Banteay Chhmar: All Mine

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Last year I foolishly passed up the opportunity to go to Banteay Chhmar, a sleepy village that boasts a large Angkorian temple and several satellite temples in various states of preservation. I made it this year, and I am so glad that I did!

I glimpsed only a few tourists in the village and at the "headquarters" for this community based tourism organization. Two friendly CBT guides greeted me, arranged for meals to be cooked by women at the CBT kitchen, a motor bike tour of some of the satellite ruins, and a guided tour of the major temple. I was introduced to my homestay, a traditional wooden Khmer house with narrow stairs to the second floor and an undulating mattress in a corner room. A smiling white haired woman, the owner, prepared the room as I waited.

Sokoun, my guide, is also the CBT librarian. Since the community partnered with multiple international organizations, including the Global Heritage Fund, in an effort to protect and promote the tourism of the site, many people of the village have benefitted. The supporting organizations helped him attend university. He worked hard to learn English and become certified as a guide, a job which he says he likes very much.

Astride his motor bike, he took me along gravel roads, where I saw buffaloes chewing, cassava root drying on big tarps in front of wooden houses, pink lotus flowers sprinkled on barays, or reservoirs, where people bathed and fished. Ten kilometers from the village, stacked towers of rocks defy gravity at Banteay Top. Original wood from the mid 1100's exist in several of the doorways, and carvings suddenly appear in haphazard places, indicating these rocks were reused from the main temple at Bantaey Chhmar. What surprised me was the extent of collapse of the towers, yet somehow they still pierce the sky, creating an impressive jagged display.

Several other satellite temples exhibited a similar level of preservation. The faint smiles of the giant carved faces, famous at the Angkor temple of Bayon, appear in many of these sites, and still follow you wherever you walk in the site.

The main temple of Banteay Chhmar is huge, crumbling, but yields surprising glimpses of intricate carvings, arched ceilings, and stone filled doorways. Giant beehives dripped from a tree towering overhead, a line of carved winged Garudas suddenly appeared on a wall. Then there is the impressive wall of bas-relief carvings of warfare between the Khmer and the Cham, complete with hand to hand combat, the king, his queen, elephants, boats, fish, spears at the ready, dead bodies sinking in the water, and crocodiles devouring human flesh. And on the pillars nearby, gentle beings peacefully meditate with their ghostly smiles.



I visited the temple several times, each time wandering where my feet led me. That's the best way, just go where you feel, and you end up where you need to be. And so I found myself back at the best part of this temple, gazing at the carved Avalokiteshvara. In the golden light of the setting sun, this amazing being wrapped his 32 arms around me and welcomed me to the place. Nothing but peace, and the occasional motorbike or dog that passed nearby.



Now only 2 of the original10 Avalokiteshvara remain. In the 1990's there was conflict in the area. Thai soldiers warned the village people to stay away from the temple, as they chiseled and blasted the finest specimens from the walls and carted them off to market. Sokoun was six years old when it happened, but relatives told him about that night when their heritage was desecrated. He says that all the people involved in the theft met an untimely death or misfortune.



My evenings at the homestay were quiet, except for the second night when the baby was unhappy about something. He had the whole family trying to soothe him for an hour as I listened through the wooden floor between my bedroom and their room below.



I learned about cassava processing, because the family had a huge crop of the cut tubers drying on tarps outside their house. It is an important cash crop that most families grow instead of rice. The dried roots are sold in bulk to a buyer, then shipped to Thailand.



It was also in the homestay where I learned something important. The shared bathroom is typical of Khmer houses--with a tank of water for dipping a container to bathe and to flush the toilet. After using the toilet, I looked around for some soap to wash my hands and used the small remnant near the toilet, as there were no other pieces around. After using it a couple times that way, I realized that that particular soap was kept near the toilet for a specific reason--and it is not for cleaning hands!


The friendly people of the village of Banteay Chhmar are immensely proud that the temple is drawing more tourists to their village. The site is a candidate for the UNESCO World Heritage List, a designation which is sure to make the area a destination for many more tourists.



In the meantime, I felt so special visiting this quiet place, where the guy who took my entrance fee told me I didn't need a ticket for the next day because he would remember me. Indeed, as I wandered and contemplated the place without seeing a single other tourist, I couldn't help but feel that it was there just for me. All mine, that's what I thought. For a few hours, it was all mine.

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Photos

The 32 armed Avalokiteshvara
Eight of the ten have been carried off by looters