June 5-6, 2004

Our first day in Angkor! I must admit that I had a moment where I was so astounded by the magnificence that is Angkor that I almost imploded. Reflected back on the artist who from emerging from the caves at Lascoux said 'we have accomplished nothing', I had to agree. To think all of this done without our modern technology. No computers, no cranes, just manpower (and elephant power) constructed something so complex and grand to make even modern architects feel small in their own accomplishments. We began our tour at the gates of Angkor Thom where the story of the churning of the milk of the sea is captured by the gates of the bridge. On each side, large stone figures (on one side gods on the other demons) immortally tugged on the length of the Naga (the mythical seven headed serpent). In the story, the great event resulted in the creation of the world. My moment of serenity was punctured by a horde of Japanese tourists who were very bouncy (for lack of a better word). Running in front of us, behind us, around us, getting in our pictures. Not much you could do really, so I trudged on.

Before we made it to Wat Bayon, we paused on the side of the road to watch some monkeys playing. These apparently are the signature Bayon monkeys. The young held firmly to their mothers as tourists tossed them sugar cane. The disruption of man and nature seemed ever present. Leaving the creatures in peace, we finally stopped to see Wat Bayon. Legend says that the four faced structures are a composite of King Jayavarman and Buddha representing the omnipresence of the king and his close self-proclamation of being a diety. Crawling through crumbling towers and walking through a monument graveyard, you couldn't help but think of it all in terms of those struggles so eloquently and carefully explored through literature. Man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. Bayon could be perceived as the great man vs. himself struggle- the king trying to immortalize himself, fighting with everything that would lend to the finite nature of life.

These struggles are not contained within the temples themselves. Outside the temple entrances, adults and children alike try to sell postcards, scarves, wraps, and various other things. They descend upon tourists like vultures, four or five children saying 'you buy my postcards, my books, my scarf'. It does become grating after some time. Sitting at a table and having a coke, we could not escape this onslaught. A young boy of about 4 or so was trying to sell me a wooden bell. He spoke enough English to tell me what it was and how much it cost. I didn't need a bell. He sat down beside me and played with his bells and was persistent in selling this. I broke down and bought the bell, mostly because he was so precious and he had his shoes on the wrong feet.

The phenomenon of the child presence at Angkor did not end here. As we walked through other temples and the Elephant Terrace, many amateur child guides would appear from the temples to offer tours. You couldn't be angry, they were just trying to make a living. Be warned, make a decision on whether you want this service and then negotiate a price, otherwise it can get hairy at the end. There are so many guides and salesman, all vying for a few dollars from the same people. As the temples showed signs of invasions and battles, the man vs. man struggle had transcended past and now appeared in the present in the form of small children.

After lunch, more temples- Thomamonson, Ta Keo, and Ta Promh. Ta Promh was probably my favorite of them all, epitomizing the great man vs. nature struggle. Ta Promh has been almost consumed by the jungle. Great trees have grown over the entrances, roots have strangled the towers, the temple crumbles beneath the force and lies silently forgotten as ruins of something that was once so great. The symbolic beauty in this was too much. What man had built nature has slowly defeated and will ultimately destroy. Even with conservation projects, in the end, only nature can conquer the destructive man, if we don't completely destroy nature first. This eternal struggle between man and his environment is captured beautifully here in the temple Ta Promh.

Sunset was a low key affair. No dramatic disappearance of the sun, but simply a gentle dissolve behind clouds and fields. The long trek up the mountain and then up the temple was worth it anyway. It was the perfect ending to an exhausting day.

I have to admit that I was at least a little disappointed by the sunrise at Angkor. The brilliance and splendor promised was unrealized. However, nothing compares to the serenity of being able to explore Angkor in the early morning. Thousands of apsaras, all different, are hidden throughout the complex. Angkor Wat itself has an interesting story. Built by a king, the temple was supposed to be a recreation of the world. I spent quite some time following the bas-reliefs around Angkor, each section telling a different Indic legend, from the Ramayana to the Churning of the Milk of the Sea. Such intricate work.

The rest of the day was a montage of more temples than I could possibly recount. Around the Angkor area there are lots of banners reading 'tourism creates job opportunities' or 'tourism helps poverty alleviation.' I couldn't help but laugh. Even the many people now employed for work at Angkor are making so little. This was so evident when at one temple, a policeman tried to sell Chrys his badge, a look of desperation in his eyes. In another temple, the guard told us he lived there and showed us his hammock outside the temple walls. Is this helping Cambodia? This was further compounded by the fact that the entry fees to Angkor do not go to the Cambodians. Instead, Sokimex a Vietnamese oil company leased the rights to control the entrance. So the $20 one day pass or $40 three day pass fee goes right into the pocket of the petrol company, not into the mouths of the Cambodians. I'm not sure how tourism then is so great for Cambodia's people.

After a long day of temple appreciation, we made one final stop on our way to our guesthouse. Wat Thmey, mostly overlooked, but important nonetheless. During the Khmer Rouge, Apsara dancers, musicians, artists, and Buddhist monks were systematically murdered, many of them from the Siem Reap/Angkor area. Wat Thmey is a Buddhist monastery of sorts. Monks there work on the HIV project which seeks to teach people to be more aware of the AIDS threat and to be more compassionate to those with HIV and AIDS, a very worthy cause. As a side note to this major undertaking, there is a small stupa holding the bones of hundreds of victims of the Khmer Rouge found in a mass grave near the monastery. Another reminder, and the struggle of man vs. man, or perhaps more appropriately man vs. man's inhumanity to man.

In all, the temples of Angkor and the people within the area, struggling to eke out a living, play out the conflicts so often explored through literature. Ta Promh, Sras Srang, Angkor Wat all of them show the signs of life and death captured in bas-reliefs, making us more attuned to all of those struggles that make the human experience so unique. Here, in Angkor, I found conflict and struggle, and for some reason, the persistence of that through time and place makes everything you experience a bit more bearable.