It started with a map

This map brings back so many memories. I remember looking at it and thinking in June 2006 back in junior college that hell, i wanna be there. I should be there instead of here, in front of a computer terminal right outside the library and looking at a "normal" (read: boring) life ahead of me. The social "wisdom" of going from primary school to secondary school, to junior college then a good university, get a good degree, then start earning money just so you could pay for the house, car and whatnot that, sure, you really need.

In January 2007, I was there. At the Angkor standing alone on the Terrace of Elephants just like the God-kings of old, inspecting his victorious troops in parade after marching in through the Victory Gate of the Angkor Thom (Great City in Khmer). The incongruity of it eh. It was like discovering a new world that existed beyond the doomed cirle of production and consumption, to be slightly modernist about it.