Angkor Wat Monks
Cambodia is one of the most fascinating, interesting and difficult experiences to write about. It really is a place where you have to be there to feel it. Though I'd read a lot about Cambodia, it's people and it's checkered history before arriving, it couldn't prepare me for the reality of being there. Simply seeing Angkor Wat for the first time moved me almost to tears.
As I walked around Wats and Temples that used to be huge Citiies inhabited by advanced civilizations, I couldn't help remembering the many wars and conflicts that had also been fought on these grounds.It felt like the spirits of the previous occupants were still there. Yet it wasn't a sense of evil I got, it was more a sense of the ancestors watching over their people.
The town of Siem Reap is the nearest base tourists can use to visit the Temples that are dotted throughout the jungle and countryside. It's only been open to tourists for about the last 6 years. As a result the tourist industry here is still in it's infancy. Sadly not for much longer. Many huge international hotels are in the process of being built. Soon it's dusty and pot-holed roads will be tarmaced over to smooth the air-conditioned buses of the tourists to the temples.
The Temples are very old, the earliest dating from about 967 AD. In the Lonely Planet Guide to Cambodia it describes the temples as "the heart and soul of the Kingdom of Cambodia, a source of inspiration and national pride to all Khmers as they struggle to rebuild their lives". The Cambodians (or Khmers) may have had many struggles but they have survived with their personalilties and smiles intact.
Sunset Angkor Wat
The most famous Temple of course is Angkor Wat. To see Angkor Wat at Sunset or Sunrise feels like completing a life cycle. The incredible vistas visible from the top of the temple glow with fire at Sunset and glimmer with pink health at Sunrise.Walking up the causeway towards the entrance gateway, into the courtyards and up to the main tower is said to be metaphorically travelling back to the first age of the creation of the universe. Symbolism on many levels abound at Angkor Wat. The senses are overloaded by it all.
Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat 190m wide. It is a giant rectangle 1.5km by 1.3km in size. The stones for Angkor Wat were quarried some 50km away. Around the outside balustrade are spectacular Bas-Reliefs depicting such ancient tales as The Battle of Kurukshetra, Heaven & Hell, Churning of the Ocean of Milk and The Battle of the Gods and Demons.
Bas Reliefs
Monks in their orange robes spend days here praying. We met a couple of monks one evening at Sunset who had been there for 2 days prayer and were very excited to practise their English with us.
The spectacular Temple of Bantay Srei (967-1100) is classical Khmer. Said to be a citadel of women, it's a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva. Cut from pink stone with some of the finest carvings ever, it's also said to have been built by a woman as the carvings are too fine for a man.
Angkor Thom spreads over 10sq km, said to have supported a population of 1,000,000 people at it's zenith. London would have had 50,000 at the time. Second to Angkor Wat it has many stooped corridors and is famous for it's 216 huge smiling stone faces of Avalokiteshvara. Their beautiful smiles at Sunrise are a sight to behold.
It's enclosed by a square wall, 8m high and 12km long, encircled by a moat 100m wide supposedly inhabited by fierce crocodiles.The entrance gate is 20m high and decoarated with huge stone elephant trunks. The East gate was used as a location for the movie Tomb Raider.
A temple vendor selling incense
It has the steepest of stone steps up to it's main tower. Half way up I wondered how on earth I was going to get back down. Yet the locals, the monks and the children run up and down them with no problems.
The Temple of Ta Phrom (1186) is dedicated to the mother of Jayavarman VII and because it has been left to the jungle, it's the most atmospheric of all the temples. A unique other world experience because of the dappled light that filters through the huge trees and vines choking the walls and temples. The large roots of the trees slowly engulf anything in their way, no matter how huge. Carpeted everywhere by lichen and crumbling slowly it feels somewhat like a fairy kingdom.
Bayon Tree embracing the temple
It's said that it took 80,000 people to maintain Ta Phrom. 2,700 of whom were officials and 615 were dancers.
On our last day we took off for a trip to the Tonle Sap Lake and the floating village of Chong Kneas. During the west season from May to October the waters from the Mekong flow into the Tonle Sap Lake swelling it from it's normal 2,500 sq km to 13,000 sq km. As the waters recede at the end of the wet season the Tonle Sap reverses it's flow draining back into the Mekong river. It's also a bird sanctuary and wildlife preserve and it's fish stock supports the local fishing community of 1 million people.
The road trip up to the outskirts of the lake was rough and pot-holed. At the outskirts the local roads were still submerged by the west season waters so we switched to the local bus boat. It took us to the floating village where we stopped for a real Khmer lunch at a local's floating house.
Houses of the floating village
It was tantalizing to watch how the community adapted to it's water base life. Older children rowed themselves to school, younger ones played about in what I can only call a round bucket on the water. There is no electricity here, there is no indoor plumbing.Instead of going out to the shops, they come to you on a boat. To talk to your neighbor across the street you shout across the waters, or you pop onto one of the passing shops and hitch a ride across. Children appear to be able to swim from the moment of birth because those not going to school swim, dive, jump and play in the waters below their houses.
Our guide told us that when the waters recede and the village is dry the community move further back up river to a second floating village. They have to stay close to their source of income, fishing.
It's not enough to visit Cambodia once. I know we'll go back again.
Getting himself from one side of the street to the other, children are very independent here at an early age
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