A Buddhist nun holds incense sticks at the Bayon temple, part of the Angkor Thom complex. (Artis Henderson photo, Special to news–press.com)By Artis Henderson
Special to news-press.com
Originally posted on May 20, 2007
Incense hangs heavy in the thick air, perfuming this stone sanctuary with its sweet, earthy smell. A Buddhist nun lights another stick and places it in front of a stone Buddha, her white robes highlighted against her dark skin. The sound of whirring cicadas makes the air, already shimmery from the heat, vibrate.
I look past the nun, over her smooth, shaved head, at the orange-draped Buddha on the pedestal. His almond eyes and enigmatic smile give this place an other-worldly quality.
Kambuja: the ancient name for this kingdom. The native pronunciation is soft and languorous, the linguistic equivalent of the coconut milk and curry amok dish so popular in this region. The flat “a” and round-mouthed “o” of the American-pronounced “Cambodia” doesn’t do justice to the dark mysteries of this country, only recently free from the shadow of civil war.
A very long trip
Our journey began in the Western hemisphere, with a Seoul-bound flight out of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. We wondered which path we would take to go halfway around the world, never imagining that our flight would traverse the North Pole in its west-east trajectory. As we flew over the polar ice cap, a plain of frozen, white wasteland below us, the sense that we were entering another world was inescapable.
Fourteen exhausting hours after leaving D.C., we landed in South Korea. The next leg of the flight was a minimal 5 1/2 hours, heading to Vietnam’s southern capital, Ho Chi Minh City. Teeming with throngs of families jostling for space at the arrivals gate, the bustle of the Vietnamese airport was a shock after the cool regularity of the Korean Airlines flight.
We spent the next five days exploring Vietnam, from the sweltering, hectic streets of what was once Saigon, to the breezy beaches of the coast, to the cool heights of the inland mountains. The experience was distinctive, unforgettable, but without the adrenaline-laced tang that Cambodia promised.
We looped back around to HCMC, catching a small twin engine plane directly to Cambodia’s Siem Reap. Once a dry, dusty village crouched on the edge of the Cambodian jungle, Siem Reap has benefited from the influx of investment dollars in the past decade, transforming itself into a high-end tourist destination.
The dust remains, and the hot, crowded stalls of the old market continue to boast artesian wares. The spotty youth hostels and seedy guest houses still stand, but, now, they compete with five-star luxury accommodations for the venerable tourist dollar (much preferred to the Cambodian Riel in these parts).
But, for all the sophistication added in recent years, the exotic allure of Cambodia has not been diminished. For many travelers, including me, this is the ultimate draw: the chance to explore, Indiana Jones-like, a dark, foreign realm, once hidden from the world and now accessible to a privileged, hardy few.
The ruins at Siem Reap and the crown jewel of Angkor Wat in particular are mesmerizing, even by our oft-jaded modern standards. We marvel at their grandiose scale, at the enigmatic expressions on the Buddha-inspired faces. We can only imagine the beauty of the women that inspired the apsara carvings and revel in the delightful foreignness encountered at every turn.
Seeing these hallmarks of civilization lost and found was a life-long dream, and I take in every exquisite detail with a grateful, sated sigh.
At ancient temples
At Bayon, like most of the temples in the complex of ruins surrounding Cambodia’s Siem Reap, the jungle has been kept at bay. Expansive banyan trees and groping vines press in on all sides, trying to reclaim the stones once hidden by the dense foliage. Since the French began excavation and restoration here in the early 1900s, this abandoned kingdom has been protected from further damage by the ravenous jungle.
Our small party stands at the foot of the temple, dwarfed by the stone statuary above us. We marvel at the immense rock faces, said to be a combination of King Jayavarman VII and the Buddha himself. More than 200 guard these grounds.
It’s still early morning, and already the heat is rising from the jungle in damp, suffocating waves. The sky is a deep, vibrant blue, a color that will soon be lost to the heat of the day. For now, though, the towers of Bayon — once covered in gold — are silhouetted against this cerulean intensity.
Mounting the stone steps, I am instantly seduced by the apsaras lining the temple walls. These divine nymphs from Hindu mythology strike impossibly limber poses, beckoning visitors, like ancient kings, to enter the cool confines of this stone refuge.
Once inside, I am quickly diverted by the bas-relief friezes lining the outer walkway.
There are scenes from everyday life: merchants hawking wares in a market, women crouched in childbirth. There are other scenes, too, these more epic in scope, fiercely rendered in gruesome detail.
My hand hovers over an intricately detailed battlescape, a hairsbreadth away from the chiseled, trumpeting trunk of a war elephant. Around him, mercenaries, spears in hand, rush to meet enemy troops.
In another scene, legions of soldiers row shallow-bottomed war boats. Scavenging crocodiles swim alongside the skiffs, parting schools of stone fish in their wake. I trace my finger above one of these toothy reptiles, drawing in a quick, involuntary breath when I see what’s in its mouth: a human leg.
Recalling the past
The unflinching violence in these friezes evokes a more recent episode in this country’s past. Fewer than 30 years separate us from one of the deadliest regimes in history: Pol Pot’s killing fields and the estimated 2 million deaths attributed to his Khmer Rouge. In their stark brutality, these stone scenes make me think of the black-and-white photographs of the men and women executed from 1975 to 1979.
But, here, surrounded by jungle and ancient stones, the horrors of Cambodia’s civil war seem far removed. Rather, I feel more in league with the 19th century explorer Henri Mouhot, easily imagining his first encounter with these temples, half hidden by the impenetrable jungle.
I imagine him pushing his way through dense underbrush, the air thick with humidity and the sunlight shining through green-leafed mango trees, heavy with fruit. I can see him stumbling onto these moss-covered stones in 1860, staring in awe at the rows of stone sentinels guarding the palace entrance.
From Bayon, our party makes its way to Ta Prohm, a Buddhist temple built in the 12th century. Here the encroaching jungle has purposefully been left undisturbed, and thick roots rise up from the fallen stones. Massive strangler figs shade the ruins, choking carved pillars with snake-like vines.
Briefly, I’m separated from our group and find myself walking along a dark corridor, running my hands along the intricate carvings in the wall. I round a corner and run into one of the temple’s Cambodian caretakers. He grins toothlessly and points a dark finger in my direction. “Tomb Raider,” he says. I laugh and nod my head, yes.
We leave the shade of the jungle, where insects hum in the tall trees and the cloying humidity makes it hard to breathe.
Our Cambodian guide, Vuttha (pronounced Wu-ta), announces in his Australian accented baritone, “And, now, madam, we have saved the best for last.”
Seeing Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat, weighty, vast, deservedly earns a place among the Seven Wonders of the World. Its group of lotus-inspired towers soars skyward, fitting symbols of the power and military might of the Khmer empire. Begun in the early 12th century, Angkor Wat’s construction spanned 30 years, mirroring the height of prosperity in this ancient kingdom. By the late 14th century, Angkor had come under attack by neighboring Thais, and in 1431 the city complex — and the great religious monument of Angkor Wat — was abandoned.
Suryavarman II’s original intent for the immense structure, as a monument to the Hindu God Vishnu, is still evident in the intricate carvings lining the outer walls. Scenes from the great Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata cover the temple, leaving little space untouched by Khmer artistry.
Along a colonnaded walkway, in bas-relief, noble-faced gods unite with grimacing demons in the quest for immortality. This is the famous Churning of the Milk Sea. Vasuki, the giant serpent, is wrapped around Mount Mandara, as four-armed Vishnu orchestrates the tugging by gods and demons on both sides. Each picture is so fiercely etched, so perfectly rendered, it’s hard to imagine these scenes lay hidden in the jungle for more than 500 years.
The architectural blueprint, too, reflects the Hindu roots of the temple, as the symmetrical five-tower design suggests the peaks of Mount Meru, legendary center of the universe in Hindu mythology. With the death of Suryavarman II in roughly 1150 and the ascension of his Buddhist successor in 1181, Angkor Wat was ultimately converted to a Buddhist sanctuary.
Circling the outer walls, I pass a pair of Buddhist monks who have made a pilgrimage to this holy site. I surreptitiously steal glances, still awed by their bright orange robes and shaved heads. One catches me looking and smiles a shy smile; I turn away, blushing.
Our guide leads us to the central temple and invites us to climb an imposing staircase rising more than three stories, vertically. We clutch at the hot stones, willing ourselves not to look down, and scramble to the top. The view is breathtaking, a fitting place for a king to survey his domain. Here, as below, visitors have a sense for the power and might of the 12th century Khmer empire.
As we leave through the main entryway, I put my hand on pockmarks in the stone portico.
“Bullet holes,” Vuttha tells us. “From the civil war.”
Even here, in the heart of the jungle, tendrils of Cambodia’s dark past remain.
I look past the nun, over her smooth, shaved head, at the orange-draped Buddha on the pedestal. His almond eyes and enigmatic smile give this place an other-worldly quality.
Kambuja: the ancient name for this kingdom. The native pronunciation is soft and languorous, the linguistic equivalent of the coconut milk and curry amok dish so popular in this region. The flat “a” and round-mouthed “o” of the American-pronounced “Cambodia” doesn’t do justice to the dark mysteries of this country, only recently free from the shadow of civil war.
A very long trip
Our journey began in the Western hemisphere, with a Seoul-bound flight out of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. We wondered which path we would take to go halfway around the world, never imagining that our flight would traverse the North Pole in its west-east trajectory. As we flew over the polar ice cap, a plain of frozen, white wasteland below us, the sense that we were entering another world was inescapable.
Fourteen exhausting hours after leaving D.C., we landed in South Korea. The next leg of the flight was a minimal 5 1/2 hours, heading to Vietnam’s southern capital, Ho Chi Minh City. Teeming with throngs of families jostling for space at the arrivals gate, the bustle of the Vietnamese airport was a shock after the cool regularity of the Korean Airlines flight.
We spent the next five days exploring Vietnam, from the sweltering, hectic streets of what was once Saigon, to the breezy beaches of the coast, to the cool heights of the inland mountains. The experience was distinctive, unforgettable, but without the adrenaline-laced tang that Cambodia promised.
We looped back around to HCMC, catching a small twin engine plane directly to Cambodia’s Siem Reap. Once a dry, dusty village crouched on the edge of the Cambodian jungle, Siem Reap has benefited from the influx of investment dollars in the past decade, transforming itself into a high-end tourist destination.
The dust remains, and the hot, crowded stalls of the old market continue to boast artesian wares. The spotty youth hostels and seedy guest houses still stand, but, now, they compete with five-star luxury accommodations for the venerable tourist dollar (much preferred to the Cambodian Riel in these parts).
But, for all the sophistication added in recent years, the exotic allure of Cambodia has not been diminished. For many travelers, including me, this is the ultimate draw: the chance to explore, Indiana Jones-like, a dark, foreign realm, once hidden from the world and now accessible to a privileged, hardy few.
The ruins at Siem Reap and the crown jewel of Angkor Wat in particular are mesmerizing, even by our oft-jaded modern standards. We marvel at their grandiose scale, at the enigmatic expressions on the Buddha-inspired faces. We can only imagine the beauty of the women that inspired the apsara carvings and revel in the delightful foreignness encountered at every turn.
Seeing these hallmarks of civilization lost and found was a life-long dream, and I take in every exquisite detail with a grateful, sated sigh.
At ancient temples
At Bayon, like most of the temples in the complex of ruins surrounding Cambodia’s Siem Reap, the jungle has been kept at bay. Expansive banyan trees and groping vines press in on all sides, trying to reclaim the stones once hidden by the dense foliage. Since the French began excavation and restoration here in the early 1900s, this abandoned kingdom has been protected from further damage by the ravenous jungle.
Our small party stands at the foot of the temple, dwarfed by the stone statuary above us. We marvel at the immense rock faces, said to be a combination of King Jayavarman VII and the Buddha himself. More than 200 guard these grounds.
It’s still early morning, and already the heat is rising from the jungle in damp, suffocating waves. The sky is a deep, vibrant blue, a color that will soon be lost to the heat of the day. For now, though, the towers of Bayon — once covered in gold — are silhouetted against this cerulean intensity.
Mounting the stone steps, I am instantly seduced by the apsaras lining the temple walls. These divine nymphs from Hindu mythology strike impossibly limber poses, beckoning visitors, like ancient kings, to enter the cool confines of this stone refuge.
Once inside, I am quickly diverted by the bas-relief friezes lining the outer walkway.
There are scenes from everyday life: merchants hawking wares in a market, women crouched in childbirth. There are other scenes, too, these more epic in scope, fiercely rendered in gruesome detail.
My hand hovers over an intricately detailed battlescape, a hairsbreadth away from the chiseled, trumpeting trunk of a war elephant. Around him, mercenaries, spears in hand, rush to meet enemy troops.
In another scene, legions of soldiers row shallow-bottomed war boats. Scavenging crocodiles swim alongside the skiffs, parting schools of stone fish in their wake. I trace my finger above one of these toothy reptiles, drawing in a quick, involuntary breath when I see what’s in its mouth: a human leg.
Recalling the past
The unflinching violence in these friezes evokes a more recent episode in this country’s past. Fewer than 30 years separate us from one of the deadliest regimes in history: Pol Pot’s killing fields and the estimated 2 million deaths attributed to his Khmer Rouge. In their stark brutality, these stone scenes make me think of the black-and-white photographs of the men and women executed from 1975 to 1979.
But, here, surrounded by jungle and ancient stones, the horrors of Cambodia’s civil war seem far removed. Rather, I feel more in league with the 19th century explorer Henri Mouhot, easily imagining his first encounter with these temples, half hidden by the impenetrable jungle.
I imagine him pushing his way through dense underbrush, the air thick with humidity and the sunlight shining through green-leafed mango trees, heavy with fruit. I can see him stumbling onto these moss-covered stones in 1860, staring in awe at the rows of stone sentinels guarding the palace entrance.
From Bayon, our party makes its way to Ta Prohm, a Buddhist temple built in the 12th century. Here the encroaching jungle has purposefully been left undisturbed, and thick roots rise up from the fallen stones. Massive strangler figs shade the ruins, choking carved pillars with snake-like vines.
Briefly, I’m separated from our group and find myself walking along a dark corridor, running my hands along the intricate carvings in the wall. I round a corner and run into one of the temple’s Cambodian caretakers. He grins toothlessly and points a dark finger in my direction. “Tomb Raider,” he says. I laugh and nod my head, yes.
We leave the shade of the jungle, where insects hum in the tall trees and the cloying humidity makes it hard to breathe.
Our Cambodian guide, Vuttha (pronounced Wu-ta), announces in his Australian accented baritone, “And, now, madam, we have saved the best for last.”
Seeing Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat, weighty, vast, deservedly earns a place among the Seven Wonders of the World. Its group of lotus-inspired towers soars skyward, fitting symbols of the power and military might of the Khmer empire. Begun in the early 12th century, Angkor Wat’s construction spanned 30 years, mirroring the height of prosperity in this ancient kingdom. By the late 14th century, Angkor had come under attack by neighboring Thais, and in 1431 the city complex — and the great religious monument of Angkor Wat — was abandoned.
Suryavarman II’s original intent for the immense structure, as a monument to the Hindu God Vishnu, is still evident in the intricate carvings lining the outer walls. Scenes from the great Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata cover the temple, leaving little space untouched by Khmer artistry.
Along a colonnaded walkway, in bas-relief, noble-faced gods unite with grimacing demons in the quest for immortality. This is the famous Churning of the Milk Sea. Vasuki, the giant serpent, is wrapped around Mount Mandara, as four-armed Vishnu orchestrates the tugging by gods and demons on both sides. Each picture is so fiercely etched, so perfectly rendered, it’s hard to imagine these scenes lay hidden in the jungle for more than 500 years.
The architectural blueprint, too, reflects the Hindu roots of the temple, as the symmetrical five-tower design suggests the peaks of Mount Meru, legendary center of the universe in Hindu mythology. With the death of Suryavarman II in roughly 1150 and the ascension of his Buddhist successor in 1181, Angkor Wat was ultimately converted to a Buddhist sanctuary.
Circling the outer walls, I pass a pair of Buddhist monks who have made a pilgrimage to this holy site. I surreptitiously steal glances, still awed by their bright orange robes and shaved heads. One catches me looking and smiles a shy smile; I turn away, blushing.
Our guide leads us to the central temple and invites us to climb an imposing staircase rising more than three stories, vertically. We clutch at the hot stones, willing ourselves not to look down, and scramble to the top. The view is breathtaking, a fitting place for a king to survey his domain. Here, as below, visitors have a sense for the power and might of the 12th century Khmer empire.
As we leave through the main entryway, I put my hand on pockmarks in the stone portico.
“Bullet holes,” Vuttha tells us. “From the civil war.”
Even here, in the heart of the jungle, tendrils of Cambodia’s dark past remain.
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