Cambodia and Angkor Wat Were All I'd Hoped For.....

The trip to Cambodia was quick, easy and absolutely what I had hoped for. I arrived in the morning of May 27 and toured the Angkor Thom and Angkor Wat temples in the morning and the Bayon Temple in the afternoon. On the 28th I visited the Banteay Temple and Ta Prohm--both of which were highlights. Because of the number of sites and the number of photos I am breaking this post into several smaller sections but the entire trip lasted two days.

There is considerable debate as to Angkor Wat being included on the revised list of Seven Wonders of the World and it has my vote. Built on three levels in the 9th and 10th Centuries it represents the Hindu vision of the universe. It has more stones that the Egyptian pyramids but here most of the stone is exposed and nearly every inch has been intricately carved--literally miles of stone carvings. The magnitude hits you as you walk across the bridge over the moat. Once inside you go through several stone arches and entrances. In the center (the center of the universe) the third level has five large towers with the center and tallest being over 200 feet in the air. The temple itself covers about 500 acres. As you work your way in through the maze of passages you eventually reach the central tower which can be climbed (and I did) but the steps are very narrow and extremely steep. I'm in pretty good shape physically and I really struggled at points working my way up. I finally got to the top and straightened up to catch my breath and there's an old Japanese man standing there--he must have been 90 years old with the white goatee. It started misting while my guide and I were at the top and I was a little concerned about coming down on those stone steps but one of the stairs had a rail and that's how the elderly people were climbing up. Naturally I had to take the hard route! Once at the top, however, the view was breathtaking. I had an excellent guide and he spoke perfect English despite having never been out of Cambodia. We spent about an hour walking around inspecting the carvings and sculptures while on the top. Cambodia is attempting to develop the complex for tourism but there is still a lot of pilfering and damaging of these priceless artifacts. Like I said the views were awe-inspiring.

After climbing back down we toured the panels inside some more than walked around the moat before driving over to another temple complex, Angkor Thom.

Although Not as Grand as Angkor Wat.....

Angkor Thom in its own right is an amazing archaeological site. It is considered the premier Khmer architectural building in this area. All the temples were surrounded by man-made moats and this temple has a bridge with 108 large stone figures on both sides. On the right are figures of gods carrying a large nine-headed snake. One the left side are figures of demons also carrying a large snake called a naga. On one of the murals in the Angkor Wat is depicted an epic battle in which both the gods and demons wage a 1,000 year war called the Churning of the Ocean of Milk in which a tug of war between the two sides was a battle for the elixir of immortality. One of the by-products of this churning battle was the release of celestrial nymphs called apsara and I got some photos of apsara that night at the dinner show in my hotel. But back to Angkor Thom, the reliefs here were amazing:

Here Are The Celestrial Nymphs .....

.....from the Battle of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk. They were a result of the thousand year battle and today they are considered a Cambodian national treasure. Young girls are tought the intricate movements including the curving backwards of their fingers and balancing on one foot for a slow, graceful dance to traditional music. In the 1920s Noel Coward wrote that few things inspire as a show of these dancers followed by a visit to the Angkor Wat ruins the following day. I traced his footsteps and did the same thing and can report he was right on the money. The music, too, is traditional and very beautiful. Here are a couple of photos

to illustrate:

The next morning we took an amazing drive along a road only recently cleared of landmines to do a tour of Banteay Srey Temple and then an amazing visit to Ta Prohn where the forest is competing with the old temples in a scene straight out of Indiana Jones.

The Only Thing Missing Here is Angelina Jolie......

..... and if this photo looks famliar its because this is the entrance where Lara Croft in the movie Tomb Raiders supposedly fell into the tomb. In reality the dirt floor inside is only six inches below the doorsill but it made for a good movie.
The Ta Prohm Temple has created a real dilema for historians, archaeologists and naturalists here in Cambodia. The temple is being overrun and destroyed by the forest and features priceless and unusual carvings and statuary so for now the officials are trying to cut back the forest without destroying the trees and shore up the collapsing temple walls and what you get today is a tour through very, very ancient ruins in a surrealistic setting.

















It's not known how the Cambodian government is going to deal with this problem....there are far too many other problems and too little money. After a genocidial civil war that killed millions and a persistant landmine problem that maims and kills thousands of children and farmers every year, these temples unfortunately are not the first priority.
The nearby Banteay Srei Temple is very small but considered one of the most exquisite examples of intricate stonecarving to exist in Cambodia. It is considered a crown jewel in classical Khmer statuary and dates back to the 10th Century. The name Banteay Srei translates into "Citadel of Women" and the statues here are prominently those of female divinities set in recessed niches of the many towers.
As you walk around the small complex you are struck by the attention to detail. Entering the complex across the obligatory moat, you are literally forced to bend over at the waist (in effect, required to bow down) as you pass through the doorways and all the steps are so narrow that you are forced to walk up them sideways (thus never pointing your feet toward the gods). The following photos show just a few of the beautiful detailed features of the temple:





















On a more somber note, Ta Prohm and Banteay Srei temples are about 18 miles northeast of the town of Siem Reap where I spent the night. At these and other temples, there is always a band of men playing traditional Cambodian music (flute with the wooden xylophones). The music they create can be heard throughout the temples and lend a real sense of serenity and beauty for visitors. Unfortunately these musicians are missing hands and feet or are blind because of landmines. These two temples were, until recently, seldom visited by tourists because of the danger of landmines.
In 1975 the Khmer Rouge overthrew the government of Cambodia and began a campaign of relocating the people to the countryside and forcing them to work in forced labor camps. Landmines were literally sown across the countryside. As many as three million Cambodians were killed in ethnic cleansing that included many children. At the worst of the Khmer Rouge era an army of children as young as ten or twelve years old fought and died. Most of us have heard of the "Killing Fields of Cambodia" but we can't imagine the magnitude of the suffering it involved. This area I visited today was directly affected by both the landmines and the indiscriminate killing. Signs warning of mines are still posted on trees along the road we traveled today. There is a minefield museum--I didn't stop to visit but out front are many disabled mines, shells and cluster bombs. It is easy to blame the communists and Khmer Rouge for all this but the truth is many of these bombs and mines were dropped by the United States in a clandestine war against the Viet Cong in a campaign known as Operation Menu in the 1970s. Many of the shells still have "United States" markings on them.
And while seeing the maimed musicians outside the archaeological sites is bad enough, nothing prepares you for the maimed children that are selling books and postcards. But, as my guide told me, it gets worse because in many ways these children are the lucky ones because they are still alive. Almost weekly a child finds a landmine and doesn't recognize it and gets killed. And during the "killing fields" period many, many children were among the victims. At Siem Reap, in front of the Buddhist temple, is a shrine dedicated to the victims of the killing fields with skulls and bones displayed. Many of those skulls are those of children. It's impossible to remain complacent about the world problem of landmines and genocide after a visit here.

Visited the Temple of Dawn and National Palace today…..

Today was Sunday and the only day off on this job so I slept in late then rode the sky train downtown and caught a water taxi up the Chao Praya River to the Temple of Dawn. The Temple of Dawn is not the most impressive in Bangkok but it is the most imposing and towers over everything on the river except the skyscrapers. It is also the most recognized symbol of Bangkok in movies and pictures—if you remember the James Bond movie shot in Thailand the temple was prominently displayed in the background of the river scenes. On the final photograph note the ceramic dishes and cups incorporated into the intricate designs. This temple is very, very old and in the old days of the sailing China Clippers many times the ceramic cargoes would be destroyed en route due to rough seas and mishandling so the Buddhist monks would take the broken pottery and glass and fashion it into temple decorations. In the 1800s when a major renovation of the temple took place the monks didn’t have enough glass or pottery shards so they requested the citizens of Thailand donate any broken dishes to be used in the restoration. Being devout as they are, the Thais broke dishes to give the monks or donated complete sets for the temple.
From the Temple of Dawn I crossed back over the river and visited the National Palace and the Emerald Buddha. I had taken a tour on a previous trip here so today I just walked around and photographed the grounds. The pictures on the right should say it all—it is one of the most beautiful temple complexes in Asia and I think it is far more impressive than the Forbidden City in Beijing.
After visiting the National Palace I took a water taxi back down to the Oriental Hotel and ate lunch on the veranda over the river and watched the rice barges. I’m not getting much time off this trip and job but the time I do have is so enjoyable. I’ve finished two of the three classes now and am on the short side of the trip until I come home. Tomorrow I hope to confirm an overnight trip to Angkor Wat. If so, I’ll be posting some spectacular photos before I return home on May 29.

Visited the Bridge Over the River Kwai today…..

This week has been tough because I am presenting new material but my interpreter has been excellent and the class has gone well. I had three Thai students—two of whom were from the surrounding countryside and they all became fast friends and were very good to work with. Overall the first week was difficult but enjoyable.
The Internet in my room is about $12/hour so I will probably only be posting pictures on this blog on weekends. I can walk across the park to the shopping center and use an Internet café to check my emails for less than a dollar for an hour but can’t post photographs. On Saturday I went to the National Museum and rode the water taxi along the river. The weather here is hot and humid but we are getting a lot of rain right now.
On Sunday I took a tour up north—actually pretty near the Burmese border—and visited the war museum, military cemetery and remains of the Bridge over the River Kwai, famous from the movie.
We took a bus up to the location then visited the museum which consists of a collection of large photographs of the prisoners of war. It is not a good visit for the squeamish and does not bother with political correctness—the Japanese do not come off well at all here. If you remember the movie, about 30,000 Allied prisoners of war, mostly British, were killed, worked to death or starved building a stretch of railroad in the mountains to connect the Burma Road. The Japanese documented most of this with photographs and after viewing them I can tell you it was as brutal as anything I’ve seen concerning the Holocaust. What the movie didn’t tell us was that another 100,000 impressed civilian laborers from SE Asia and China died building the road. The military cemetery is maintained by the British government and as you would expect is very moving. Some American POWs worked and died here but it was mostly British and Australian. The majority of Americans were survivors of the USS Houston after it was sunk. Ironically, and appropriately, the museum is managed and operated by the local Buddhist monastery to promote understanding and non-violence.
The bridge was completed in 1943 and the Japanese had started reinforcing the wooden structure with steel but when the Allied Forces gained a stronghold in China they set up airfields and immediately began bombing the Burma Road. The Royal Air Force specifically targeted the bridge over the River Kwai taking out several spans. After the war and defeat of Japan, Britain rebuilt the bridge into the steel structure that stands today and then sold it to the Thai government who still operates the railroad with rail service to and from Bangkok with these outlying villages.
We rode about 1 ½ hours of the rail service today—the section through the mountains that was later called the “Death Railway” because of the terrible toll in POW deaths from 1942-43.
I start my second week of classes tomorrow. Sorry about the delayed blogs but I will post irregularly and try to let you know when I do. I believe the trip to Cambodia and Angkor Wat is going to happen on May 27-28. When it does I should have some spectacular photos.

Off to a good start.....

Made it over here ok but am still feeling the effects of the 18 hour flight on Tuesday. I arrived late Saturday night and Sunday went downtown and rode the water taxi on the Chao Phya River but was really too tired to visit the temples or museums. Ate lunch on one of the outdoor restaurants overlooking the river with the rice barges floating by. The job is off to a good start but I am struggling with working through an interpreter. Other than getting the job started there’s not much news yet. I am signed up for a trip Sunday to the River Kwai and Death Railway site from World War II.