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Published: December 4th 2016
Guide, Lay Noy, buying tickets
A very popular World Heritage siteAmazing what sleep does to improve cognitive processing. Last evening, even though the forgotten plug converter was a desperate problem, I was so tired I had to have a rest before going to bed at 9:00! This morning I woke about 5:00 and let my mind drift for an hour or so. The first thing that came into my mind was a “snapshot” of the room’s plug receptacle, with the conviction that it was the design that accepts both European and North American plugs. The first thing I did upon getting up was to check it out. Hooray! No converter required!
Breakfast was a splendid buffet. First I had tropical fruit salad with dragon fruit, among others. Then I tried the Cambodia soup – delicious but light. Then I had an omelette, in case of a demanding day. Good thing.
Noy and our driver picked me up at 8:00 to drive a fairly short distance to the Temple Complex. Known as Angkor, there isn’t really one collective name for the many temples that have gradually been rescued from nature’s spread of trees and bushes. (Later in the day we saw some Silk Cotton trees and a gigantic Ficus that
Gate to Angkor Thom
Capital in 12 century seemed to use an ancient wall as a convenient prop for stronger growth.) The temples were built from the tenth to twelfth centuries by a succession of kings, each of whom wanted to build their own monument to the Hindu deities. Noy explained that in those times wooden houses were meant for humans; stone ones for gods. Nature successfully dismantled the wooden palaces, but the French in the last century and the Cambodians in this one have rescued the stone palaces. With UNESCO help, the trees have been cleared out of the temple precincts and the essential part of the stonework has been restored. Present day Cambodians are Buddhist, although Noy estimates that the two faiths have been virtually amalgamated in about a fifty-fifty ratio.
We first went to
Angkor Thom, meaning “City" or "Capital” and “big”. We got out of the car to talk about the history of its construction, standing on the bank of its wide moat, fed by river water. Later in the day Noy explained that the moat represents the Celestial Ocean, important in Hindu religion because
Mount Meru is situated in the Celestial Ocean. The acreage is much larger than the famous Angkor Wa (City of
Gods pulling python
The newest-looking have been restored. Monks).
The moat is 1.5 km square, surrounding the protective walls of the city. At any given moment, you can only see a small portion of the site. A short, enticing distance from where Noy introduced the site was the ceremonial causeway to the temple. Although it was choked with traffic, by walking we could look closely at the symbolic design. On one side of the bridge, innumerable statues of gods pulled on a snake; on the other side, demons pulled on the same snake. With their huge strength pulling and being pulled, they caused a
churning motion around Mount Mandara. From the “Sea of Milk” came wondrous phenomena, which Noy recited, including celestial dancers (inspiration for Cambodia dancing), and after a thousand years the elixir of immortality. Eventually, the poison spraying from the mouth of the snake killed the demons. At all the temples, balustrades are in the form of cobras to provide protection. As Noy carefully mentioned, these are epic stories, not real ones. My memory is a pale recollection of Noy’s telling. As always, throughout history, people wreaked destruction on the temples, curiously beheading more stone gods than stone demons; therefore, more of the gods have obviously new heads.
Bayon Temple 12 century
Every tower has the same four faces. After a short drive, we arrived at the marvellous
Bayon Temple. Not meant to be a functioning building, it features towers equal to the number of provinces in the 11 century Khmer empire) and innumerable repetitions of one face. No one knows for sure whom, if anyone, the huge smiling face statues represent; they do resemble the king at the time, or they may represent bodhisattva (a form of Buddha). Each tower has four faces looking east, west, north and south; each direction represents a virtue, such as compassion.
We climbed up about three levels for good views of the construction; the levels are anything but level, since every ten feet or so a few stairs take you up or down. The carved exterior obviously has the same roots as temple decoration in India, although the undecorated interiors have little space for people, because usually high priests were the only people allowed into the temples. The foundations are made of lava rock and the carvings are made of sandstone, which accounts for the considerable erosion of the exposed carvings. Since nature caused all the roofs to collapse, most of the carved surfaces have been long exposed to rain, sun and
Remaining supports for the King's walkway
Ghostly function of Baphuon Temple evident. wind. All of the internal statues in niches had the heads hacked off to be sold through a circuitous multi-national black market route into China.
Hundreds of tourists were clambering and photo-taking. Never have I seen tourists from so many countries – Asian and European mainly. Originally, the only access to the top was on dangerously steep and shallow stairs; now wooden staircases have been built over the narrow ones to preserve both the tourists and the temples. Easy to imagine that 5000 tourists a day can have a detrimental effect on the remaining stone.
We walked in the heat past the site of the King’s palace (wood, destroyed over time) to the King’s personal temple,
Baphuon, a relatively small structure accessed exclusively by priests - even the King stayed outside. Even the stones are considered sacred and worthy of worship. Few tourists go up to the first level, all that is allowed – no wooden staircases are planned here.
We kept walking to the King’s Stadium, renamed the Elephant Terrace by the colonial French (mid nineteenth to mid twentieth century). A wide terrace was built of stone for the King and his many officials to watch
King's Stadium
Not so different from other stadiums sports and entertainment on the grass fields. The royal family’s portion was higher and decorated by a host of semi-divine mythical birds that populated
Mount Meru. The officials’ portion was lower, more extensive and decorated by elephants. Altogether the terrace was at least the length of a city block.
Thank goodness lunch was next on the agenda, after almost four hours walking in the heat. We drove to a nearby restaurant, which was one of many that seemed to cater to the tourist trade. Not a flashy locale, it had air-conditioning, good food and impeccable service. As part of my tour, I am entitled to the set menu, which was primarily a Cambodian dish called Amok (finely shredded greens, anonymous white fish, few spices and coconut milk, served in a coconut). I ate in solitary splendour, because the guide is not included in meal times (and gives him a rest).
">View slideshow of the temples.
Isabel Gibson
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Anonymous fish
Ha. And "Whew!" I'm exhausted and it's only lunchtime. And I haven't been trailing around for 4 hours. Well done.