On New Year’s Day we went for a pleasant walk up a hill to a waterfall where the water runs over stones carved with scenes from Hindu myths. I had completely forgotten that we’d been there before, but I think I had removed it from my memory as it had been horribly crowded and filled with shrieking backpackers in elephant trousers. It was much emptier today, with one Cambodian family chanting and laying offerings before one of the carvings, and a small group of rather nice older Americans taking photos, but that was it. We met the Americans again at our next stop, an older temple than Angkor Wat, with delicate carvings of gods and demons in pink stone. We arrived near sunset, so it was washed in pink and orange, well worth the long journey, of about an hour each way through quiet countryside. Along the way we passed 4 weddings, each with the mother of the bride or groom dressed in thick silk and seated ramrod straight at the entrance on a chair covered in white polyester satin. They are clearly less leisurely affairs than in Pakistan, because on our return journey the mothers were gone and the chairs were being loaded onto trucks.
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