Set within the Angkor Archaeological Park that covers several thousand acres of flat plain in Cambodia is the temple complex of Angkor Wat — the world’s largest religious shrine. A solo traveller describes a memorable excursion

My bus trundled down a highway leading out of Bangkok, already clogged with traffic at an early hour. Four hours later, we arrived at the frontier town of Aranya Prathet and joined a serpentine queue before an immigration booth. Passing under a huge arched gateway guarded by snarling lions and threatening dragons, we crossed into Cambodia. A dry bed of a stream, choked with rubbish, marked the border between these two high-contrast kingdoms of South-east Asia.

Once inside Cambodia looking back across the border to the Thai side, I could see brightly-painted shops bursting with consumer goods, chic cafes, high fashion boutiques, and Chinese-run money-changing booths, doing brisk business. On the Cambodian side, limbless beggars importuned for alms, wrinkled men pushed wooden carts laden with cardboard boxes and rusted pipes, skinny women with taut skins dressed daintily in batik sarongs and turbans, squatted on their haunches vending boiled beans, prickly fruit in bamboo baskets and bits of dried meat and fish pinned to cardboards with clothes clips. Feverish construction activity choked the air with fumes and dust — a dozen casinos, owned by Thai-based Chinese tycoons, were coming up. The kingdom of Cambodia (pop.16 million) is still struggling to emerge from decades of bloody conflict and civil war — the American invasion of the 1970s and the Indo-China war followed by years of brutal rule under the communist Khmer Rouge led by the megalomaniacal Pol Pot and his clique until the early 1980s.

The rickety bus we were herded into after immigration formalities chugged down a rutted road, past tell-tale signs of decades of war that laid waste this tiny country sandwiched between Thailand to the west and Vietnam to the east and north. Ravaged fields stretched into tree-lined horizons, while the eerie blankness was occasionally interrupted by thatch-roofed shacks built of tin and wooden planks, standing on cement stilts. Chickens, cattle and dogs pottered about in the space between the stilts, where old men snoozed in hammocks, while women tended to vats puffing away on log fires.

As night fell, we drove into Cambodia’s second largest city, and a gateway for tourists who still come in massive droves to explore its ancient glories and behold the world’s largest religious structure — the temple complex at Angkor Wat, 12 km to the north. The contrast with the surrounding countryside is stark, surprising and welcome — broad, smooth roads, wide walkways, neatly-pruned flowering trees trailing into crystal clear canals, cheerful parks where lovers canoodle, and row upon row of brightly-lit hotels to suit every budget. “There are more hotels now in Siem Reap than temples in Angkor,” joked our amiable bus conductor.

The area of Siem Reap favoured by budget travelers lies beyond a network of canals, behind a dense mango grove, close to the souvenir market and eateries catering to tourists but far enough to be secluded and quiet. It was difficult to decide on a place to stay — there were so many quaint lodges to choose from. But I finally settled for an air-conditioned double bedroom in a wooden homestay, with a private bonsai garden all to myself, for a princely US$7 per night, the greenback rather than the Cambodian kip, being the preferred currency.

The next morning, I hired a tuk-tuk, a chariot-like contraption, open on either side and attached to a motorbike, and made for the sprawling Angkor Archaeological Park that covers several thousand acres of flat plain. The road snaked its way through dense forest with towering trees completely screening the piercing tropical sun. Parrots tweeted and crickets chirped in impenetrable mangrove forests. We trundled under a series of impressive gateways, each a work of art, guarded by winged Garudas and fork-tongued snakes.

There are literally hundreds of temples within the Angkor Archaeological Park, all built in the Khmer Hindu period (9th-14th centuries). Our first stop was at the most famous of them all — the legendary Angkor Wat (or ‘City Temple’, the word Angkor is derived from the Sanskrit nagara or ‘city’). Built in the 12th century by the Khmer King Suryavarman II, dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, this is the world’s largest shrine. It is Cambodia’s greatest tourist attraction, a national symbol highlighted at the centre of Cambodia’s red-and-white striped flag.

Scholars continue to debate about how Hinduism struck root among the Khmers, the major ethnic community inhabiting present-day Cambodia. Several Hindu kings, some Indian, others Hinduised Cambodians, ruled over most of Cambodia from the early 9th century with Jayavarman founding the Khmer dynasty, until the 14th century, when Buddhism became the state religion.

Subsequently over the centuries, almost all of Cambodia’s Hindus converted to Buddhism, as did many of the country’s Hindu temples. Angkor flourished as the capital of Cambodia till 1432, when it was invaded and sacked by Thais. But at the height of its glory during 1181-1219, Angkor was one of the grandest cities in the world, boasting a population of over one million.

Set in the middle of a moon-shaped lake adorned with lotuses in bloom and lined with weeping willows trailing the water, Angkor Wat stands out like an enormous tiara, crowned with three towering gopurams built over separate shrines. Each shrine is dedicated to Vishnu, the patron deity of King Suryavarman II, the greatest of the Khmer rulers who styled himself with the Sanskrit title of devaraja or ‘god-king’.

The temple is accessed across a stone bridge, at the entrance of which fierce stone lions stand vigilant. The bridge, over a 100-metres long, is lined on either side by an array of stone nagas, awesome seven-headed serpents. A solid wall, more than 2 km in length, surrounds the temple complex, shielding a pillared corridor dotted with minor shrines.

From the exterior, Angkor Wat presents a modest image. But once you enter the complex, labyrinthine tunnels and hidden galleries lead you behind and beyond as you ascend layer upon layer, floor upon floor, temple after temple, until finally, if you still have the energy, breath and your wits about you, you ascend the peak to survey the grandeur of Angkor.

Seen from this vantage point, almost 60 metres above ground level, the entire shrine juts towards the sky, the peak being invisible from its base. The striking complex symbolizes Mount Meru, the mythical home of the Hindu gods, at the same time signifying King Suryavarman’s tenuous claims to quasi-divinity.

From this lofty perspective, the spectacle and opulence of the enterprise is overwhelming. Millions of tonnes of stone was cut and moved by manpower to erect the edifice involving master craftsmen and slave labour. The absence of mortar is noteworthy, and no two blocks of stone are similar. Today, although the grandeur of Angkor Wat is compelling, there is a palpable absence of a spiritual ambience. This largest religious complex of the world is no longer used for religious purposes, having turned into Asia’s most inviting tourist attraction and a lucrative source of much-needed hard currencies.

For visitors from India, the Angkor Archaeological Park spread over 400 sq. km offers an astonishingly familiar cultural context. In the main temple, every corridor — there are hundreds of them snaking in and out — is chiseled with intricate stone masonry. Entire walls and the inner faces of slabs that form the roofs are carved with reliefs from the great Indian epics, Ramayana, and the Mahabharata. The Jataka Tales which narrate stories about the many lives of the Buddha, are pictorially recounted on some stone pillars, these being a later addition after Hinduism had fallen into decline and the reigning dynasty turned Buddhist.

Erotic apsaras in dance poses, devas and asuras in battle, the churning ocean, besotted lovers entwined in embrace, saints and priests meditating or levitating, and images of the 37 heavens and 32 hells of Khmer Hindu mythology are vividly carved as are mundane reliefs of merchants measuring money, peasants bent over paddy fields, and courtesans wooing princes. Of special interest is the craftsmanship of an enormous Ganesha astride a diminutive rat; Garuda pouncing on an army of demons with his grotesque beak; Vishnu reclining on the coils of a hooded serpent; an enraged Shiva dancing the tandava and a detail of Saraswati gliding atop a swan.

Although the stories these friezes depict are Indic, the figurines are distinctly Cambodian with slanted eyes and round noses. South Indian influences are discernible in the towering gopurams encrusted with deities and animals, though in some sections one can also notice a subtle Chinese influence.

Inside eerie dark chambers, where bats flit and pigeons coo, faint slivers of sunlight throw light on giant stone Buddhas, all recent constructions, sheltered by tassled silk parasols, their eyes shut to the world and to the hordes of tourists that crowd around with video cameras and irritating flashlights. Further inside, within the inner recesses of the shrines are headless Buddhas, torsos, and empty Shiva linga bases. For over a century Angkor Wat, like the dozens of temples across the Angkor Archaeological Park, has been relentlessly plundered — by drug barons, gangsters, warlords, dreaded Khmer Rouge peasants, Western curio hunters and village folk out to make a quick buck, its antiquities cruelly hacked and hauled off to museums, mansions and auction-houses in the West. Angkor possesses hardly any of its once fabled treasure of statues.

I spent the next three days riding a tuk-tuk around the Angkor Park, exploring temples scattered across the wide, densely forested plain. I marvelled at the enigmatic three-headed visage of the Avalokiteshwara Boddhistava guarding the entrance to the monumental Bayon temple at Angkor Thom, which reportedly grew out of the ground and rose 20 metres high, with twisted Bodhi trees emerging from hidden crevices in its lips and ears. Inside, a series of more than 200 identical structures, of the same breathtaking proportions, lay scattered about, walled in with crumbling chunks of stone depicting a staggering 11,000 figurines.

A ubiquitous feature at the Angkor Archaeological Park are groups of pesky little children, with coppery skins and angelic eyes, urging tourists to buy local trinkets — bamboo bracelets and wind chimes, copper Ganeshas and terracotta Buddha heads, batik and handwoven silk stoles, puppets crafted out of bamboo shafts, and clay demon masks and books — on the glories of Angkor and the brutal crimes of the Khmer Rouge, who in 1970 killed an estimated 2 million Cambodians. The kids are wretchedly poor — Cambodia is one of Asia’s poorest and least developed countries — but they have an endearing cheerfulness which wins hearts instantly.

Less cheerful are limbless men clustering around, many with their eyes and noses blasted off, victims of millions of landmines strewn across the country by the Americans during the height of the Indo-China war, which still pose deadly danger to inhabitants of the Cambodian countryside. Crouched in the shade of temples, these battered villagers earn their bread singing plaintive songs to the accompaniment of rudime ntary instruments — a zither made of a tree trunk with strings of hide, a drum crafted from a hollowed pumpkin and covered with a sheet of snakeskin, and a violin made of a coconut shell attached to a slender buffalo bone.

I would have tarried awhile in Angkor — there were still dozens of temples to visit, so much more history to soak in — but I reckoned that would take over a month. Temples are not all that Cambodia has to offer. I needed a change of scene. More about that later in my next despatch from this ruined and much-wronged kingdom with a glorious past and cloudy future.

Accommodation:
Tourists visiting Angkor Wat can choose from a wide range of options.
High end: Jaya House River Park (Rs.32,908 per night), Enkosa Wooden Luxury House (Rs.15,700), Anjali by Syphon (Rs.8,517); Mid-range: Mane Colonial Classic (Rs.6,566), The Grand Cyclo Boutique Suite (Rs.4,560), Aniza Ankor Villa (Rs.3,300); Budget: Babel Guesthouse (Rs.2,002), Popular Hotel and Spa (Rs.1,565), Okay Guesthouse (Rs.1,094)