I spend nine days in Siem Reap, eight and a half visiting the temples. With nine days you can revisit your favorites several times. You can quit touring early on some days, when the tempuratures rise in the afternoon and sun becomes relentlous. You can hang out with the Cambodian kids, whose parents are busy selling things, and are starved for a bit of playful attention. You can spend a hot afternoon lounging around a hammock near the West Baray, sipping sugar cane juice, trying to talk with the locals. You can chat with the young monks at Wat Bo, slowly learning to decipher their cryptic English while practicing, and immediately forgetting, the Cambodian they teach you.

I spend half the time touring on the back of a motorbike, going with the guy who rode me in from the airport, for $6 a day. The temples are unexpectedly and delightfully uncrowded. True, there are a few waves of primarily Japanese tourists who scurry past, and spots touted for their views at sunset, such as Phnom Bakeng, are jammed during that time and best avoided, but otherwise I often almost have these incredible temples to myself, particularly during the early morning.

I spend the other days touring by bicycle, taking the quieter road that parallels the main road into the temple complexes to get in. I spend hours wandering around the forgotten East Gate (which you can climb up on) of Angkor Thom and don't see anyone the entire time. Likewise, I have the fabulous views, far better than Phnom Bakeng, at Phnom Krom entirely to myself for an entire afternoon. I linger at tiny spots, such as Prasat Prei, Preah Palilay, Kbal Spean, Chau Say Thevoda, and the Chapel of the Hospital, places most tourists don't even bother to glance at, but can be endearing to someone with nine days at his disposal.

I spend half a day exploring Tonle Sap lake and the villages built on stilts over the water. It is dirty and polluted but full of voyeuristic scenes of village fishig life. True, I don't like places where the "attraction" is simply looking at the natives, but I must admit that it is interesting at times.

I saw them all, including Roluos Group and Banteay Srey, over forty temple ruins, and didn't get tired of them. Indeed, as I mentioned, I went to several two or three times and spent plenty of time hanging out. It was like visiting another planet to me, as if I'd come off of a space ship and was seeing a fantasy world. I was completely enchanted by these strange beautiful ruins.

Siem Reap would jar be back to reality: watching people "wash" off their rice in the horribly polluted Siem Reap river, negotiating the nasty traffic and trying not to be moved by the many beggars. Cambodia is a very difficult place. When I walk in the woods here I'm scared to stray off the path for fear of land mines and am suspicious of every leaf mound. Sometimes I hide away in my ugly, $2 a night, sweaty pit of a room, and read.

But I'll never forget my visit here and am very glad I finally made the trip. These temples are so unique that they are well worth the difficulties involved in getting to them. I might even come back again some day.