On my last full day in Cambodia, my friend and I took a long tuk tuk ride out to a remote jungle temple, Beng Mealea. The trip to this temple is exquisitely beautiful; for an hour and a half we

rode past miles of flooded vibrant green rice patties that reflected puffy cumulous clouds on the surface of the water, and colorful houses on stilts with the family cow out front trimming the lawn. These homes were not run-down shacks--they were well-kept, simple rural farms. The smell of wood-burning fires and food and incense along this route was intoxicating.

Beng Mealea itself was everything that I hoped it would be, and more. It is a temple that has been entirely subsumed by jungle and left that way. All of the other temples that we had visited had been carefully maintained, leaving a sort of "tourist friendly" level of ruin. But Beng Mealea is something else entirely; the jungle vines and weeds are growing up everywhere within it. It looks as though a great earthquake or explosion has occured on the grounds, rather than simply the slow decay of time. We were able to climb all throughout the ruins, over slippery stones and pitch black passageways. There were local children around to guide us through, but I mostly ignored their presence, prefering to find my own path.