10. Angkor Wat: Part 2
This place is
huge.
Getting a Blessing
It is difficult
to walk through; the floors are uneven, old and broken. There is a bump, a high
step-over, in every doorway. Those ‘bumps’
keep out the bad spirits, who slide along the ground.
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| 8-Armed Vishnu |
Walking is not
on an even floor. Some parts were destroyed by nature, some by man and tourists
seem to be everywhere. There is rubble about, fallen down walls fill some
‘rooms’ or spaces. But you need to walk literally one step at the time,
watching where you place your foot.
All entrances
to the upper floors were blocked off; I imagine it to be too dangerous to walk
up there. There
are no guard rails or stair railings anyplace. If Cambodia
would be a 1st world country, you would not be allowed to walk into
the ruins. Here though, you are free to roam ‘almost’ anywhere. Each step of
the way gives you a different view. Each room you enter, each niche or
vestibule has a different feeling to it.
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| Stairs Everywhere - No Railings |
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| Inside the Main Temple |
Yet, the old
splendor can still be felt.
It is only my
lack of understanding of history that prevents me from enjoying it more. I know
very little of the Khmer.
At one time,
during the 11th to 13th Century, the Khmer Dynasty was
the richest Empire in the world. Nothing anyplace came even close to it.
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| Can You 'Imagine' How It Must Have Looked in the 12th Century? |
Angkor Wat was
just the temple. Angkor Thom was the actual Capital city of the then Empire. But
more about some of those details later in the blog.
But can you
imagine if this Angkor Wat is ‘just’ the temple, what the whole of the total
city complex must have been like?
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| Wow! Amazing |
Incomprehensible! Truly, I have never seen such an amassing of
wealth. Even the Forbidden City in China is just a shadow of this place.
Carol and I
climbed through the ruins. I scaled some stairs on hands and knees. I made
Carol climb steps that were so deteriorated that one needed to be a mountain
climber. But good for Carol, even though she protested, she did great. Yes, I held
her hand.
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| I Cannot Believe I Climbed This - Even With Help |
We scoured what
we could, walked where we were allowed but it was tough going. Ah, to be 30
again!
So we walked
half way through this temple. We never saw the North side of the complex. We
were too exhausted at the end. We remembered that we had to walk all the way
back to our tuk-tuk, too.
Standing just
outside the entrance again, with a bit of an elevated view, I tried to imagine
the time when this Wat was at its best. When it was in full operation, what it
would be like on the busiest days, with the old Khmer people all around. I
imagined when the royals, the military, the priests, the common folks all were
doing their thing. What a sight that must have been!
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| Multi-Headed Naga (Serpent), Instrumental in the Formation of the World |
It is a still a
sight to behold today, but just ‘Imagine’.
I know I am a
dreamer.
Carol and I
walked slowly back to the tuk-tuk. We walked along the forest that is growing inside
the outer south walls, which was the shady side. We did not walk the busy,
ancient center causeway access on the way back. This causeway is difficult to
walk on.
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| Apsaras - Divine Dancers |
Some
enterprising ‘vendors’ sold drinks and even some small snacks along our way. I
tried the drinks offered. I don’t know what it was, but it was refreshing and
natural, the vendor said. It was! Carol passed on it; she just had bottled
water.
Once we were
out of the historic Wat area there were vendors everywhere selling whatever you
wanted and offering items I cannot imagine I would ever want. Carol however
bought an excellent book describing in detail, with pictures many of the temples
in the Angkor area. She paid $5 for ‘Ancient Angkor’ which has a sticker price
of $27.95.
We found our
tuk-tuk driver in this jumble of vendors, the organization around Angkor Wat is
good. While it looks primitive, it all works out pretty well.
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| Excellent Book For All the Sites We Visited |
While the whole
of the ‘Historic Area’ of Angkor is a National treasure to Cambodia, bringing
in millions of tourists, it is today, mostly stone ruins.
One needs to envision
the living quarters for the working class people, and the ‘life’ that was going
on around those palatial stone buildings. You need to mentally add the oxen,
the fields, the farms the roads, the common man, etc.
The stones
somehow survived but the wooden houses, the living quarters made centuries ago
only out of natural products, were all reclaimed by nature. What we see today
is what has survived from ancient times.
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| An Awe Inspiring Experience |
This
reclamation from jungle forces is still going on today.
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| Enterprising People Gathering Lotus Flowers From the Moat to Sell |
We used the
tuk-tuk to take us past some of the temples that we want to see later in the
week along our way home. We asked our tuk-tuk driver to give us a quick ‘drive
by’ since a lot of the old attractions are near the Wat of Angkor.
Well relatively near, but again, that is for later.
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| Lotus Flowers |
It was good to
have a tuk-tuk, because were tuckered out.
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