Words are utterly insufficient to convey the overwhelming scope, magnificence and mystery of the Angkor temples. At a time when there were maybe 50,000-100,000 people living in Paris, the largest city in Europe, the Khmer empire had built a city 20 miles square, with as many as 1,000,000 inhabitants. It is truly overwhelming to try to take in.
The temples are stupendous. Bigger by far than anything I've seen in Mexico or Europe. Some structures have been reclaimed from the jungles, but others are still wrapped in giant tree roots. The temple at Ta Prohm was used as a location for the Tomb Raider movie to take advantage of the great images of elephant trunk-like roots enveloping the buildings.
The decorations, including statues, carvings, and bas-reliefs, are every bit as impressive as the buildings themselves. Some of the ornamentation has been badly treated by erosion, the collapse of many of the buildings, and the fighting that took place here when the VC and Khmer Rouge controlled the are in the '70s' (there's even some VC graffiti from 1972 in one building), but other stone carvings look like they were completed last month.
We had another great guide, but trying to absorb the enormity of the Khmer's achievement in a couple of days, is like trying to learn trigonometry in a week. The first order of business when we get back to Lawrence will be to get a good book on the Khmers and try to reflect on what we experienced.
Siem Reap, the provincial city which serves as a gateway to Angkor, is a lively town, full of resorts, restaurants and bars and a busy night tourist market. We had dinner downtown last night and it was like being in Cancun or Cabo San Lucas - lots of young people from all over the world having lots of fun.
Hotel rooms are inexpensive as is food and drink. That, coupled with the incomparable ruins, makes for a pretty great vacation spot. Unfortunately, it is now so popular, that up to 3,000,000 tourists a year are visiting and putting a huge strain on the monuments and the environment.
We'll spend tomorrow visiting the National Museum branch in Siem Reap and then chill until our 11:30 PM flight to Seoul. Home on Sunday. It will be good to be back!
I'll try to post some final reflections tomorrow before we leave.
No comments:
Post a Comment