I switched my keyboard from swype to the default samsing one. I’m sure i will hate this differently.
Going to watch the sunset at the place where one does.
It was a short walk up a comfortably steep slope of something that cooled slowly, probably granite. If you have seen a mountain made a hill by a glacier it probably looked like this. The difference here is there are massive piles of glacial erratics everywhere. Huge stones stacked in unlikely ways by receding ice sheets. I am no geologist but it is hard to miss once you know how such things work.
Still, though i mean millions of stones. Perhaps maine looks like this under the soil and folieage, but there is virtually none of that here except the lush green verge of the river. Many civilizations rose and fell under the foreboding gaze of windswept peaks, but these are instead lumpy things, not proper mountains and so their barren peaks are uncommon at this lesser height. I certainly haven’t ever even seen photos like this elsewhere. Perhaps we will see something in thousands of years when the ice sheets retreat from Greenland, but it won’t be nearly so hot there.
I don’t know what the humidity is but is somewhere beween dust and talc on the “my mouth feels like i ate a handful of” scale that i just made up.
We have sort of staked out our respective temples, though i plan to move around. There is a “sunset point” that i crossed over, the high point of the natural granite, covered as expected with chain smoking Europeans.
Time to stop typing and look around more.
A family of monkeys thought i was ok and they joined me on the side of a temple. They didn’t seem to mind i wasn’t giving them anything. These definitely associate people with food and lack of aggression similarly. I don’t know if this is typical really as it was the first monkey family i met. From a couple feet away after she came to sit near me, I watched the mother pick apart grain from dried out plants and she didn’t ask anything of me. Perhaps she was hoping the look on her face would convey the desired “will you look at this? You try eating this. It’s nothing but dead grass you pasty food hoarder.” But her language skills aren’t there yet.
Later a gaggle of russians showed up with bananas but they were close to the other temple and i think that was someone else’s territory.
Monkeys purr quietly at each other in what seemed like a question and response or at least agreement of feeling. Some others deftly scaled a sheer rock face like it was nothing and started a brief ruckus with those already occupying the sliced-cave at the peak.
I am not sure i got much as far as photographs, but i wandered around and enjoyed the waning heat and the sun turning crimson as it dropped behind a pebbly hill miles away.
I dropped off my stuff at the room and swapped to my sandals, as a pair of new leather shoes sitting outside a restaurant is more than i want to trust. I kinda need them.
I’ve been thinking about what problems are fixable and whether i can do anything particularly useful. The cute Australian girls were selling water filters to villages, and a couple i met on the roof at breakfast was doing animal rescue. Both noble certainly, but not my wheelhouse. I have gotten into the habit of saying no to so many people who clearly need help. I took a picture today of an old man who lives outside the gated community of the ruins and town. He seems to own: a stick which holds him up in a permanent and severe crouch, a metal bucket, a wrap that serves as clothes for his groin, and a head wrap. He could’ve been one of the original temple builders for all i can tell, picking out his existence on who knows what.
I don’t have an answer.
Time for a shower then probably straight to bed. I asked for my moped to arrive early, following Rocky’s well tested three day travel plan and letting him handle the details. The moped is 500 for two days and petol is 100 here instead of 80.
Showered. Ok that was nice. The bed is pretty firm here but i am beat so expect to sleep well. I have ro keep remembering my room is just a few steps up from the tiny dirt road, but there is a restaurant above me across the street and i have windows.
My phone has been really acting up today. Evernote keeps closing out and reopening the note i am writing. It makes it hard to get anything done. I bet some unrelated update ran.
This room also has a nightlight and a fan that barely fits between the walls. Granted, that isn’t much. This is the cheap room here at $15/night internet price. That’s part of why i don’t mind letting him deal with things, it will still be cheap.
We leave our shoes by the main entrance, and Rocky’s little travel office has its own door of the stoop and just enough room for two visitors to stand. It houses his desk with paper record book and flat screen computer, a combination i found odd.
Also on paper was the mandatory log book of name, age, sex, passport and visa numbers and expirations. Oh and camera model which i assume is for theft reports. My visa has many fewer digits than most, since it is the rare 5 year business visa.
For dinner i went to Mango Tree, a place which has been around for decades, since before the site was identified by the UN and the residents cleared out. The old location was down by the river, probably under a mango tree. It is the best rated place so was full of europeans. I am not taking chances with food right now, but i did order their Mango Tree Special Fried Rice without asking what was in it. The answer is cashews, some kind of dried fruit, onions and green peppers. Probably other stuff but if you want a detailed description and recipe i am not your guy.
This keyboard is not as good at fixing typos but is better about autocorrecting into insanity. I need to figure out what broke though, this is my only real device right now and being interrupted every 2 min is frustrating.
I am pretty spent so this is probably my last update of the night.
