History: Beautiful and Brutal (Part 1)

My alarm went off at 4:00am.  I quickly silenced it, trying not to disturb the other 19 people sleeping in bunk beds around the hostel room.  I slid off the top bunk and tried to get ready as quietly as possible, grimacing at the noise of zippers and trying to keep the flashlight low as I grabbed my things for the day’s excursion.  I double checked the locks on my bags before I left, and scooted them far underneath the bed.  My eyes had adjusted to the dark as I made my barefooted silent decent to the first floor.  No shoes were allowed indoors, as is common throughout Asia.  I scanned the shoe rack until I spotted the familiar contours of my sandals, scooted one shelf down and several spots over.

I was ready 10 minutes before our scheduled pick-up time and 20 minutes before we actually left.  A few other people joined me as we waited for the adventure at Cambodia’s largest tourist attraction, Angkor Wat.  A tuk-tuk finally came by and we all piled in.  It seemed a bit crowded for a full day’s use, but it dropped us off at a larger gathering point.  We picked our way into a van with about 15 people from hostels around the city.  Group tours are always cheaper and many companies work closely with the budget accommodation options to maximize their numbers.  

After purchasing our passes, we drove over to a grassy hill.  People were lined up hawking snacks, souvenirs, and water.  It was 5:30am.  There were already hundreds of people sitting around the edges of the moat, waiting for sunrise.  

“Look, it’s the morning star!”  A German gal next to me, another solo traveler, pointed to a brilliant beacon in the eastern sky, one that served as an ancient hope that a greater light was soon coming.  Back home, I am often awake by that time in the morning, but never outside except to race to my frosty car and focus on wherever I’m going.  It was a beautiful sight to sit there and watch sky.  

The colors began to change as the morning brightened.  The sky transformed to a lighter shade, and then again.  Pink, yellow, and orange colors played on the clouds hanging over the famous Angkor Wat towers silhouetted against the sunrise.  It seemed slow, and then it was day.  Our tour guide gathered us to cross the bridge and enter the temple grounds.  

We walked on plastic interlocking tiles that had been constructed to preserve the original stone bridge entrance.  The temple is built from sandstone that was transported 25 miles, joined without mortar, and polished smooth.   Intricate details are carved into every doorway, frame and ledge.  Bas-relief carvings narrated from the walls, depicting scenes of Hindu legends, Gods, and daily life.  Patterns and designs covered hallways and pillars, beckoning the eye deep into its intriguing path.  Down one corridor sat a Buddhist priest who would offer a blessing for a small donation.  Buddhist statues dressed orange and yellow sashes were mostly gathered in that area. 

History is fascinating.  I think of all the kingdoms and empires that had their time of conquest and influence.  Mongolia, Peru, Rome.  The Khmer Empire from current-day Cambodia at one time ruled most of SE Asia and was an economic and military powerhouse. Angkor was the capital.  At the apex of its rule, the city was the largest in the world, and had more than a million people and spread out over the size of Los Angles.  It was the center of political decisions and spiritual worship. 

Angkor Wat (“City Temple”) was built in the 12th century as a Hindu temple to the god Vishnu.  By the end of the century, it had become a center for Buddhist worship, reflecting the changing religion for the nation.  The grounds stretch for more than 400 acres with hundreds of temples scattered over the UNESCO World Heritage site.  Angkor Wat is the largest and best known, with the image appearing on Cambodia’s flag and many souvenirs.  

“This is so extra!”  Our English-speaking tour gathered people most from the U.S. and Europe.  I laughed at the slang description of the nearly 1,000-year-old temple, which admittedly could seem over the top to modern architectural sensibilities.  The group wandered around the pillars and basins, admiring the incredible design.  Mysterious corridors, dry basins, dark rooms, and grounds dotted with buildings that had at one time been libraries, royal deliberation room, and areas for various worship rituals ignited the imagination of what the temple must have looked like at its height of use, brightly painted, swarms of people in colorful clothing, everything conveying importance and permanence.  But nothing is permanent.   

Even though the group was randomly assembled, the tour guide insisted on taking several group pictures.  He enjoyed playing with the settings to make it appear we were in two places at once, or using the panorama option to get a wider view.  I think he knew how to work our phone cameras better than we did.  There were enough iPhones around to air-drop the pictures to each other easily, so everyone got the pictures.

It was close to 9:00 am and we had seen the major areas of Angkor Wat.  Our tour guide gathered us up.  “We need to move on now.  The Chinese tour buses will be arriving soon and after that, it’s too loud, too crowded, and too much!”  Chinese tourism is experiencing a boom in SE Asia and is the number one sending country. More than 2 million visited Cambodia last year, up more than 70% from the year before.  The infrastructure and operations companies haven’t kept pace with the increase, so the money often stays with Chinese owned tour companies, hotels, support services.  

As we walked back to the bus to visit more temples in the area, I noticed all the statutes were missing their heads.   My tour guide looked crestfallen when I asked about it.  “They survived for 1,000 years, only to be lopped off by looters in the chaos of the 1980s.”  Artifacts are still being sold on the black market, although restoration efforts are underway to replicate the missing parts.  Occasionally, you’ll see a bullet hole in a wall, a grim reminder of battles that took place on the grounds between the Khmer Rogue and the Vietnamese in 1970s.  Fortunately, most of the structures remained unscathed.  It wasn’t the first time Angkor Wat had been a casualty of war, having been sacked by a rival kingdom in 1431.  

History doesn’t stand still.  History is a built on a series of daily task, but marked by monuments of victories and defeat.  Kingdoms and nations have always been in a constant state of change, externally or internally.  Some leaders will build.  Others will destroy.  Angkor Wat represented the heights of Cambodia’s power and prestige, with the space and resources to create beauty, art, inspiration.  The other end of the spectrum was the genocide memorials.  I would visit those next.