Given the popularity of The Girls of the South, I thought to offer some perspective on the Khmer babes that are an indelible part of the Angkor experience.

I do not know enough about khmer culture to determine whether or not it is as matriarchical as it seems. The women clearly seem to be running the show however. At the Siem Reap Angkor Guest House, Mama organizes the labor, runs the kitchen, and collects all the money while Pops wanders around in a shell-shock daze wearing a sarong. Around the temples it is girls and young women waiting to sell you cold drink, silk sarong, or bamboo jawharp. The men are near invisible. Only when they shift in their hammocks do they register on the periphery. Have they been sidelined intentionally? Did the women stage a coup d'etat after decades of violence? Or perhaps in the hammock is exactly where they want to be.

Near many of the temples, thatched stalls such as this one serve as one stop shops for cold drinks, cold ramen, souvenirs and smokes. They begin crying out to you as you are seen approaching on the road. "MISTUH! MISTUH! YOU WAN COLD DRINK, MISTUH?" "YOU BUY!" The enormous smiles and lack of desperation (more like a charming indifference) make it hardly threatening or annoying. As soon as you acknowledge and engage one, you are marked. "YOU BUY FROM ME!" and woe unto (s)he that commits the faux pas of purchasing from another once marked. For any lame excuse you may offer as to why you can't buy something, they have an excellent irrefutable response prepared. Compared to the touts and hucksters of India however, they are pussycats. I wouldn't even call it a hard-sell, more like persistently soft. Once you eventually determine what these things *should* cost, little resistance is offered for the fair price.

The young women are incredibly comfortable with themselves, and exhibit little awkwardness and no hesitation in approaching foreign men to sell their junk. the children have many traits the paedos love, a number of western child-lovers have been busted in the past couple of years - they represent the large number of people plying the sex-tourism trade of south east asia and especially cambodia.

where the men are

adamn and the randy wading their way back towards the motos

fashion here went from loincloths and cloth headcoverings to flarebottom bluejeans and bonnets in the early 60s. Fashion departed with the French in 1974 and has remained cryogenically intact since. It is almost time-travel to that era of western fashion and it suits the Khmer women well. It will be short lived as exposure to Contemporary Fashion over the past several years has already begun to shift the look.

the girls regarded us with a mix of indifference and curiosity. it was hard to tell at times if they were hanging around us in the remote possibility of a sale, or if their jobs were less interesting pretexts.

the girls are taught to sell (very few beg) but once faced with more interesting prospects, childhood reverts. here a suiss farang provides materials and lessons for some origami fun.