Ancient Civilizations - Siem Reap, Angkor Wat and Cambodia

Deja vu!  Angkor Wat or Chichen Itza?

Fascinating how so many cultures rose to great heights, with hundreds of thousands of constituents and remarkable technological advances – only to fairly abruptly abandon those complex societies and vanish from the face of the earth.

 

Somehow I thought Angkor Wat would be one of a kind, but it immediately reminded me of  temples and architecture half a planet away in current day Mexico – the grand pyramid of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan.  The heat was as tropical and the flora thriving there was similar – bougainvilla and hibiscus in a mass of overpowering jungle.  The major temples both sit in a grand landscape - with ball fields and astronomical buildings in one, and libraries and altars in the other.  Both have snakes entwined on their structures -  the cobra, and the rattlesnake.

However, this was a Hindu/Buddhist temple (there are arguments as to who came first, but the toppled heads of the Buddha bespoke a Hindu takeover).







Another type of statue supplanted those of the Buddha as well  - the ‘linga’ or phallic statues.  Must say  when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all - apparently you can visit a mountain temple with literally hundreds of massive peni thrusting skyward...I passed.  




 

The earliest temples are dated around 900, like the one to the right, although the civilization rose in power in the late 1100’s and reached its zenith in the 1200’s.

Weaving in and out of the ruins, we didn't have time for all 76, and hit the high spots - me with a gleeful grin that seemed permanent.

 

 

 

 

We arrived at Ta Prohm through the jungle - the back way (Vuttha said that he could park the motorcycle inside the grounds this way - that the tourist police would stop him coming in the front).  What a treat!  Slipping along the outskirts of the complex was delicious - arriving to this sight.  Built in the mid-1200's, the tree seen overtaking the structure is 300 years old!




 



This place was Magical






           

 

 

 

 

 

One of the most amazing things to me were the ceilings - how did they get these enormous blocks of stone to form the high ceilings - the blocks resting together, unsupported?  Or, for that matter, how did they cut the blocks so perfectly that they rested together seamlessly...

And then we were on through the magnificent gates of Angkor Thom to the faces of Bayon.

The scale and artistry is Mind-boggling

Just as mind-boggling was Vuttha's cleverness!

 

 

 

 

       Gargantuan Faces!!

                                                                                         And a darling little temple boy

There was one more temple we needed to see before the end of the day - about an hour's trek up the road to Banteay Srei - the women's temple, renowned for it's delicacy.  

Beautiful filagree and scrolls     abounded on almost every        structure.                                      

The intimacy of the courtyards -
and the monkeys - were enchanting

 

My excellent guide, Dam Vuttha told me that many of the parchments of early history were stored in the temple libraries and simply turned to dust, and that the Khmer Rouge also burned historical records of Cambodia in the 1970-1991 'civil war' when intellectuals were slaughtered. 


 However, there are carvings on some of the temples – especially Banteay Srei ("citadel of the women"), which tell of two major periods – that of the ancient temples (before 1000) and the society of “the greatest king” who commissioned Angkor Wat and the surrounding 76 temples still standing in the UNESCO site, 9km in length.

Vuttha also said that there were several reasons postulated for the abandonment of the civilization, home to an estimated million people.  It seems as though there were invaders, shown in the friezes in Thom – the Cambodians are shown with long earlobes driving the Cham out (while we were there, some women from Phnom Penh asked him some questions and when he showed them Cham – they all said,” Ah Cham” – I had to google Cham to understand who they were. 

I hope that the current education system in the US does a better job now than when I grew up – in total ignorance of Southeast Asian cultures. Vuttha said that the civilization got so big that water became a problem – and that people began dispersing to other parts of Cambodia.

The next time I visit, I will have done more reading on the area, and ask Vuttha to school me more.

With major appreciation to Vuttha - a very special person.