May 5, 2013 9:58 PM

Cambodians believe in ghosts…spirits that are not that far removed from when they were you…they were me. I was warned about this before we entered the ruins. They told me that the spirit would let you know when you had gone too far…Sure thing…I winked and I set off in my normal manner of ditching the tour group, climbing out windows and skimming out over narrow ledges to get the shot…

In this case, I might have gone too far…It was late in a typical Cambodian Afternoon when only I, without pause nor thought, ventured out of the shade with my fellow mad dogs and an occasional Englishman…The World heritage people had left their workshop for the day and of course…I went to have a look around…they were piecing together two of the murals that are in this collection.

As never a believer in spirits other than the drinking kind…I did the logical thing and snapped a couple a pictures. This is when everything went sideways…like it had over at the Killing Fields…The sky before that moment was a bright, dully sunny day without a cloud…The moment the shutter closed…there was a giant clap of thunder…

Weird…the moment after the second shot of the second mural…another giant clap of thunder that electrified the air and dark, deeply black clouds boiled up over the tree line…

At this point…looking at the approaching weather and then at my expensive Nikon…I decided to a swift retreat back to the tour bus…I caught sight of what looked like my group and hurried to catch up with them as they reached the distant horizon.

After a swift, blind rush to outpace the following weather; I reach them as they reach the far gate only to discover that I had been chasing the wrong Japanese Tour Group and had went to the opposite gate from where my actual group where and knowing that they would be upset and waiting (yet again) for me…

So far, I was still good and although I was now enveloped in the swirling and boiling black clouds of the Cambodian Ghosts, I now made the long journal back across the castle complex…swiftly, sidestepping yet other slow moving tour groups…

”Home Free…close call” I said to myself just as the first big, fat drop of rain hit my nose…and I was only half way to the dry, safety of a tour bus full of angry people…at if that wasn’t enough…then the cop with the I luv New York hat stopped and wanted to chat…about if I had seen some crazy foreigner poking about in restricted areas…I Say “NOPE!” and asked him how long he had lived in New York...

It was raining rather hard now…