Sticky in Chennai

Buddhas in bas relief

UNESCO declared the area of Angkor Wat, which is just one of the temples, in the province of Siem Reap, Cambodia, a world heritage site in 1992. One supposes that it must be spectacular to achieve such a designation, but then again it may depend on personal preference as far as tourism is concerned. What may be important to cultural human history may not be interesting for tourism and it may just be one small site, or it may be in a country one is in general not interested in visiting.

For me, visiting Angkor Wat and the other major area temples, was not the primary reason for visiting Cambodia. For me it is the sad recent history made famous by the film “The Killing Fields”, that drew me to Cambodia, plus my longtime desire to see Southeast Asia. Living in India provided the opportunity to “scratch that itch” as Yitzy likes to call it.

I am in the middle of my Angkor Wat, etc. 3-day tour. I write “etc.” because there are so many temples to visit here, in this 300 sq. km of countryside, other than Angkor Wat that are just not as well known. Angkor Wat itself, with its five towers, is the most famous and is figured on the center of the Cambodian flag…I think.

Other famous temples are Angkor Thom, Ta Prohm and Banteay Srei. I have visited the first two at this point. I thought I would suffer temple fatigue quite quickly and wondered what I would do. Happily I am not suffering from temple fatigue ( I started to suffer from Buddha fatigue in Myanmar after a few days. )

These are Hindu temples, that were made into Buddhist temples by placing Buddhas in various spots, and then back into Hindu temples by erasing Buddha carvings and removing statues, until finally Buddhism ascended and became the dominant religion.

What I have learned is that the temples of Angkor are worth a visit on their own. Maybe this is why there are direct international flights from several Asian capitals to Siem Reap. No need to stop in the capital Phnom Penh. The temples are glorious and other worldly, at least for me as I have never seen anything like them. It is another of the thousands of examples of religious devotion taking shape in crazy architectural splendor. The carvings are exquisite. It makes the shlock in the markets all the more apparent when one sees how craftsmen once upon a time could create such beautiful expressions out of stone with rudimentary tools, compared with the factory or otherwise mass-produced “crafts”. Many temples seem to rise out of the jungle with monstrous trees seemingly eating the temple with their roots. One such temple has some Hollywood fame as being the site of a film shoot for “Tomb Raider II”. This is where the tour guide adds Angelina Jolie was here and that it was around the time she adopted a Cambodian baby boy. That was yesterday, today my guide added that Angelina Jolie injects her lips to make them fat. This comment was made when he was describing the features of the Khmer faces as having big eyes and big lips – characteristic of Cambodian faces, but not of others.

In conclusion, these temples are worth visiting. Khmer art is not only unique but beautiful and worth gazing at, especially at a quiet temple, in the middle of the forest, listening to bird calls as butterflies flutter around. Not all the temples have heavy tourist traffic. Those that do are difficult to enjoy at times because of the bottlenecks produced by crowds, even though this is the off-peak tourist season as it is about 42C daily. Tourists are sweating buckets so it is funny and grotesque (i.e. dripping foundation) to see women who insist on wearing full make-up.

The time period of this Khmer Empire ranges from 9th to the 15th centuries, when the Thais conquered Angkor. Interestingly, I have learned that Cambodians and Thais dislike each other deeply. Cambodians get along with Vietnam even though Vietnam ruled Cambodia from 1979 to 1989, after all Vietnam relieved Cambodians of the Khmer Rouge. Cambodia and Laos have no gripes with each other and no border disputes. A few weeks ago I read that a Thai actress had publicly stated that Angkor Wat was Thai. This caused a small riot at the Thai embassy in Cambodia. Thais and Cambodians have disputes about cultural heritage, something along the lines of who owns what.

Siem Reap, the town one stays in to visit the Angkor temples, has a population of about 100,000. About 85,000 are involved in the tourist industry. This according to my tour guide. There are many hotels, rarely full, but the good ones are more busy. In short, this is a tourist-friendly place. Don’t expect to be able to roam around the jungles oneself or at all as the risk of landmines remains. Not a place for the tourist desiring an off-the-beaten-path holiday. That goes for most of Cambodia’s countryside. Millions of landmines remain.

As far as I understand, Khmer is the majority ethnic group in Cambodia and the name of their language. There are also ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese and some other smaller groups.