Travel Diaries: ‘Enchanting Angkor’

Caroline J. Howard,

ABS-CBN News
https://abs-cbnnews.com

05/17/2009

"Stop dreaming, let's go travel," our English-speaking Cambodian guide warmly prodded as we rode-off to the Angkor Wat temple--our first stop in Siem Reap, Cambodia one early April morning.

Siem Reap is the gateway to the ruins of the famous Angkor Wat and some hundred other ancient temples in Cambodia, a country that straddles the charm of ages past and that of an ever-evolving present.

On my visit, a makeshift stage was still standing in front of one of its libraries, for a concert to mark the “Songkran” or the local New Year festival. Whether for the “Songkran” itself or Cambodia's temples alone, tourists flooded into Siem Reap.

Every day the surge of bodies begins just before sunrise when tourists drag themselves out of bed early in the morning for a breathtaking view of the Angkor Wat, the dramatic silhouette of lotus-shaped towers slowly being defined by dawn breaking, its reverse image taking clearer shape on a reflecting pool.

The legendary Angkor Wat is proudly depicted as an emblem in Cambodia's national flag. It is also the centerpiece of any visit to Angkor's temples.

Designed to be the state temple, Angkor Wat is shaped like a massive temple-mountain dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, with its three-tiered pyramid crowned by five lotus-like towers rising 65-meters from the ground.

Its walls are extensively decorated with bas reliefs and carvings of “Apsaras” (celestial dancers with elaborate hairstyles), scenes from Hindu literature and mythology, as well as the historical wars of Suryavarman II, former king of the Khmer empire. Some carvings even document the transition from Hinduism to Buddhism.

Built in the early to mid-12th century, the Angkor Wat can rival structures raised in ancient Greece or Rome. My tour guide says, it required over 20,000 artisans, hundreds of elephants (who dragged massive blocks of sandstone from a stone quarry in Mt. Kulen some 40 kilometers away), and 30 years of work to complete it. It is a feat that has been called impossible even by modern standards.

Heritage site

Not too far outside the Angkor Wat, new establishments are being built, slightly lower than the revered historical monument. My guide said, three-level apartments were selling for $50-60,000 each over a 90-year period.

Asked what he thought of all this, my guide looked back cautiously as if careful not to offend a foreign visitor or risk turning away potential clientele: "I wish they weren't built too close to the temples," he said.

It is easy to understand why: for as thousands of visitors descend upon Siem Reap each year, walking through its halls and rubbing against its intricately-carved sandstone walls, it is not difficult to imagine the pressures of use and age on its physical state increasing a hundredfold.

Angkor, literally means "Capital City" or "Holy City." For its artistic and archeological significance, the Angkor Archeological Park just outside Siem Reap (housing more than 100 temple ruins) was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1997.

Today, convinced by its value, the Japanese, German and Indian governments continue conservation efforts on Angkor's temples. Then and now, temples like the Angkor Wat, the Bayon and Ta Prohm, and other surviving remnants of the ancient Khmer Empire between the 9th and 12th centuries give the city reason to be one of the most important architectural sites in Southeast Asia.

Temple tour

It is impossible to visit all the temples in one afternoon. It would be realistic to choose stops in the course of a few hours, preferably in the early morning and mid-afternoon, safe from the oppressive heat of the noontime sun.

After lunch, we proceeded to our next temple in Angkor Thom (Big Angkor), a 3-square kilometer walled royal city, complete with moats, built in the late 12th to early 13th century. This was the last capital of the Khmer empire.

Entrances to Angkor Thom are guarded by three-headed elephants. At the South Gate, often the first stop on a tour, a serpent carved in stone meets visitors on the causeway, its body held by gods and demons.

At the heart of Angkor Thom lies the “Bayontemple”: a complex of sandstone towers, five of which are crowned with four heads, one facing each cardinal direction. Among them, young women dressed in local costume offer to strike a pose with tourists for a dollar or two.

Bas-reliefs of scenes from the historical sea battle between the warring Khmer and the Cham, and scenes from everyday life, adorn its walls. Today, young Buddhist monks still roam the temple in their yellow and orange robes.

Just to the east of Angkor Thom lies Ta Prohm, a sprawling monastic complex whose ruins are caught in the stranglehold of fig, banyan and kapok (cotton) trees. Built between the mid-12th to the early 13th century, its own carvings speak of Hindu influence after Hinduism made a comeback in the late 13th century.

Man-made marvel

Before that, most of Angkor's Buddhist monuments were stripped of its Buddhist carvings and converted into “Bodhisattvas” or enlightened beings that put off Nirvana to lead others to heaven.

The pock-marked walls of its central chamber, which once held the statue of Buddha, is said to have been studded with platinum and encrusted with jewels and gold. Originally constructed as a Buddhist monastery by King Jayavarman VII in the mid 12th to early 13th century like the Bayon, the Ta Prohm is a quiet witness to Angkor's most prolific period of monument building.

Left untouched by archeologists over the centuries, one steps into its chambers and courts as early discoverers probably had, watching in awe at how nature has overtaken its walls and terraces as if its gigantic roots were an organic part of the whole architecture.

In modern time, it comes as no surprise that this temple has earned a place in modern cinema after being popularized by Hollywood via the movie "Tomb Raider" starring Angelina Jolie. But that romantic scene is quickly washed away outside Ta Prohm as one passes a group of landmine victims playing local music on the wayside. This provided a stark contrast-- if not disturbing touch-- to the sense of calm and willing surrender one experiences within the temple grounds.

So as not to suffer from what is popularly known as "temple burnout," the local website recommends a handful of temple stops at a time. Tour guides also recommend side-stops to temple hopping, and 'Apsara' dance performances, craft shops and silk farms, as well as road tours through rice-paddy countrysides as other ways to experience traditional Cambodia.

But beyond the options, the temples themselves persist, just as they have enchanted and bewitched many over the centuries and despite the passing of time.