Aberfeldy, "Love Is An Arrow" (2004)

We used three tour guides on our travels -- which, for the record, took us from Hanoi to Huế; then down to Danang and Hoi Ann for a day, and onwards to Nha Trang, followed by Dalat and then Ho Chi Minh City; after those ten days in Vietnam, we proceeded to Siem Reap for four, chiefly to see the temples of Angkor.

All of the guides were really excellent. The first was a young woman from Huế, which told us by the end of our time with her that we were jostling an old Norwegian couple for the prime position of her favorite tourists ever. And there's nothing I enjoy more than jostling Norwegians. The second was a very professional and polished man from Dalat, which isn't surprising given that he has worked in tourism for over ten years. A recurring joke on the trip was the fact that his company owned everything...which, we eventually realized, wasn't so much a "joke" as it was "truth," because his company was pretty much the state tourism authority, since the Vietnamese government had stakes everywhere, because, DUH, socialism. And then there was our Cambodian guide. Like the woman from Huế, he was awesome partly because he wasn't given to sugarcoating things. The two of them were perhaps contravening every rule of being a tour guide, because they would often relate some details of everyday life in Vietnam and Cambodia that, to be honest, would bum most people out -- at one point, for instance, the conversation somehow drifted to last year's tragic boating accident that killed a number of schoolchildren. But we were made of strong, stern stuff. And our Cambodian guide, sadly, did seem a bit anti-Vietnamese, which shattered the brief fantasy I entertained of having him marry the Huế guide. But that was just as well, because the person he will be marrying is ME, BECAUSE I WUV HIM.

To begin with, My Boyfriend had the most honeyed voice I've ever heard, as well as a great belly laugh. A few minutes after we met him, my friend Tee already pulled me aside to announce that he would like to take My Future Husband back to the hotel -- no, not like that -- so that "he can talk to us all night and lure us into a peaceful night's sleep" "Wouldn't you jump off a bridge if he asked you to?" Tee asked. "No kidding," I said, even as lactic acid ate away at my leg muscles. "Why do you think I've been climbing all those fucking steep temple steps?"

He also knew his way around a scarf. It wasn't a traditonal kroma he sported, but he ROCKED it. When we first met him, he wore it like he was a boy scout; over the few days we were with him, however, the scarf variously became (1) a belt, (2) a head scarf to protect against the relentless Cambodian sun, (3) an across-the-chest sling in which to carry our bottles of water, (4) a utility belt for the same water-carrying purpose, and (5) a sex sling, although that last one may have just been in my head, and gosh, did I say that out loud anyway?

But The Father Of My Babies really had me when he explained the bas relief sculptures on the walls of Angkor Watt. First of all, he pointed out, as all tour guides do, the aspara dancers that are a recurring motif. But less typically, he did so by actually imitating, for a moment, the famous aspara pose. Which goes something like this:

That's right. The Fire Of My Loins puckered his fingers ever so daintily into the classic pose, buckled one knee, and then kicked his other foot out. It was SUPER KAWAII!!! The Man Of My Dreams was not especially buff, and, indeed, was paunchy. But despite -- or because of that, the aspara imitation was oddly and hilariously graceful. I put that grace down to his having been a monk for two years. Ballet training has nothing on monkhood as far as I'm concerned.

And then, at another point, he was explaining something or other about some mythical archer on the walls. Well, I don't know; I was too busy staring into his eyes to actually be listening by this point. And again, there was some hott illustratin' goin' on. This time The Love Of My Life planted his back foot behind him, leant back, and mimed the act of shooting a bow and arrow. It was a bit like Sophie Ellis-Bextor at the 1:20 minute mark of her "Catch You" video, except there was no size zero woman to kill the mood dead. But I wouldn't be opposed to having Sophie Muller film him and me running around the streets of Cambodia while My Sweet Lover plays both cupid and love object.

Sigh. I WUV HIM. WUV WUV WUV. I know I will have to get rid of that pesky wife he has in Canada before anything happens, but whatever. There's no engine fast enough, my love's gonna catch him.