The Bayon was the first Khmer Empire temple with which I felt both truly impressed and taken far back into time. I liked it so much - the scale, the multiple tiers, the discovery of the faces when going through the small alleyways and then popping up on the second floor to see them up close that I took half an hour to sketch one of the heads...
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Angkor Thom South Gate
By Rem / in Voyages beyond Time / December 7, 2015Angkor Thom South Gate with the 54 asuras on the right followed by the 54 devas on the left, framed by the Gate itself at the end of the road. The road, of course, doesn't end there as it continues on to The Bayon...
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Phnom Bakheng
By Rem / in Voyages beyond Time / November 30, 2015This temple complex is most visited for its sweeping views of the setting sun as it located on a small hill. But they limit visitation to a hundred people or so, so if you get there within 30 minutes of the setting sun and there is a line of hundreds of Chinese tourists, you'll be out of luck. We took the elephant ride up to the Temple -- interesting animal to ride upon!
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Angkor Wat
By Rem / in Voyages beyond Time / November 29, 2015Angkor Wat is the most famous temple complex in Cambodia, and, is also considered the largest religious temple in the world. It was also the temple I spent only one hour of time to visit.
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The Ravages of Time
By Rem / in Voyages beyond Time / November 29, 2015
The setting sun on Phnom Bakheng, Siem Reap, Cambodia
In the first week of October 2015, after becoming wonderfully married (woohoo!), I finally journeyed to a part of the world that was an influencing factor on my masters' thesis six years ago: the ruined temples and cities of the Khmer Empire. It was certainly more impressive in person than any kind of dramatization that you may have seen in film, and it also spoke volumes of just how little is known about this lost civilization. The few cultural remains of the empire only show statues and bas-reliefs of everyday life -- or otherwise parades of Chinese soldiers -- but I would have wanted to see depications of the colors of their dress or what foods they ate. Modern Khmer cuisine, I will say, is profoundly delicious.
The setting sun on Phnom Bakheng
The guidebook that we used to visit the temples, Focusing on the Angkor Temples, Third Edition, by Michel Petrotchenko was actually not available for purchase in China. It is an excellent guidebook, however, as it had hundreds of images and detailed architectural plans of the temples. I would highly recommend getting a copy; they are available for purchase (US$23) in Cambodia such as in the National Museum in Phnom Penh.
Sketching The Bayon
Going about the ruins I often felt like a humble adventurer or a visitor to a tomb of ancient people, always in awe yet never quite understanding everything I was witnessing and experiencing. In fact, I should revise that statement to say that I understood a tiny amount of what I was seeing -- from a cultural and historical point of view, of course.
A pair of cats hiding away from the rain in Banteay Samre.
The weather was favorable during the time we visited; it's not recommended to travel to Cambodia in the month of October with the rainy season about to end. For the most part we were not rained out on any tour except for a truncated tour of Pre Rup and East Mebon. And that led a certain mesmerizing atmosphere to East Mebon while it was raining. It could be said that all the different temples we visited had their own magic, so I think I will post some images in some forthcoming posts...
The rain in East Mebon, with detail of the trench drain lion spout and moss covered laterite wall.
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Mountains of Mystery, Mountains of Form
By Rem / in Voyages beyond Time / June 3, 2014
(August 3, 2010) Somewhere on Alderson Mountain, Waterton Lakes Park, Canada. We started on the Carthew-Alderson Trial and went up the mountain but we ended up getting lost due to extremely poor visibility and headed back down again.
Mountains. Reclusive, exclusive and elusive. Their rawness and powerful scale have invoked stories and ritual of deities, legendary figures and spirits. For the modern man, mountains are often unconquered territory: the pinnacle achievement of having explored everything else without any (or very little) external aid. Forest, rivers, hills, fields, deserts; these are landscapes that are relatively easier to explore compared to the untamed wilderness of the mountain. Those of us who have traveled extensively, of course, know that this is not entirely true. But the grand vista or the obscured mystery of mountains has been romanticized for hundreds of years in the West, and thousands of years in China. Read More »
