch hanging over the trail and the khmer boys rounded us up and off we went. Neither of us was keen to spend the night on our own lost in the jungle.

Got to a village and had the best lunch ever (yeah pork and noodle soup but very tasty even with the pigs hanging out in front of the place).

Late in the day we got to a guest house in Tbeang Meanchey. Running water and a bed couldn't be beat. Big plans to find a karoke bar and girls but after dinner and a couple bottles of wine (?) we were all beaten men by 9PM. Next day headed to koh ker which was a 9th century temple. Interesting climb to the top, mostly jutting stone (for size khmer feet) and ladders.

What i thought was very cool was that while we were messing around the temple, Paul was going to the local commune to deliver medicine to several sick people. His organization is also helping them dig wells with decent filtration and will bring folks back to siam reap (about 140km) if they need medical attention. Good guy who's giving back while we have our fun.

Pic 1- Reunited after two of us went our own way
Pic2 - Five star eats
Pic3 - entrance to koh ker
pic4 - top of koh ker