If you were really Batman, you would have come to that brothel with me.
The sun sits fat in the sky, bloated and wicked, glaring with single-minded brutality at the earth. The hot season is starting, and things will only get worse from here. The day started out well enough, though, despite the vicious early morning assault from our solar overlord. Steven and I woke around eight thirty, and went with Archimedes to the restaurant on the corner for coffee and buns. When we had all three of us breakfasted and awoken, I secured Archimedes in the house and went out to meet a moto driver who was taking us to some eighth century mountain temple about fifteen miles out of town.
The drive was mostly across bumpy dirt roads, flying through clouds of dust that blinded and choked, and shooting over vast potholes and gaps that sent vicious shudders rocketing through the bike, and then the body. It was not unlike riding a horse. We passed by sprawling field of rice, water-borne fishing villages, and huge expanses of flat terrain broken up with the occasional hill or rocky bluff. It was a glorious morning.
Eventually, we tottered up the steep mountain road in little staggered lurches, the moto often coming close to falling over in the road. Despite this rather worrying state of affairs, we reached the top without incident, and set about exploring the temple.
The temple itself was a large complex, made up of lush gardens, statues, multiple pagodas, classrooms for the monks, and picnic spots for local families. Arrayed before us were statues of all kinds of animals, from lions and tigers to kangaroos and hippos. Incongruously, there was also a group of live turkeys kept in an odd chicken wire cage for some unfathomable purpose.
Our moto driver who was also serving as a guide took us around, explaining the various statues and buildings with shaky English that often required several passes to express itself. However, by far the best experience the temple offered was found within a certain pagoda, decorated with many painted panels, telling a traditional Khmer folk tale.
It was the tale of a cow. I will try to retell it now as best I can.
A young man’s wife gave birth to a cow, and a boy. The woman liked mangos, but her husband forbade her to eat them. One day, she was climbing a tree and fell and died. The cow ran and told the husband, but then the villagers did not understand the cow, so they decided to kill it, and chased the man, his son, and the magic cow out of the village. This cow can also fly.
The son grew up in the forest, in exile, and whenever he would try to play with the other children, they would beat him with sticks, so the cow was his only friend. The flying magic cow. Then some incomprehensible stuff happened, and now the cow is magical and can turn into an elephant, and fights some other elephants. This is all depicted in paintings. Finally, the cow fights a robot cow from Thailand and wins. I think the boy becomes a king or something, thanks to his magic robot-beating flying elephant cow.
It was a marvelous story, one that I feel has changed my life for the better.
The drive was mostly across bumpy dirt roads, flying through clouds of dust that blinded and choked, and shooting over vast potholes and gaps that sent vicious shudders rocketing through the bike, and then the body. It was not unlike riding a horse. We passed by sprawling field of rice, water-borne fishing villages, and huge expanses of flat terrain broken up with the occasional hill or rocky bluff. It was a glorious morning.
Eventually, we tottered up the steep mountain road in little staggered lurches, the moto often coming close to falling over in the road. Despite this rather worrying state of affairs, we reached the top without incident, and set about exploring the temple.
The temple itself was a large complex, made up of lush gardens, statues, multiple pagodas, classrooms for the monks, and picnic spots for local families. Arrayed before us were statues of all kinds of animals, from lions and tigers to kangaroos and hippos. Incongruously, there was also a group of live turkeys kept in an odd chicken wire cage for some unfathomable purpose.
Our moto driver who was also serving as a guide took us around, explaining the various statues and buildings with shaky English that often required several passes to express itself. However, by far the best experience the temple offered was found within a certain pagoda, decorated with many painted panels, telling a traditional Khmer folk tale.
It was the tale of a cow. I will try to retell it now as best I can.
A young man’s wife gave birth to a cow, and a boy. The woman liked mangos, but her husband forbade her to eat them. One day, she was climbing a tree and fell and died. The cow ran and told the husband, but then the villagers did not understand the cow, so they decided to kill it, and chased the man, his son, and the magic cow out of the village. This cow can also fly.
The son grew up in the forest, in exile, and whenever he would try to play with the other children, they would beat him with sticks, so the cow was his only friend. The flying magic cow. Then some incomprehensible stuff happened, and now the cow is magical and can turn into an elephant, and fights some other elephants. This is all depicted in paintings. Finally, the cow fights a robot cow from Thailand and wins. I think the boy becomes a king or something, thanks to his magic robot-beating flying elephant cow.
It was a marvelous story, one that I feel has changed my life for the better.