The tale of the stones

Mysterious, romantic, awesome, compelling are just some of the words I would use to describe the temples in and around Siem Reap. Siem Reap, by the way, means hurray, we beat those damn Thais!

After two days of constant site seeing of every temple and building from sunrise to sunset, I think I have a pretty good idea of the majesty of what I saw and experienced. The driver kept asking me to wake up earlier and stay with him later but I was quite content with what I saw. The towers of Angkor Wat reflected in the basin just in front of the of the western entrance and the apsaras on the wall are, as the master card commercial says, priceless. And who could forget the cluster of face-towers in the corner of the Bayon’s upper terrace…just look at the pictures. As two guys sitting there all day told me, all these people tend to spoil it. Not for me, I’m afraid. Nothing could spoil that very special moment. And who forget the surprise and awe of walking up the stairs of Srah Srang and suddenly seeing the lake in front of you?

Let’s face it, these temples have it all, from the architecture of Angkor Wat itself to Banteay Samre where you almost forget you were in the twenty-first century. The chapels or libraries, as they were called in all of the temples were solitary, quiet and peaceful. If you want to see five hundred year old trees growing out of the ruins look at my pictures of Ta Prohm or Preah Khan. If you want to see an island temple surrounded by water (in the rainy season anyway) look at East or West Mebon pictures.

If you have a religious bent and want to study the iconography from the scenes from Hindu and Buddhist mythology all you have to do is enter any temple and depending on who the king was at the time, you either have the Hindu mythology( if we can use that word) or Buddhist. I tried to take lots of pictures of the lintels and carvings to demonstrate this.

Now the hard question. At what cost were these temples built? Needless to say, it took slaves as well as free men perhaps a lifetime to construct one edifice. Yes, the work was probably meaningful, for the free men anyway, and they could create in all their glory. As for the slaves, not so great, I can’t imagine. I tried pushing some of the fallen stones to see if they would budge, and of course it was impossible. These creations must have been spectacular when they were covered covered in stucco and painted red and white with the diamonds studded throughout.( on the other hand, perhaps they are nicer now in that they look so majestic) .The sandstone left in its pristine form must have been spiritually uplifting and a constant reminder of man’s greatness. The temples were obviously places for meditation, special ceremonies, universities in at least one, an intricate water system in most and a centre of community if not business.

I think, when I see and experience these truly remarkable buildings wonder about what else could have been provided for the common person if the money and effort were put elsewhere such as building of roads or more institutions of learning, or better ways of creating rice planting or how about houses for the farmers??? Of course, I wonder the same things about our arms race in the twentieth century or our monuments to stupidity that only you can judge for yourself.

In this particular case, the king of the day, in making goodness for himself, had these edifices built to gain merit in the afterlife without much thought, I would not think, for the common man. Of course, without these stone temples literally carved out of the jungle where would Hollywood go to make movies like Raiders…What I saw in the last two days absolutely defy imagination…mine or Hollywood’s!