Wendy is strong

In Siem Reap, we were both sick. Body ache, nausea, general malaise. The difference being that Wendy got over her traveler's sickness in 12 hours whereas I took three full days off from any sightseeing.

Wendy got sick the first day we were to see the temples, so I went around by myself for the day. By sundown, she felt well enough to go for a massage (by blind Cambodian masseurs -- interesting experience). The day after, we got up at 4:45 am to see the sun rise at Angkor Wat. I felt a little strange, though, and since I had seen the sun set at Preah Bakheng the day before, I decided to skip the sunrise. (The sunset was beautiful, by the way -- classic fireball sinking into the horizon, illuminating jungle for miles.) By the time Wendy came back to check on me, I was starting to feel achey, and thereafter sank rapidly into the kind of whole-body aching you get with the flu.

So the first day, Dec. 27, I was achey.

The second day, I was sick to my stomach and headachey. But I can't blame the headache on adjusting to the region's bacteria and such, because I probably got it from reading too much (borrowed the copy of Middlesex that Wendy brought -- fantastic read, by the way).

And the third day, I was well enough to venture out to Angkoriana Hotel, where we sat by the hotel pool for several hours.

The fourth day, Dec. 30, I finally went to see some temples. I'd only gotten to use the first day of my three-day pass to Angkor Wat -- the other two days, I'd been sick. I made up for it on Dec. 30, when I packed in 4 temples in the same day. The first, Beng Melea, was about 60 kilometers from Siem Reap, where our guesthouse was, so we hired our guesthouse manager and his four wheel drive jeep for the day.

Beng Melea was de-mined and opened to the public two years ago. It's... well, let's just say that Wendy and I kept saying to each other: "They made this yesterday. Total tourist hoax. This is a movie set." Overrun with trees and vegetation, the structure's fallen rubble made it necessary for us to climb over the fallen building stones, like adventurers of old. We felt like explorers who had just happened upon this magnificent and eery ruin in the jungle.

Funny story: There is no entrance fee to Beng Melea; it's not included in the dozens of temples you need a pass to see. But at the start of the 300-meter road to the structure, there were several men, two dressed in police uniforms, who motioned for us to stop. They said we needed to pay.

Wendy called out to them, "No, he said we didn't have to pay. It's free," and kept on walking.

The men walked in front of us, forming a haphazard line, and motioned for us to stop again. Wendy walked past them, and I, following her lead, slipped past two of them also.

They kept following us for a hundred meters or so, and I asked Wendy quietly, "Are you worried at all about the fact that these men are following us?"

She shook her head, "Not at all. They're like the beggar children, they just want money. Just ignore them."

"Oh," I said, unconvinced and nervous.

"Don't you remember what Chhay [our guesthouse manager and bestest friend in Cambodia] said?" she asked me. "He said that if we're strong, we don't have to pay." And then I did remember. Chhay had warned us that there might be some people at Beng Melea who would try to exhort a fee from us to see the building, even though it was free. "But if you're strong," he continued, with his usual 1,000-watt smile, "you don't have to pay."

On the way out, another two women tourists had been stopped by the same men and we about to pay, when we passed them. "I kind of feel like telling them that they don't have to pay," I said. "Yeah, I had the same thought. I think I'm going to tell them," Wendy said. "You don't have to pay," she called out. "It's free," I added. And two more tourists passed by the extortionists without incident.