Angkor: Hindu Heaven

Heavenly Nymphs at Angkor Wat

Today we should like to impart to thee the tremendous impact of the ancient mystique and illustrious splendor of one of the 8 wonders of the world: Angkor Wat and the epic city of temples from the millennium old Angkor empire. This incredible land of both ruins and immaculately preserved monuments to the unmitigated beauty of mankind has been the pinnacle of our exploratory ambitions since the conception of our South East Asian adventure: Angkor.

To reach towards the towering Hindu gods we had to leave behind the scars of the modern atrocities of the Khmer Rouge genocide, leaving vast killing fields of mass graves near the site of furious torture in capital city Phnom Penh, modern day capital of Cambodia. The city was evacuated when the murderous radical revolutionaries overtook it in 1975, sending the entire population of 7 million to forced labor camps in the countryside to support the fever of nationalism and war with Vietnam---only 5 million returned 4 years later when Vietnam conquered the Khmer Rouge and sent them running to the hills. Phnom Penh is now a thriving metropolis, where people are optimistic and hard-working but never stray far from the knowledge of the horrid potential of mankind to impart pain and suffering in the name of glory. Now motorbikes roar through crowded streets, around the monumental gleaming Royal Palace and through the twirling carnival of modernity.

Yet a mere 6 hours to the West lies such dazzling resplendence, the likes of which mankind shall perhaps never again compose.

We began our journey on bicycle, an invigorating 15km ride through the idyllic Cambodian countryside, past stilted huts, cows, palms, and endless fields of rice paddies. Upon arriving at the oldest group of Angkor temples, built over 1100 years ago, we were told we could not enter without a ticket. Of course we had planned for such and offered payment but were told we needed to retrieve the ticket from the office, 15km away---thus denying any hope of seeing those temples on that day. We despaired for but a moment before convincing a gung-ho young Cambodian to take us on his motorbike.

Returning, we got to eat sweet dripping mangos and witness the beautiful plaster carvings on the towering walls of these crumbling temples. We identified all our favorite Hindu gods: Vishnu, savior of the universe, Shiva, the four-armed deity who shall someday open his third eye and destroy the universe, and Brahma, the four-faced benefactor who created the universe from out of the sea of chaos. As we climbed the stairs of the temple Bakong, rising up towards the orange-streaked sky at sunset, we speculated on the differences between our culture of good-and-evil and the Hindu duality of order verses chaos.

Kbal Spean

The following day we met our tuk-tuk driver (a motorbike-drawn-carriage), Kusal, who enchanted us in the market the previous evening with his jolly laugh and subsequently drove us to some of the most mind-blowing experiences this world has to offer. He took us to see some beautiful temples in partial standing, adorned with incredible carvings of our favorite gods and guarded by statues of Hanuman, monkey god and leader of the monkey army (oh yeah they have an army) and Garuda, half-bird/half-man vehicle of the god Vishnu. From there we went to Kbal Spean, an enchanting moniker, commonly referred to as the River of a Thousand Lingas, the Hindu phallic symbol of Shiva and masculinity.  This trickling river and waterfall (in the early wet season) did indeed have countless lingas (allegedly a thousand) but was also home to dozens of beautiful carvings of flowers, birds, a crocodile, a frog, a bull, and many gods and goddesses, including the creator, Brahma, being born out a lotus flower blooming from the navel of Vishnu lying on the 7-headed snake, naga, on the churning ocean of chaos.

Nature runs riot at Beng Mealea

The next day we fulfilled our wildest jungle-temple fantasies at Beng Mealea, an enormous and beautiful temple with towering walls covered in carvings of dancing heavenly nymphs that has fallen back into chaos and disarray, with huge vines growing out of lumpish heaping loads of piles of huge stone bricks, many still adorning intricate carvings from under the mound. We explored the darkened narrow corridors and climbed the rubble to walk along the narrow walls, ducking and jumping, scampering and scaling the chaos of the once immense symmetry of this massive temple, which was built to the same epic plan of the immaculate Angkor Wat.

We arose at sunrise the following day to see Angkor Wat in its immaculate glory. Crossing the vast moat, which halted armies and would shame all European castles, we followed the path that symbolizes the descent from modernity backwards through time to the beginning of the universe at the temple's center. We waited in a seething horde of beauty-hungry tourists by the reflecting pond for the sun to crest the palms and cast its magnificent burning orange rays upon the unrivaled grandeur of the three symmetrical towers of Angkor Wat, all magnanimously duplicated by the pond. During this unforgettable spectacle, we witnessed a leery dog sounding the alarm about the presence of a big fat monkey, who then asserted his ascendency and, teeth bared, drove the dog away.

After breakfast we entered the vast transcendency of the ethereal temple. Every surface of this rapturous monument is adorned with intricate flourishings, ornate carvings of patterned flowers around dancing celestial nymphs. The vast walls that encircle this, the largest religious building in the world, are covered in epic floor-to-ceiling carvings from ancient Hindu scripts of immense battles between gods and demons. One scene depicts Shiva and an army of gods playing tug-of-war with a massive serpent against a legion of demons, pulling the snake around the mythical Mount Mandala, through the churning Ocean of Milk, the sea of chaos, to create the elixir of immortality, which has since been imbued in all being. We climbed to the top of the towers, symbolizing Mount Meru, the home of the Hindu pantheon of gods and center of the universe, and gazed over the immaculate symmetry of the vast temple into the chaos of the verdant jungle beyond. The layers of meaning and beauty are astounding.

Ta Prom

From there we visited another temple that remains incredibly intact despite having monolithic gnarly trees jutting right out of their ceilings, gnarly roots firmly grasping the walls and creating cracks. On the way there a monkey stole our bananas and I had to wrestle the plastic bag back from him, jabbing with a water bottle at his barred teeth as he shoved face. We then walked through the Terrace of the Leper King, where a narrow corridor shelters a wall of deep bas-relief carvings of dancing heavenly nymphs, beatific and beautiful, and powerful gods stare out with intense expressions. We crossed the Terrace of Elephants, where dozens of elephants march in carvings and 3D statues, to the temple of Bayon, the last great temple of the Angkor Empire, donning a multitude of massive stone faces of Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva of compassion, who faces in all four cardinal directions to observe the massive Angkor empire with benevolence and care.

There were dozens of lesser temples we simply didn't have time to visit in our ambitious 6 day expedition. The Angkor empire was so vast and advanced, boasting a complex irrigation system that supported a population of over a million people a thousand years ago, when London was home to a mere 50,000. The magnitude and sheer number of these temples is astounding and each one was ornate and intricately adorned in the height of evolving Cambodian art and architecture, deeply seeped in the influence of India, still a colossal superpower today. Words really cannot convey the immensity.

The Bayon at Angkor Thom

Eventually we had to depart from this city of temples and are now happily back in Bangkok with Teresa, readying ourselves for the brand new adventures to come in Myanmar (Burma)!

We miss you more with each passing day but find the world has ever more to offer, so how can we decline?






More awe-inspiring Angkor photos:
Older temples (Beng Mealea, Ruluos Group, Kbal Spean, Bantay Srei, Angkor Wat sunrise): http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.915751834005.2401097.18403674&l=9946a9c40a
Also old temples (Bayon, Angkor Wat, and Ta Prom):
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.915757752145.2401101.18419229&l=2b298eecc7