How do you describe a place that doesn’t want to be captured? How to put into words an experience that only revealed itself in the fullness of the moment? Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples have escaped my grasp since the moment I stepped into them, and certainly in the swiftly fleeting moments since I walked away, looking over my shoulder. I’m left with an overriding sense of awe, a memory of salty sweat and a continuing lack of words. As we walked around the temples – no, not around, that’s not right – through and over and in the temples – I was reduced to a solitary word, only: amazing.
I know that English has more words than German, but I still think we’re lacking. The subtleties are lost on us; primitive linguists only, we’re forced to say that we love both our spouses and sashimi, when in actuality we need another word or two to accurately decipher the myriad levels of attachment and pleasure that we feel. I’m as guilty as anyone in overusing a tired word that overstates my true feelings, and in travel it is easy to deem something extraordinary or unbelievable or incredible or, well… amazing. Those temples, though, hidden in the jungle that daily struggles to consume them, the last remnants of a once glorious society – I’m not sure that amazing is a strong enough word to label them.
The first thing to understand is that Angkor Wat (or Vat, as they list it in situ) is not the only temple complex hiding in the jungle outside Siam Riep and isn’t necessarily the most impressive (though it is the most instantly recognizable). Angkor Thom, just down the road, hides many surprises within its boundaries; we covered only part of them, but spent a full day doing it. And Ta Prom, known to most Western men (and our exuberant Cambodian tour guide, a bizarre mix of Austin Powers and Jack Sparrow) as the Angelina Jolie temple was a treasure trove of moss colored stones, giant tree trunks and walls barely standing. We’d booked a private guide and driver for our time and had consequently not researched what we would see, a decision that might have worked in our favor. With no pre-conceived notions of good/better/best we were open to everything, and all of it seemed magnificent.
My history of the area is shaky, but I do understand that the temples were built, in large part, by a particularly enlightened Cambodian King and his Queen as the spiritual center of a flourishing and magnificent country at a time when Europe was struggling to climb out of medieval serfdom and China had not yet risen to the heights of the Ming Dynasty. Hidden away in a sweltering jungle, I’m still not clear how many other powers of the time knew the riches that were there, but it must have been quite a secret; the walls of the temples were covered in gold leaf and the towers crowned with rubies the size of a man. Yes, the size of a man. The inner and most holy shrines housed both the images of Buddha and other gods and hundreds of diamonds, securely tucked into niches in the walls, ceilings and floor. Lest the doubtful Westerner question the size of these gems, the holes are still there, and I didn’t have a problem getting my fist in quite a few of them. When Indiana Jones movies or adventure novels talk about “riches beyond the imagination” they’re riffing on Cambodia of long ago.
In fact, the whole area has the feeling of a film set, or of Disneyland – we’d not been there long before we understood that most (if not all)Western ideas of hidden treasure, exotic temples and legends that promise untold riches at the end of perilous journeys are all based on Angkor Wat and its companions. It felt quite unreal to be walking all over these ancient ruins, stepping through doorways and monkey climbing to the top of the central temples. Signs in three languages announced the instability of certain sections, windows propped up, improbably, with wood struts and twine. This was no distant experience; I half expected to either be yelled at or laughed at for believing that this was the real thing and not a set constructed for tourists. The sun beat down, my clothes grew progressively more damp and I was glad of the light scarf covering my neck and shoulders. Monks in sunset orange and sandals moved through the tourists impassively, incense rose around the Buddhas and our guide insisted that we climb on everything and pose for photos that he deemed “so romantic, fantastic, absolutely brilliant.” We were so hot we didn’t want to touch each other for fear of melding into one skin – he wanted us closer. I’ve not been so loved by a camera since our wedding.
I’m glad we have those photos, now. In them, glistening and rumpled, we’re obviously there, in the midst of all that history and faded glory. Hinduism and Buddhism and some matrilineal worship swirled together in a crumbling melange of giant stone blocks hauled through the jungles from great distances, perfect celestial alignment and carvings so fine they were known to have been created with diamond blades – the temples don’t need their giant stones and gold to impress us. The awe is clearly spelled across our shining faces.
Our guide told us that when he first visited with his mother in the early 80’s the walls were choked with vines, infested with cobras. Today they stand amazingly smooth, beautiful and intricate carvings clearly spelling out the origin of man (the first human was a woman, incidentally) and the details of heaven and hell, reincarnation and paradise. Tumbled sections of walls and temple, coated with sea green velvet, shift and change, revealing faces and decoration as the filtered jungle light plays across the rubble, transforming it from mere blocks into past glory. Giant faces stare impassively over the jungle, past the tourists, past the locals scrabbling to make a living in a country fallen so terribly far from its glory days, torn apart from within and without. In front of all this, we stand. This, in itself: amazing.
