Gazing West: On Ruins and History

Looking up at the main temple.

I cannot claim to be a Ruins fanatic; I’ve only run around Tikal in Guatemala and Tulum near Playa Del Carmen, Mexico. I am glad that I have some perspective, however, as to what other cultures were up to around the time that Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples were being built. I did a quick Wikipedia search. Tikal was coming up between the 2^nd and 9^th centuries, and Tulum sometime in the 12^th century. Across the ocean, Khmer Architecture was being erected also in the 12^th century in the greater Angkor Wat area. Where it seems scale was mostly the goal in Central America, a combination of scale and ornate detail seems to be the standard in SE Asia.

Look at how 3D it is!

First, the sheer size of the COMPLEX is mind boggling. For Angkor Wat alone (not counting surrounding complexes and structures), the outer wall is 1024 x 802 meters. That's roughly 3072 x 2406 ft.! The levels within the walls are terraced, and the central temple rises 65 meters above the ground (195 ft.). They say the stones for the complex came from some 30 km away. That's a lot of stone carrying. Each stone has holes in it so people could put presumably bamboo poles through it to be carried. Then you start looking closer and you see all the detail that is seemingly every flat surface. Everywhere is painstakingly chiseled with deep and ornate designs, often telling stories about life then, or legends, or honoring Buddha. I couldn't help but think about the people making everything. Imagine, you're **soo** close to finishing one little bit, and oh shit, you just accidentally knocked Buddha's hand off or something, so you have to start again. AHH!! When there wasn't the deep carvings, there would be these long panels of polished and chiseled stone telling of some epic battle. It's all just unfathomable. AND, this is only ONE temple complex. Angkor Wat kind of gets all the glory.....the picturesque sunrise/sunset, ease of access being basically in Siem Reap city, etc. There are loads of these temples all over the place. One of the most interesting bits of information, I thought, was that the temples went back and forth between being Buddhist and Hindu, based on whoever was in charge at that time. I had to laugh....thinking of the Hindi people coming along saying, "Heeyyy, wow, look at this temple....looks great! Let's move in!" rather than being fussy about having their own. Hell, that's what I woulda done.

There were tons of these crazy long hallways.

Probably my favorite temple was the Bayon temple - the one with all the faces. Roughly 216 if you're countin.

But to get your Indiana Jones on, you have to visit Beng Mealea - a temple 77k from Siem Reap. It is overgrown with jungle and toppled over in places as it was used as stronghold in a war (Vietnam?) If you're daring you can hop around the boulders and amuse the Japanese tourists who are taking your picture. :-)

Our guide was great - telling us all about the history of the structures, the stories depicted on the walls, pointing out good photo ops, and being ever concerned with my wounded leg.

My disgust with the human race was hard to ignore, though, as most of the statues we saw were either headless, or fakes in an attempt to dissuade people from taking the heads. One was removed even a week before, as our guide had seen it the last time he was there! "Is there not security at night?" I asked. "Oh yes, there is security. But it was probably one of them." Bleh. Other damage was inflicted by the good ole U S of A during the Vietnam war, as we littered Cambodia with bombs from the sky. Why? Why? Why????