Exploring the Angkor Wat temple in Siemp Reap, Cambodia

November 1, 2018 · 0 Comments

Written By KIRA WRONSKA DORWARD

Over the past few weeks, Citizen freelance writer, Kira Wronska Dorward reported from Vietnam, as she discovered its new vitality and beauty. This is her third log.

Entering “the Kingdom of Cambodia” sounds ominous, but Siem Reap’s international airport is rather small and deserted in what is currently the off-season.

Outside the air-conditioned airport doors, the tropical heat settles densely over travellers and would-be voyeurs of what The Lonely Planet deems “one of the most inspired monuments ever conceived by man.” This refers of course to the enormous temple complexes of Angkor, a UNESCO World Heritage site built in the twelfth century by the Khmer Empire that once dominated the region.

Constructed as a representation of Mt. Meru, a sort of Mount Olympus of the Hindu faith, the numerous temples at Angkor are a literal heaven on earth. Like the pharaohs of Egypt, the Cambodian ‘god-kings’ sought to outdo their ancestors both in splendour and reverence. The ultimate result was Angkor Wat, the largest religious building in the world.

I rise at a quarter to five in the morning. It is dark, but already humid and moist from a thunderstorm the night before. My tuk-tuk driver is waiting to take me to the five kilometres to the temple through the dark streets of Siem Reap, where right now only tourists and wild dogs are out and about. Dropped off at the edge of the temple complex, I curse my lack of either guide or flashlight and blindly follow behind a Spanish couple in the complete darkness. The moat leading to the temple has been traversed with some kind of strange material that moves under your feet and is not entirely stable. The steps of crumbling archways and halls, where small shrines to Hindu gods in alcoves are the only things illuminated, are difficult to navigate in the almost complete darkness, and their guide grabs onto my arm and leads me over treacherous gaps in the stones, combining his Spanish with the few words he seems to know in English.

There is a strange feeling of something difficult to put into words; a reverence that goes beyond mere religion, a sensation of being taken out of time in some way. I reach the edge of the water that separates the temple proper from the surrounding entry halls and auxiliary buildings and jockey for position with everyone else waiting for the sun to rise behind the central tower. It is a peculiarity of this particular structure that it is oriented towards the West, which symbolically in the Hindu religion is the direction associated with death. Theories among scholars have abounded about this, but it seems generally accepted now that this is a feature of Angkor Wat serving as both a temple and as a mausoleum to Emperor Suryavarum II, who constructed it. The sunrise behind Angkor Wat is the only reason I would agree to get up before nine on a holiday, and it is a sight to behold as darkness turns to light and illuminates the extravagant towers reaching up to God, a true testament to human spirituality.

Although Angkor Wat is the best known and preserved of the temple complexes, it is only one of what is really a small ancient city that in the modern day not only symbolizes religious faith, but the heart and soul of a new Cambodia emerging from decades of strife and civil war. A source of fierce national pride to Cambodians, it is now the national symbol of a nation that has been born again and is taking its place again in the world.

Most famously, Angelina Jolie drew attention to the small country after filming part of 2001’s Tomb Raider in Ta Prohm, its most famous feature being the enormous jungle trees that have grown in and around the temple’s structure itself, combining nature and man. During and after filming, Jolie became enamoured with the small country and its people, becoming a UN Ambassador to, dual citizen of, and even adopting her first child from the country. She drew attention to the plight of the small struggling nation, whose history is often overshadowed by its neighbours. Drawn into international and internal conflict by its past as part of former Indo-China and its proximity to war in both Vietnam and China, Cambodia has endured decades of devastating and bloody conflict that is often unknown to Westerners. Jolie’s now-grown adopted son, Maddox, released his first film, which was written and produced by Jolie, in 2017 called First They Killed My Father. It is an adaption of a memoir written by a survivor of the Khmer Rouge movement that followed the Vietnam War. In the film, crippling civil war and collectivization under Pol Pot, short for political potential, is depicted as a family of nine, part of the old bureaucracy, is persecuted and forced to endure life in work camps and as child soldiers.

Driving around the back roads of Siem Riep in my tuk-tuk over a few days visiting the ruins, it is clear that Cambodia, even in this tourist town filled with luxury hotels, has a long way to go before emerging as a strong and independent nation in its own right. Around corners out of sight of tourists is evidence of the third world in garbage mounds and beggars. Cambodians do not even use their own currency, so inflated transactions can only reasonably be made in US dollars.

I am told that the many of the workers in the hotel are illiterate, and that the elite prefer to send their children to school out of the country. As I leave, I have the feeling I will be returning to Cambodia, as I don’t feel two weeks would be sufficient to adequately explore the ruins, but I feel relief to be leaving for a developed country. In comparison to Cambodia, Vietnam is lightning years ahead in terms of modernization and political and economic stability. Having spent so much of the last century in the background of the global mind, I can only hope that others like Jolie and her son will continue to draw attention to a country so deserving of international recognition.