Arwen's-Sunset at Angkor Wat

We managed to help throw a surprise birthday party for Arwen. The party started Friday night at Karen and Howie's house who opened their beautiful place at around 9PM. Pizza and lots of ex pat friends from the NGO community. People started trickling out at around 11:30 and Bryan whispered to us that a second party was to begin at another place at midnight. So Judith and I slipped out and found two friends on motos who whisked us away across the moon-lit river to where decorations awaited proclaiming "Arwen's Birthday Bonanza". When Arwen showed up with Bryan she was judiciously surprised, and the celebration lasted until 3. Lots of drinking and music and people just kept coming. Judith and Karen and Howie and I decided about 1:30 that we were too old to keep up, so we headed out. But they only had their single moto, and all the tuk tuk drivers had gone to bed. So Karen offered to walk us part way to help us find our directions back to the hotel. Along the river we walked through sleepy Siem Reap where the only people awake were a small flock of hookers clustered on the bridge. No problem for us.

The next day we found Howie and Karen at pool side of our hotel. They say our hotel is like their living room. Arwen and Bryan and many others ended up joining us.

Arwen decided that she wanted to see the sunset on her birthday at Angkor Wat. So we piled into a tuk tuk and headed out to the temples. We arrived just as the guards were chasing the tourists off the massive complex. So we played hide and seek in the temples and every time one would find us and demand that we leave, we said, "OK, but can we take your picture?" Which would delay the inevitable a bit longer. Then off we'd go again to hide. The place is enormous, so we took lots of pictures of guards, and managed to be the last ones out.

Here is a picture of Arwen and Judith just before sunset: after which we had a wonderful dinner. The end of a beautiful birthday for a 25 year old beauty.