How "Lost" were the lost temples

In the West we are taught that the Angkor temples were lost for centuries only to be "discovered" by a Frenchman at the beginning of the last century.

But the people who lived here knew that the hundreds and hundreds of temples were in the jungle and still visited most of them, though they were no longer maintained by the generations of kings.

When we really lost Cambodia was when the US started dropping millions of bombs on the villagers - first during the Johnson administration, and finally in the secret bombings of the Nixon administration. These bombing raids - dropping more bombs on this gentle nation than all that were dropped in WWII- became the primary propaganda events used by the Khmer Rouge to attract farmers into their ranks, ultimately causing the auto genocide of over a million people and the destruction of many of the ancient sculptures within the temples.

It's sobering thought that this is the same technique that the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq are using today.

Last night we witnessed Kymer orphans at a local NGO re enact the beautiful traditional dances of their ancestors. These kids spend two hours every day before school to practice. They were extraordinary.

This morning, before we left for the airport, we stopped for a tour of the Angkor Hospital for Children, another NGO where I interviewed for a job. Families come from all over Cambodia to bring their children for treatment - and they handle over 300 kids a day for stuff like malnutrition, water borne illnesses, and - increasingly - burn victims. It's a 50 bed hospital that is a model of care, though lacking itself in basic infrastructure things like consolidated IT services. It's a project I know I can help them build, though I haven't figured out yet how to bring them what they need.

Cambodia is rebuilding quickly, trying to meet its own destiny. This is not a nation like Thailand and not like Viet Nam and not like Malaysia not a bit like China. Its people have been the most gracious and kind and gentle and humble hosts that I have ever had a chance to meet. There seems to be no hostility towards Americans. We have always felt welcomed. As a nation of individuals, they seem to have large and open hearts. We hope we can find a way to help.

We are now back in Bangkok. But this trip now just seems to be starting. Judith and I are already thinking about the next steps. If Cambodia had been lost before, perhaps it was only lost to our imaginations in the West.