Brenda and Brent - Trip Diary

Siem Reap - Cambodia

Nov 29 to Dec 1, 2003.

Cambodia

First, the country. It seemed mysterious and dangerous to me. Cambodia brings back bad memories of the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge, the Killing Fields. Going to Siem Reap seemed risky to me.

Well, it turns out that Brenda and I and the passengers on the 20 other planes that land each day at Siem Reap, are not at risk. At least, not in any physical danger.

There is a psychic danger though. The poverty and the number of maimed people, maimed by land mines planted by all sides in the wars, is a little challenging. The history of the country over the last 50 years is horrific.



The Ruins

The area around Siem Reap was ruled by a series of Kings in the period from around 800 AD to around 1,300 AD. These kings were the great temple builders. During that time the state (the current King's) religion alternated between Hinduism and Buddhism, with some temples showing aspects of both religions.

The area is very flat, has a very large lake, lots of jungle, but no rock. In spite of the lack of rock, the kings got the idea of building temples and palaces and found ways to do it.

They used one rock called laterite - it is a mud rock that comes out of stream beds fairly soft, is easily cut into blocks, then dries hard in the sun. Most walls around temples were made of laterite, as well as the foundations of some of the temples themselves.

For the mathematically inclined, pictures of laterite blocks do not compress well - they come out larger than almost all other pictures.

Laterite can be shaped a little, but is not much good if you want really complicated reliefs and no good at all for statues. For this they used sandstone - quarried 50 miles away and brought to the temple areas by elephants and lots of peasants. The sandstone comes in a range of colours, from an almost green rock, to various shades of red, to the grey-brown stone that is the most common.

Rather than cut all the blocks to a specific size, they just cut lots of blocks roughly the same size. Then they fitted the next block into an existing wall by rough shaping it then rubbing it back and forth against the adjacent rocks - with sand between to help abrade both rocks - until they had the fit they wanted.

There is no mortar or any physical system of locking blocks together. When the foundations shifted, cracks opened in the walls.

Once they had the building they wanted, they brought in the carvers. Apparently they had metal chisels. Some of the detail is remarkable - these carvings would be difficult in wood, let alone in stone with primitive tools. That such fine work has survived is amazing.

The change of colour, to the bluish colour, is probably the result of a change of colour in the original sandstone block. They did not seem to care very much about uniformity of colour. Then again, they might have uncovered the lighter background colour here during carving and been unable to replace the block.

My recollection is already a little hazy, but this may be almost life size on a 15" monitor.

The Buildings

Given these simple building materials they were able to build huge temples, often with three floors. There were only a few actual rooms in these temples, all the rest of the space was just filled in with dirt to support the next level.

So, they stacked all this rock then carved it, but what did it look like when it was done.

Here is the floor plan of my favourite ruin (other than old what's her name, of course). It is called Bayon. The plan shows the shape of the temple, the location of towers, etc.
Here is what it looks like in real life.

What you can't see from this distance is that it has 54 columns (actually had 54 columns, some have disappeared with time), and each column has the face of a thoughtful buddha figure carved on each of the four faces. There is a huge wall around the entire area, with four gates and each gate has 4 faces. The whole thing is organized on a strict north/south grid.

Two Buddhist monks are heading in. These ruins still have active buddhist statues and prayer areas.

Here is a bit closer look at three of the columns - one face is visible on each column.

These faces are 2 to 3 metres tall.

OK, one more really close look. This pictures show details of how they assembled the sandstone into the towers before carving, and of the face itself.

Pretty neat idea.

I have 80 pictures of these faces if you want more.

Had enough. Too bad, there are two more - each including one of your erstwhile travelers, each trying to appear inscrutable.

First, yours truly, wearing another souvenier of South Africa - my Kruger Park t-shirt. I appear to be suffering from the heat a little here, just like in Sri Lanka.

The buddhas have me beat for inscrutable, no question.

Here's Brenda trying out her inscrutable - not bad.
Here is a full frontal of Angkor Wat, the big name in Cambodian temples.

The temple has a huge surrounding wall, then a moat, then an inner wall, then an inner area with this walkway, then the third wall, which you can see in this picture, then the wall around the temples themselves.

The towers and temples are interesting for several reasons, but the big deal here is the carvings on the outside of the third wall. There are 800 metres of walls, all with carved reliefs 2 metres tall. We spent a couple of hours walking around the walls and I took another gazillion pictures of the reliefs. More later.

Inside the third wall is a raised courtyard with a few small stone buildings, usually called libraries. This view is from the third level.
Getting to the top of the central tower involves climbing a rather steep set of stairs (of course you have a choice of four stair cases, all equally steep, but only one with a handrail of sorts).

Here I am looking down on the less agile member of the group.

Here she is showing her stuff on the stairs with the railing. Now that wasn't so bad was it!
Here is a closer look at the central tower. There is nothing in this tower above those columns but stone, it is purely decoration.

There are statues and Buddhist prayer areas on each of the four entrys to the third level.

Here is a final view of the living area on the upper level - a cloister around an area in which people could meet. Having this kind of living space on the third floor seems pretty cool to me.
There are many more temples, all with interesting features, although none are as large as Angkor Wat.

Here is a small building inside another temple area - Banteay Srei - built by one of the kings to honour his mother. (That's what the guide book says, but I suspect he was in an Home Improvement mood and just had to have one more temple.)

Little less emphasis on size, more on carving. Perhaps by this time they were running out of sandstone and decided to concentrate on the quality of the exterior carving over sheer size. This is of course not one of those male/female things.

Another building from the same site - Banteay Srei. The carvers really took over and had their way with this building. Does it remind you at all of those people covered with tatoos?

Actually I took another zillions shots of the carving on the outside of these buildings as well - really interesting.

The Carvings

Well, we have seen the building materials, then the buildings. Pretty neat, eh?

When you get a little closer though, it gets better and better. The carvings are another complete aspect of these ruins - something you don't get to the same degree in Greece.

We saw very few free standing statues. Now it could be that there are none now because they were all stolen - there was a lot of theft from the ruins area to feed the illegal market for ancient artifacts just as there was in Greece and Egypt. In fact, theft is said to be the cause of more loss than erosion or damage from trees.

What they mostly carved were the walls and columns of the temples and palaces. Some carvings are very simple, showing just the shape of a person. This appears to me to be a Cambodian dancer. While there is a lot of detail, the carving is very shallow and two dimensional. Not that I don't find this relief fascinating, but it does not show the same level of evolution as some of the other carvings.

Here is a more deeply carved section of wall, showing more dancers.
Here is what must be a very early attempt at relief carving. The people are so much less artistically drawn. Or, was it a reversion to primitive style? This relief was at Bayon - my favourite Wat.
The relief carvings around the third wall at Angkor Wat are amazing. Each section of wall depicts a different story - either a fable or the story of a war.

This is a war scene. Notice the attempt at three dimensions - with most of the warriors in front of the chariot wheel, but some behind.

The colour here is pretty good - some of this sandstone is a green/black colour that looks like it has been polished.

Another nearby area, with battle scenes. Actually trying to show the two horses pulling the chariot, with the battle all around is pretty ambitious.
Here is another, showing the use of elephants in battle. The presence of parasols indicates that some big shot was riding the elephant.
So, what happened here? Is this sculptus interruptus? Or perhaps more likely grafittus incompletus.
Not all the sculpture was of religious icons, gods or demons. Here is a section of an upper wall on the outside of the central tower at Angkor Wat. Now, what are these guys and what do they find so funny?
This tableau, above a door in the Banteay Srei temple, tells a standard story from Hindu mythology.

The chap at the top with the woman on his lap is one of the really big Hindu gods. The chap at the bottom is one of the bad guys - who lost this battle big time. The relief tells the entire story of this encounter between good and evil.

Conservation

These buildings have all been restored. After 600 years lost in the jungle, the ruins were rediscovered (probably the local peasants knew about them all the time, but they were reported to western civilizations) by French travelers about 150 years ago. They have been trying to restore many of the sites ever since. The conservation work continues today, paid for mostly by the French and Japanese, with some UN money as well.

They have left a few sites with minimal restoration. The idea is to show people what the sites looked like in 1850. One of those sites was used in Raiders of the Lost Arc. I don't recall the scenes. Only Hollywood could make a small temple in the jungle, overgrown with a large fig tree, into an adventure scene.

Both of these pictures are from the site called Ta Prohm.

This gives an idea of the size of the trees that grew on top of the temple structures. Fig trees, some called strangler figs, are able to start with a very small tree that sends out roots around an existing tree, gradually engulfing the interior tree. In this case, the original tree probably started in moss or leaf litter on top of the roof, then grew down the side of the building.
This looks like a second generation fig tree, slowly strangling an earlier tree that had started on the top of the building.

Although they have left some of the really big trees, they must have removed most of the little trees in these ruins - in nature the big trees would not be this far apart. That quibble aside, it is nice to see the unrestored stuff as well.

Siem Reap

The nearest town, along with its airport, are struggling into the 21st century. The town is still small. Most of the growth is ignoring the town - many large 5 star hotels are going up outside town to cater to the new tourist onslaught - which I guess they hope has a few more dollars in their jeans than the backpackers they mostly get now.

As tourist companies find they can get wealthier tourists here, as the fear of the bad times over the last 50 years fades, things will change here rapidly.

Licensed guides have to take a 3 year university course. Only licensed guides are allowed to take people into the ruins. Guides speak the languages of the tourists - most speak English, but we heard Cambodian guides speaking German as well (or was it Dutch?). Our guide spoke English but was learning Japanese.

That is the future, right now Siem Reap is like this.

This is our Hotel, the Red Piano, from the outside. We had the outside room - for a mere $26 a night. In Siem Reap all prices are in US dollars.
Looking the other way, the town as seen from the balcony. Not completely third world, as most of the villages are. Not yet 5 star first world tourism yet either.

Most people ride small motorcycles or bicycles - about half of each. Few Cambodians can afford to live in Siem Reap even now. While returning to town each afternoon we saw lots of locals on bicycles and motorcycles heading out to neighbouring villages for the night.

The guy at the stand is selling early morning fast food to locals.

The town is wired - both with electricity and the internet. There is at least one internet shop in every block of this area. Few are cafes, most just offer about 10 computers for using the internet, usually for about $1 US an hour - also payable in the Cambodian Riel at 4,000 riels to the dollar.

Of course we had to watch a little bit of Cambodian dancing. A local restaurant offers a buffet dinner with a Cambodian dance review, or just the review. Most people opted for the buffet and did not look up from their dishes during the dancing.

We just watched the show - very virtuous - and had a beer. The beer cost $3.50 each - several times the cost of a beer anywhere else in the country.

In any case, the dancers were pretty good at depicting traditional Cambodian dance - in this case a peasant dance somehow related to fishing.

They also did fancy dress numbers - mostly just with women dancing, but this one had a man as some type of devil. Doubt there was any moral to the story.

Cambodian dance appears to stress control over speed - none of the dance is very fast, but they do appear to try very hard to control exact hand and foot placement and shape.

The music was supplied by a small group of muscians - very good players.

The funny bit is at the end. All the dancers come out on stage and I thought it was for a curtain call. Not so. The people in the audience went up on stage and had their picture taken beside the dancers! How strange.

Of course, having a guy beside the stage taking flash pictures during the dancing is also a little strange.

Worth doing, if you are in town. Ask around - everyone knows about the dance show.

Transportation comes in several forms. You can rent bicycles and pedal around the sites.

We could not get our bikes on the plane - we were told that the plane was not big enough for large packages. We went without, intending to rent them in Siem Reap.

The distances involved and the time spent cycling rather than climbing around the ruins seems wasted to me - cycling is not always better.

They let you climb all over the ruins - something I expect to change in the near future as accidents with people falling and American lawyers get into this.

So, the first practical alternative to bicycles seems to be riding on the back of small motorcycle. You can get a driver and ride on the back for a few US dollars a day. For a couple that means two times a few dollars a day.

Or you can rent the Cambodian version of a two person Tuk-Tuk - a rickshaw bolted to a seat of a small motorcycle. Notice the exhaust pipe location.

Check the mount before renting one - our guide who drove a car warned us that these mounts occasionally break (as in ... a couple of weeks ago two Australians were riding in one when the mount broke leaving the riders doing a nose dive). This may simply have been tout-speak (short for all options other than my option are impossible or dangerous or far more expensive).

Or, you can rent a small car and driver - and cool off between sites.

Our driver Tong was outside the airport with a sign for the Red Piano - the hotel we had found in the Lonely Planet. We picked him for a ride to the hotel.

The Lonely Planet has a section on tout-speak. When Tong told us that while he had a sign for the Red Piano, it was probably full, we knew this was tout-speak. We looked at his alternative but insisted on going to the Red Piano, which actually did have a room.

Along the way, Tong warned us about other ways to get to the temples and offered his services. Brenda did the dickering, including the provision that he got paid at the end and we wanted no more diversions to places his friends owned. He toured us around for 3 days for $40.

He ended up costing about the same as the other alternatives and was a lot more comfortable than the back of a motorcycle or a tuk-tuk.

Tong is an ambitious person. One more year and he will have completed the three year college history course required of registered guides. He is also learning Japanese. With these credentials he will make very good money working for a large tourist company.

Now, if he would just give up the tout-speak.

Here is another little tout that Brenda bought 5 purses from - for the Ballet Girls.

We did our best bartering, but this little girl managed to sell the 5 purses for $7. This turns out to be quite a coup - she paid her supplier only $4 for them for a profit of $3. A policeman in Cambodia makes $30 a month, a soldier $25.

Brenda became the target of a frenzy of other girls selling local crafts.

The other side of Cambodia is the damage left by land mines.

They had a whole series of races at Angkor Wat on the second day we were there - ranging from 5K runs to a half-Marathon. One of the races was restricted to people maimed by land mines.

The "not for the international news" side is less hopeful. Here is a small club near our hotel, with Brenda sitting on the left.

The guy on the pavement on the left front has lost both legs above the knees. He hangs around hoping for money or food.

Yes

You should be on the next plane to Siem Reap and heading into the ruins for a few days. It is not cheap, although you could probably do it for a lot less than we did.

It is not difficult or dangerous - you could do it much more first class than we did. You could hire a guide rather than rely on the great guide book on the ruins - ANGKOR - by Dawn Rooney. Don't buy it at home - the little kids will be trying to sell you a new copy outside every temple for a fraction of the cost at home. You could stay in a very good hotel, paying a lot more than we did but without fear of problems.

I can't believe the site will be as interesting to visit or in as good condition within a very few years.



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