Nature Overtaking Civilisation

As I wrote in my previous entry, what made Angkor temples interesting and exceptional was the tight connection they had to the surrounding nature. While archaeologists have tried to cut back the jungle in most locations of the Angkor complex, Ta Prohm temple is unusual in the way that the roots and huge trees are growing from the ruins making it a magical place to visit.



This special character has of course made it a favourite stop for tourists but despite the crowds attracted by the afternoon sun I was amazed by the beautiful golden shades in the stones and bare trees. Some tourists might have been more interested in the exact location where Angelina Jolie was playing Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider film a few years back (see above).



Also the less visited Preah Khan temple has this magical feeling due to its proximity to nature. This isn't an archaeological decision as in Ta Prohm but the temple is still waiting for restoration as can be guessed from the frail walls about to collapse.

The First Glimpse of the Ancient Khmer Empire

I'm already back in Finland from South-East Asia, but since my blog entries became scarce (or non-existent) as my departure approached, I haven't even mentioned the Angkor temples yet. And I should. It is the one must-see sight in this part of the world that everyone has heard of, the temple area is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year (even 2 million according to Lonely Planet) and Siem Reap, the city closest to the temples has transformed into a tourist hot spot in good (great food, drinks and services) and in bad ("Miss, tuktuk, Lady, pineapple, Miss, fish massage...").

The Angkor temple site is much larger than most people think. You can easily spend more than a week exploring the ancient temples. The area is huge, more than 25 km2. In fact, one part of the complex, Angkor Thom, was during its heyday a city of one million inhabitants, bigger than London at the time (only 50 000 inhabitants). Nowadays, only the temples of the ancient Khmer cities still exist, other buildings of lesser importance were built of wood and distroyed by time and tropical weather. Thus, not much is known about the daily life in the cities (and I can remember even less). During the visit, the main interest is in Buddhist and Hindu images and the interplay between nature and Khmer architecture (and in strategies how to avoid too many tourists and too much sun).

Map of the Angkor complex (from Wikipedia). The distance from Siem Reap to Angkor Wat is around 6 km.

I spent three days exploring the area (3-day pass 40 US dollars, everything is paid in dollars in Cambodia): two days by bike (even though at the hotel they said: "Oh no, it's way too far away, you won't make it", well, during the first day I biked more than 30km and it was great!) and the last day by a tuktuk as I went to see temples further away.

Well, I did see the Southern gate of Angkor Thom in the sunrise. Then I explored the local insects for an hour in the 'suburbs' or Angkor Thom...

On my first day, I woke up at 4.50 am to see the famous sunrise (the wow-moment every Angkor-tourist talks about). I biked 6 km to the most popular Angkor Wat temple, but already at 5.30 am it was buzzling with tourists, I decided to enjoy a more tranquil sunrise and continued a bit further. I had read from the New York Times that the hill temple of Phnom Bakheng is actually great for viewing Angkor Wat in the morning light. Well, it was pitch-dark and I couldn't find the hill (later I heard that it is actually the sunSET hill). Instead, I was biking and then running around in order to not to miss the sunrise, which I eventually did. No, wow-moment. I continued biking and lost precious calm morning time (at 6 am the place is beautiful in the morning light, still cool and tourist groups haven't arrived yet) wiping the spider nets off my shoulders as I was doing my off the beaten track -tour. Sometimes, it is just better to stick to the usual routes...


However, I did made it to the main temple of Angkor Thom, Bayon, before 7 am. It has 54 towers decorated with enormous faces of a bodhisattva that embodies the compassion of all Buddhas. Some researchers say that the faces resemble the king Jayavarman VII who built the temple in the 12th century. This king seems to be the Medici of Khmer empire as he ordered many of the famous temples in the area (and the only one whose name I could pronounce quite easily).


I had missed my potential wow-moment, and I didn't had it during the three days of my visit, but Bayon was certainly impressive. Nevertheless, I couldn't help thinking that the temples built in the area were from the golden period of Khmer civilisation, i.e. between 9th and 14th century. During this time, they built great cathedrals in Europe too (Angkor Wat was built at the same time as Notre Dame in Paris). I couldn't get over the fact that it wasn't 'that old'. I guess it was this fact that somehow suppressed any possible sentiment of pure amazement. I didn't get the same feeling as I did when I entered the 4000 years old tombs in Egypt or when I gazed at the perfect ceiling of Rome's 2000 years old Pantheon. Maybe the sunrise could have approached me to Stendhal's syndrome as in Macchu Picchu when the morning haze disappeared gently and let the viewer admire the Inca ruins (not that old either, from 15th century) and the massive mountains little by little. I was slightly disappointed, but considering how high expectations I had, it's no surprise. But for sure, some of the ruins that were left to the mercy of nature were amazing, inspiring once again Indiana Jones -like thoughts. Coming soon...

Back to the Nature

So far, the most important lesson from my traveling in Southeast Asia has been: "Never eat bananas in Europe again". They just wouldn't taste like the delicious little bananas found in here. The other day, when I was motorbiking through Cambodian countryside around Battambang with my local guide Thaa, I got a rather more sophisticated though (following Rousseau's thinking, I guess).

Seeing smiling people everywhere in the small villages, I couldn't help thinking that the Western people's depression or both mental and physical ill-health are to some extent due to our alienation from the nature. Seeing people living by the seasons, according to the natural cycle of life, understanding (but not controlling!) the immediate environment around them felt so right; the way it should be.

Probably this sounds, to say the least, hypocrite, as I am in a very poor and underdeveloped country, but I truly felt a bit jealous seeing these people in villages (lying in hammocks, carrying wood or gathering their skinny cows from the field). Not that I want to be a peasant or anything close to it but I would like to have this tight contact with the nature. I'm fine with settling for a good-sized vegetable garden, a few hens and a goat, but growing herbs on the balcony just isn't enough. (Read from my previous blogging a year ago about the great book: "Animal, vegetable, miracle")

I remember being criticized by two friends of mine about traveling in poor countries, how it is some sort of voyerism and unethical. "You just want to see poor people and think how exotic it is..." This was the line of thinking. Having now travelled in Laos, a country among the 20 poorest countries in the world, and Cambodia, another very poor country where the majority of people still live with less than 2 dollars per day, I still can't agree with them. From the point of view of my studies about human well-being, inequality and poverty, it has been enlightening for me but at the same time I feel that tourism is one of the greatest ways for these countries to escape poverty (rather than illegal logging or growing coffee, tea, tobacco or opium for the rich countries). In fact, local people working with tourists are better off than the average. For example, I gave Thaa, my guide in Battambang, a day's job that he was greatly thankful of as there are not so many opportunities for work in the region.

I waved at around three hundred children during my nine hour boat ride from Siem Reap to Battambang, they were all very excited about seeing our boat and our blond hair and fair skin, and I can't understand how my being in a tourist in Cambodia would somehow be unethical (for god sake, child prostitution and sex tourism are unethical!) as I'm trying my best to be friendly, teach locals some English, buy more expensive fair-trade local products and give people a work. I asked a man in Siem Reap (the city next to Angkor temples that see more than 1 million tourists a year) how the city had changed during the last decade when the tourism started to take off. He replied that the change was immense, but for the better, he had a work now, they could build new roads and schools, he didn't consider the flow of tourists as degrading the quality of life in the city, so the situation was not comparable to Florence for example, the city of Siem Reap wouldn't flourish without the tourists.

Of course, as in Vang Vieng in Laos, tourism can bring some bad side-effects (drugs, stupidity, noise pollution). But for example the case of prostitution, in Cambodia (with hiv) it became a greater problem with the UN coming to the country with its mission after the Khmer Rouge years and the civil war, only later the toursits started "benefiting" from these facilities (child prostitution being a real problem in the country, Cambodia being the new Thailand in this sense). But this deserves another blog entry altogether, coming soon, maybe when I'm back home to reflect upon these issues more carefully. After all, I only have one more week in the continent.