Awesome

(By Susan)

What is it about men with too much wealth and power?  They always seem to have to build a thing that’s very big and very tall.  And make in the image that they imagine for themselves.  Angkor follows in that tradition.  But this time it’s fabulous.

Angkor Wat - the symbol of the place

Yet-to-be-rebuilt blocks in the Angkor Wat temple grounds

The UNESCO site at Angkor is vast.  It’s gobsmacking in its scale.  It’s wondrous in its many forms and detail.  It’s evidence of a powerful and complex city-state.  It’s an edifice to a mighty dynasty.  The home of more than a million people – kings, courtiers, vendors, construction workers, artisans, slaves.  The entire site spans over 400Km² – 40,000 hectares (that’s 98,840(ish) acres in the old money).  I think the word ‘awesome’ is appropriate to use here.

Bas-reliefs at Angkor Wat.  Elephants, and umbrellas.  Wat came first?

Collonades and courtyards at Angkor Wat

The site itself contains a range of temples and their associated palaces, libraries, towers, moats, reservoirs, causeways, promenades, follies… Some were in use before others, and some were in operation contemporaneously.  They are all orientated so that their walls face North, South, East and West.  They are all decorated with bas-reliefs, and sculptures, and design, and landscaping.  They were all designed to impress.  Even now, the scale, bulk, and strength of their construction is more impressive than most more recent constructions.  In many, the faces of Buddha or Vishnu are said to bear an uncanny resemblance to whichever King was in power at the time.  The concept of a God-King is ever-present across the continents.

Bas-reliefs in the columns

One of the older areas

In the couple of days we had, it was impossible to visit them all, but by the end we certainly had a feeling for the grandeur and enormity of it all.

Promenade capacity to escape from the heat

Our tuk tuk driver, Mao, had clearly done this once or twice before, and was able to tell us which would be the best way to approach the task, which to do when we had the most energy, what time we should meet him if we wanted to catch the sunrise, and even what to take us to when we asked if we could “just look at a small one before lunch”!

 

A little one before lunch

Duelling guide books: Lonely Planet & the one that cost $15 - you can ask Dermot & Rory about that one...

The whole area was rediscovered by the French, and a range of nations have assisted in the archeology, recovery, and reconstruction of various temples and palaces.  French, Japanese, and Indian scientific teams, amongst others, have taken a lead in the mammoth task of restoration.  If the scale of construction was huge, the scale of the reconstruction, solving the puzzle of what-goes-where, hauling the enormous blocks into position, was almost as huge.  We couldn’t help thinking that the symmetry and formality of the buildings in their landscape would have pleased the French aesthetic.  Reconstruction was underway in some of the locations, blocks lay scattered in others, and recently-fashioned blocks and sculptures had been placed in others.  I thought of the craftsmanship, masonry and artisan skills that must have been revived and remembered to recreate some of these buildings, walls, and causeways.

Puzzle-pieces waiting for action

A causeway surrounded by artificial lakes (it's dry season) and more blocks

So atmospheric

Angkor Wat is the tourist and publicity face of the whole site, but each temple and palace has its own character and unique design.  Some were 60 and 70 years in construction, gathering sandstone blocks from up to 100 kilometers away.  We wondered how many artists worked on the bas-reliefs and sculptures – did one person get the pencil out and many others fill in the relief work after he’d done the design-work?  We also wondered whether it was these Cambodian people who had invented the umbrella…

Waiting for the sunrise

Lotus before dawn

Nearly there.....

We saw Angkor Wat in all its grandeur (and again at some stupid time of the morning that neither Rory nor I recognised…  mind you, I think Rory’s seen it more recently than I as a bookend for a long-night-out or two). We saw the Bayon – a stunning piece of ancient science-fiction.  It is like a giant maze with its tunnels and corridors and sets of steps and its sculptures and its building blocks that are covered sporadically with lichen. And everywhere, that Face.  It’s behind you, beside you, in front of you, at the end of the terrace, on the parapet, in the wall, as you turn the corner.  It’s there.  It’s from Dr Who.  I’m glad I didn’t think of the Stone Angels while I was there or I wouldn’t have slept for nights.  It is a marvellous thing.  I think I could have spent an entire morning there.  Just in that one temple.

Entrance to Angkor Thom - across the bridge to the gate

The faces

The face

How many faces?

Rory had looked forward to the Terrace of the Elephants at Angkor Thom.  Just as we crossed to where it is, we saw a couple taking an elephant-ride past it.  It stopped us in our tracks a little.  He was envious.  We could tell.  He said earlier that the elephant had been following him during this trip.  He bought a wall-hanging with an image of Ganesha in our first few days in Bangkok.  In his next life he’s coming back as an elephant.  “Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom.”  That works for Rory.

Along the Terrace of the Elephants - bas-relief....

minor sculptures.....

.....  and the real thing

We didn’t see Angelina, but we did see the temple that featured in her movie “Tomb Raider”.  We also haven’t seen the movie, but the temple was seriously incredible.  At Ta Prohm, nature had begun to conquer what man had built.  The walls had become heaped blocks tied together with wandering Strangler Fig roots – Heaven only knows how the various archaeological teams put any of it back together.  But they have.  Again, steps and corridors and bas-reliefs and shrines and colonnades.  Incredible work.  I wonder if they do jig-saws for relaxation….?

Nature makes its presence felt

What's holding up what?

 

Reconstruction works

Reconstruction works

In the end, perhaps the God-Kings have achieved the immortality they were so in search of....  certainly we're still talking about them, and are still amazed at the structures they made happen and the feats that they and their artisans & designers achieved.

Enlightenment at the Break of Day

(By Dermot)

For our last day in Cambodia, I suggest we head to Angkor Wat for sunrise. We had visited several temples the day before, including Angkor Wat. Their scale is incredible. Built in the 12^th century, by over 300,000 workers and, apparently, 600 elephants.  The temples of Angkor Wat and surrounding buildings housed the nobility and the enlightened monks. Wooden and straw huts had been constructed in the surrounding region. Ankgor was home to over 1 million people. (Part of a pending blog). Around Ankgor Wat is the even larger, Angkor Thom… the former capital of the Khmer.

Dancing detail from the walls of Angkor Wat

Susan and Rory love sunrise, or at least I believe they will once they see it. Convinced it is the thing to do I book Mao, our reliable and English-speaking tuk tuk driver, to pick us up at 5:15am.

Armed with a picnic breakfast, I and and my two bleary-eyed companions set off in the dark for Angkor Wat. It is certainly quieter on the roads, although other tuk tuks and a few mini-vans seem to be heading in the same direction.

Mao drops us at the same spot as yesterday, adjacent to the lake, and we follow the small crowd across the causeway towards the outer temple buildings. We reach the attendants and show them our tickets. Amazingly, spruikers are out and about, selling souvenirs – and torches. Across the road a small van dispenses coffee. I explain that coffee is not necessary. A pilgrimage site since the 12^th century, Angkor Wat once again is a pilgrimage sight but now for the tourists. I really do hope the tourists I’m with get some enlightenment in the great Buddhist temple.

A skerrick of early light

As we move along the causeway the silhouettes of the ‘towers’ of the outer temple, built as a shrine to Vishnu, slowly emerge from the darkness, perhaps as they did from the jungle for the French explorers in the 1920s. The French claim they discovered Angkor Wat, along with the many other temples and city buildings in the region, including the former capital Ankgor Thom. They were never lost, however – Angkor Wat has been continuously inhabited as a temple since construction.  

We move through the narrow passages of the outer temple. The murals dance in the eerie light of dim torches and smart-phone lights. Battles scenes, the victors and the vanquished now both long dead…

Disgorged from the first building we move onto the next causeway which links to the second inner temple. We head towards the reflection ponds where the crowd has started to assemble. The shadowy towers just discernable in the darkness. It reminds me of the ANZAC dawn service, with the exception that it’s closer to 24°C than 0°C.

Selecting the best vantage points

My companions peer into the reflection pool, perhaps it is the equivalent of the ‘room of mirrors’ and, frankly, I think they both need to take a good long hard look at themselves (albeit it through bleary eyes) if they are to get to the next level towards Nirvana.

With my best ‘Zen’ outlook I present myself as breakfast to the local insect fauna. A shadowy figure sidles up to me and in a low voice asks, “You like to buy guide book, one dollar”……. I decline the offer, and mention the bargain basement price to Rory, the acquirer of a similar guidebook the day before at a considerably inflated price, no matter how many ‘interesting facts’ he has managed to glean from it.

Before the sun

Rory and I discover that not only has Susan put on bug spray but that she also has some in her pack. This must be accidental as there is little chance in the darkness this morning she had the clarity of mind to pack it. I’m surprised, given all the temples she has visited, at her lack of enlightenment. I explain, for her selfishness, it is highly likely that her next return to this earth will be as a bug and she will be dining on bug repellant. I don’t quite catch the Buddhist blessing that Susan mutters, I just glean the last word is “off”.

The expectant crowd

First light and the temple towers lighten. Now the crowd waits for the sun to climb over the towers and bathe the eastern side of Vishnu’s temple. The reflections in the pool are broken by lotus flowers and sleepy-headed photographers.

Lotus flowers, and the reflections of the Temple in the early morning light

Local vendor Ana offers me coffee and her life story. I view blurry photos on her phone of her two young kids. She is surprised I only have one son. I explain he is very expensive to feed and that this is the first time he’s seen sunrise. Rory rolls his eyes.

Dermot captivated by Ana's conversation.
Rory coming to terms with anybody at all having a conversation

At the stalls to the left of the pool a woman, in what seems like a pointless exercise, sweeps dirt while a lazy dog watches on. I wonder if the dog is the enlightened one. He is unperturbed by the spectacle. The sun comes up every morning, as does he… Maybe his head is ‘empty’ and he is well on his way to Nirvana….

In another selfless act I wander over to Ana’s stall. She beams and greets me with the lotus sign. I’m really getting the hang of this….  I buy coffees in the hope it will open the souls and minds of my companions and for the first time this morning they seem genuinely pleased to see me. I point out to Rory there is a ‘Google maps’ man. I go over and chat to him. He has a dodecahedron strapped to his head, containing a series of camera lenses. With a simple click of the button he takes multidirectional pictures. Amazing, I could have stayed home and had a virtual tour of Angkor Wat. I keep this info to myself, as my companions are still not wholly conversant with the sunrise bit of the day.

The Google Maps guy

Excitement builds in the crowd as the sun slowly starts creeping up the walls of the temples.  Just as it is about to break the top of the towers a cloud smothers it. As it does, in unison an exasperated “awww” bursts from the crowd. Frankly, the early morning start was worth it just for that sound of disappointment alone. I figure the Buddha would have something wise to say about it all. I suggest to Rory it could inspire me with my “Zen garden” iPhone app. He explains to his mother my “Zen garden looks like it has been created by the scratchings of a ‘retarded cat’”. Just because he’s reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” does not disguise the fact that he is a bloody long way away from Nirvana!

As the sun rose over the temple.  And seconds before the clouds came in.

We start to head back to our tuk tuk to move on to Ankgor Thom. Susan drapes her Cambodian shawl over her shoulders. I make the observation to Rory, that in the early morning light, as she slowly picks her way across the uneven ground of the causeway, perhaps the shawl makes her appear like a washerwoman. Insensitively, he laughs but we both agree it is probably fair enough as she does do a lot of the washing. For our observations Susan provides another blessing.

Farewell Cambodia….

Imagine a country where a quarter of the population disappears in less than 5 years. Or Phnom Penh, former ‘pearl of the orient’ left a ghost town as Pol Pot emptied the city in a matter of days.

Cambodia - a legacy

View to the 'playground' through the wire at Tuol Sloeng Prison - a converted school

So, today, looking out from the plane over the rice paddies and dirt roads that define Cambodia, I think about the Cambodian people, the poverty endured by so many, and the wealth enjoyed by so few. The smiling kids. Children from the floating village on Tonle Sap drinking the polluted waters. The floating orphanage… The villagers. The miners doing backbreaking labour for a handful of gems. Discussions of government corruption….

The floating orphanage

A child fishes on Tonle Sap Lake

Children and their mother finish the day's fishing

I think about the great resilience of the Cambodians. Their attempts to understand how and why their country slipped into such horror. How the West supported such a regime…

The uniformed Grades 3 & 4 at the village school

A young mango vendor

We’ve seen so little and yet learnt so much. I’ve appreciated the time here as a family and the discussions we’ve had along the way. We all appreciate the efforts of Paula Piilonen for facilitating it all. She’s not bad for a Canadian.

Thora and a village family

I leave the last words of my blog to Tex, Don and Charlie (Postcard from Elvis)…

“…….Got a message from Buddha. He left it on my machine. It said something about ‘going so fast but you know it’s so slow, if you know what I mean (or something like that)’.

 …He said “maybe it’s a little bit stupid, and sometimes I forget but the closer I come to the heart of the matter, the farther away I get…..”

So it is for me with Cambodia….

A vibrant street in Siem Reip

Gem Mining

This morning we head off for Phum Throm gem field. Just out of Ban Lung we take a dirt road passed a rubber plantation. The housing here looks terrible, not much evidence of ‘trickle down’ economics from the large ornate building of the rubber company’s offices. Mostly, houses are a mixture of wood and tarpaulins or sheets. We drop Susan and Rory at the end of the track, they are heading off for an elephant ride into the forest and to visit some waterfalls. Mr Sin, driving, Votha, our gem guide, Paula and I, head back to the highway on the search for zircon miners.

Paula sealing the deal

Entrance to the mine - no way was I getting down there!

At the gem field known as Phum Throm we stop by the roadside and wander into a rubber plantation. Small mine shafts pock the landscape. They’re round (like the Chinese shafts on the Victorian goldfields), apparently the evil spirits cannot hide in the corners. The shaft is less than 2½ feet diameter, obviously not dug for robust miners like me or Paula and they are about 14 metres deep. Rich sandy red earth surrounds each hole. Weathered basalt, deep tropical weathering. We wander on and find evidence of more recent diggings but there are no miners present. Votha suggests we head on a couple of kilometers to the small village of Bokeo Clas where the miners might be enjoying lunch.

 

Another little mine

A morning's work

Bokeo Clas looks like most other small towns, a dozen or so ‘shops’, which are mostly cafés, and funny little mixed businesses attached to houses. Votha tracks down a  miner. We sit down in a very small café (think shack with tarpaulin). We say no to coffee, but Paula asks about coke. The miner returns with two small cans of coke. He shows us a handful of zircon crystals, mainly broken fragments, some with nice well-defined faces. Suddenly, we are surrounded by about 12 villagers, all bearing crystals, some with one or two, some with 5 or 6. They tend to produce them one or two at a time. The trick for us is not to mix up the batches, although they all seem to know their own stones.

 

Coke, and tense negotiations

We use Paula’s penlight torch to check the quality. Most have inclusions or have patchy colours. Paula is interested in the inclusions for her research. Most are of lower quality grade but with heat treatment they may improve. The stones turn from dark reddish brown to transparent blue when heated to about 900C and this is the fate of most of them.

I ask Votha for some guidance.  As always, he suggests asking them to name their price. The first miner we met asks US$30 for about 8 or 9 crystals, one is very good, for which he asks $120. Paula and I laugh, perhaps not the best thing to do.  Votha previously told me “name your price” back and bargain from there. If the miner sticks to his price then you can walk away but if he keeps moving closer you should allow him last price. I am aware of not setting a benchmark under the other stones on the table. We feel $5 is generous, so I offer $4. Meanwhile, more villagers appear thrusting one or two stones in our direction. Paula and I banter about getting out alive. There are miners, villagers, all around us. The miner, of course, rejects my offer and sticks at $30. I shake my head and tell Votha I’ll come back to him but not at $30. Paula asks Votha to tell him they are not of high quality, I wonder if this is the best message here now but wtf, we don’t want fleecing.

Hauling up one of 30 buckets in the morning

Votha reminds me it keeps everyone happy to buy from many. I wonder looking around, how many is ‘many’? The next lady puts five or so stones down and asks US$15, again outrageous! As I am keen to get some, I offer her $3, she laughs and so, taking Votha’s advice to go slowly, I chat with Paula about our chances of getting out alive if we buy nothing. Paula has material from here so is not so much in the market. Eventually, I offer $5 and the woman agrees. I ask her name and she say “Mah, Mah Mah” everyone laughs as apparently it means “fat”, and for a Cambodian she is portly. Now I have some, I can relax a bit more. A young girl shows me a large zircon crystal, not perfect but a good shape. She looks about 15. Again, she starts at $15. We laugh. I am very aware we are the centre of attention. Votha passes on our comments about price hikes. The field at Phum Throm has virtually closed so prices are rising. I offer $5. She asks $10 and we close at $8. And so it goes with a few other villagers. Every so often another person arrives with some crystals. The first miners at $30, I ask again, he takes his fragments off the table. I suspect he realises he has over-played.

We decide we have enough. By way of protest, the miner we didn’t buy from charged us a dollar each for our cokes (which I didn’t want in the first place!). We laugh a nervous laugh. It is quite exhausting doing this sort of barter. On the upside, I have acquired a rough zircon that is well provenanced.

As we are leaving, a ‘funny little man’ offers Paula a crappy lump of tektite (glass formed by a very large meteorite impact), we agree it looks like a ‘turd’ and his asking price of $10 is way out. Maybe as an act of charity, Paula offers $2. It was worth it for the reaction she got, the old ‘if looks could kill’ (given his mutterings, understanding Khmer would have been invaluable here). By way of comparison, I bought 5 very fine tektites for $10 the previous day.

Mr Sin drives us to a nearby cafe for lunch. Votha and Mr Sin go elsewhere for lunch.

After lunch we go to visit the mine sites. In a rubber plantation there are excavations, and miners. We have to walk across a stick to cross a ditch. Easy for Votha, I worry the stick will give way or I’ll loose my balance. I make it, not with any real encouragement from Paula!  We walk over to a miner winding a windlass, a scene reminiscent of the goldfields in the 1850s. He is very young and very lean and has a very sweaty back. Cambodians don’t seem to sweat. I, stupidly, suggest Paula could rub him down, and she warms to the idea. But we move on to talk to him instead.  He shows us two crystal fragments, neither are particularly gemmy but they are not crazed. Lower grade fodder for heat treatment. He tells us that he has raised about 30 large buckets of dirt, up 12 metres, for these two. Votha suggest $2 for the stones, which is considerably more than they will get from the gem dealers. We settle on $3. I still feel guilty as I have seen him toil, winding the bucket up and constantly sending it back to his mate below. Again, like the Victorian goldfields, one hole could be very rich, the adjacent one could have nothing. Mining here is extremely dangerous work. The shafts are in fine powdery soil.  Many miners die each year from cave-ins.

Another shaft

We visit another small group of miners and buy a few stones. All the miners look very young. One says he is 19, I wonder if I could get Rory work. The miners tell us that there is a new Phum Throm and we drive a few kilometers to another rubber plantation, which is across the road from our first foray of the day. There, we again seen a small mining scene. A miner tells us there are two foreigners down a hole. At first we think he is inviting us to go down the hole.  There ain’t enough butter in Cambodia to get me down there! Anywho, down there were two young South Africans, one a recent geology graduate. Votha and Paula strongly chastise them about the risk. The blonde girly said “well we’re ok”. I think, “where have I heard that before, Rory?!”

Pock-marked Landscape

As we head back to Ban Lung, Votha again assures us we did ok. Also, it is the only opportunity to get material from the source and know where it is from. Paula’s research is looking at the source of the zircons and what they reveal about the upper mantle-lower crust of the Earth. The basaltic lavas that bring them to the surface are now deeply weathered.  They are very like zircons we find in Victoria. Perhaps we should heat treat some Victorian zircons. Here, the best go for $150+ a carat.

In town we visit two gem dealers rather than the stalls in the market.  Votha tells us the market shops in town are full of fakes and our experience tells us the same. The first dealer has some very nice stones. We look at a lot but agree not to buy until we see the second dealer. He is a surly bloke that owns a crucible where he heat treats raw zircons to turn them blue. He shows us a lot of rough, including offering a 1kg bag for $3,000.  Good value if you have a tame cutter! It is about 3.30pm and we are tired and hot and decide to put it off until the morning.  We decide we like the first dealer better. We do get a couple of hundred grams of ‘rough’ each from a different field from Mr Surly but there is a mix-up in the deal and we pay an extra $6 ($3 each). Votha apologises for the mix-up but in the scheme of things it really doesn’t matter.

Mines in the rubber plantation

We get back to “Tree Tops” feeling quite knackered. Susan and Rory are waiting to go for a swim in the volcanic crater-lake near by. As we had sent Mr Sin off, they head off on the back of motorbikes (I ignore the fine print on the travel insurance and hope if they do have an accident they just get left by the side of a road and the local people claim it’s heat stroke!) In Queensland they’d probably get arrested for associating with bikies.

..... and there's more

I have a beer and contemplate my role in the capitalist chain of gemstone mining..... I wonder if the miners can contemplate that their efforts will be preserved in museums in Canada and Australia or that Paula will be able to tell them their crystal is 700,000 years old.....give or take a week or two...... And why should that be important to them?