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Published: February 6th 2008
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Sorry, this blog is a little bit delayed due to a random assortment of circumstances. But, anyway, here goes.
As amazing as it was, Angkor Wat was really only the second coolest thing in Siem Reap. What beats Angkor? Easy. One random hole-in-the-wall market store that just happened to be along our walk from our hotel to downtown also just happened to be the only place in Asia that sells Dr. Pepper. When a small-town Texas boy gets dysentery and must avoid alcohol at all costs, it's comforting to retreat back to the beverage that dominated his days back before elementary school brought on the discovery of Lone Star beer.
All seriousness aside, the ancient Khmer temples defy all description... but no harm in trying, right? We began our Angkor explorations by catching a magnificent sunrise at Angkor Wat, the biggest and most famous of the temples, and honorary namesake of the whole complex of hundreds of temples within the area. Angkor Wat's towers stand like icons in the Khmer imagination. When you think of Cambodia, this is what you see.
First impression? Immediate awe at the scope and majesty of the architecture. To begin with, the outer
Penetrating the Mystery
... if I was a real archaeologist, I'd have a whip and a bazooka. walls measure close to a mile on all 4 sides, surrounded by a massive moat. You approach the gates across a long causeway over the moat, and as you get closer, you begin to see just how massive the actual stones are that were used in building the structure -a solid four feet on each side, they were transported 80 miles via elephant. Immediately upon passing through the gate, the horizon is dwarfed by the temple itself, rising up ahead of you, topped by five towers, the tallest of which reaches up over 200 feet into the sky. Absolutely breath-taking.
From a distance, it's the sheer scale of things that steals your first couple of heartbeats. As you get closer, the artistry and the details take form and refuse to be overlooked.
Over 2000 Apsara (hand-carvings of semi-nude traditional dancers, standing about 3 feet head-to-toe) adorn the walls of the temple. While upon first glance they appear to all follow the same formula, each one is completely unique; variations range from style of dress and hairstyle to poses of the hands and various objects (lotus flowers, birds) adorning the dancers' hands and surroundings. Sounds simple, but they are
Julie...
after I hit her with the miniaturization ray. stunning. We ended up spending hours examining the different variations among the apsara adorning the various temples.
The outer walls of the "galleries" surrounding Angkor Wat's towers are decorated with huge mural-like bas-reliefs, depicting various scenes sacred and social. One mural at Angkor depicts the tale (from the Ramayana) of an epic battle between an army of demons and an army of monkeys. Conversely, a similar mural at another temple depicts scenes of everyday life (cooking, hunting, etc.) within the Khmer civilization.
The details in the reliefs are quite striking. A tiny monkey leans out of a tree to steal a banana from the basket that a woman carries on her head. Money passes from hand-to-hand as a group of men crowd around a cock-fight... or pig-fight... or bull-fight. Patrolling alligators gather the spoils of war as soldiers during a battle at sea fall from their boats into the water. Giant monkey-soldiers body-slam (seriously) huge lions and bite the heads off of horses. It's all very realistic. The eyes of the tiniest elephant faces seem to peer right into yours. The nipples of the apsara barely peek through their thin silk blouses... that is, where roaming hands haven't
Bayon
one of the 49 four-faced towers. rubbed them to a bright red sheen.
When we were admiring the architectural and artistic details of the temples, our guide Kongkea would consistently prove why it was so worthwhile to have him around, instead of us just bumbling aimlessly from temple to temple. The knowledge he shared about the temples and the empire evoked a context and made everything we witnessed so much more powerful.
The history of the Khmer empire, the descriptions (with visual aid, of course) of how the architecture changed and developed during the hundreds of years over which the temples were built, and the tales that were depicted in the epic reliefs adorning the temple walls all helped us gain a much deeper understanding of the breadth of the Khmer empire's accomplishments and ambitions. By making the temples and the people who built them seem so real, he made them all the more miraculous.
All told, we visited about 20 different temple sites. Angkor Wat made every postcard image seem trite. The 200 giant stone faces of Bayon added a surreal edge to hide-and-seek with their 400 ancient eyes. The walls of Ta Prohm are held upright by the centuries-old trees that
strangle them with roots that snake over giant stones, slinking towards the earth. The countless dark corridors of Preah Khan allow glimpses through windows of structures with mysterious doorways resting 20 feet above any floor. The pink stone of the remote Banteay Srei boasts some of the most miraculous and well-preserved carvings of any of the temples, even though, at 1100 years old, it ranks among the oldest. Wow!, I could go on and on. Even the less-heralded, smaller structures (places like, for those that might be on their way, Thommanom, Chau Say Thevoda, Beng Mealea, Neak Pean, Ta Nei, and Preah Palilay) possess their own magic and hide unique secret treasures for anyone patient enough to search.
I was left trying to imagine what these places must have looked like a thousand years ago, to the people who built them and their contemporaries. Were the ancient Khmers as blown away by their own architectural accomplishments as I am?
A thousand years ago, the towers would have been covered in plaster and gold, the reliefs decorated with a striking deep red paint, some of which still retains its color, and the sandstone, when new, would have gleamed bright
Ta Som
In rock-scissors-paper, tree beats doorway. white. Surrounding the temples and within their outer walls would have been thousands of smaller wooden structures: homes, shops, an ancient city of a million residents. But none of those million were allowed to reside inside the massive structures.
Only gods may live under stone roofs. And after a thousand years, you get the feeling they never left.
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Robin
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Again, AMAZING Photo's.....
Thanks for sharing your trip with everyone....