Images from Angkor #5

My filing system must really suck, because it's only now that I've gotten around to uploading more pictures from my Angkor trip back in 2007. There are hundreds of images still to go through, but you can view the Flickr set anytime. This is one of my favorites -

"When I grow up I want to be an apsara."

Re-uploaded

I re-uploaded these just recently:

I got my Neil Gaiman album from my old filphoto gallery and brought it over to my flickr gallery. Click on the image to view the album:

Neil Gaiman, Manila, July 2005.

I also re-posted my Angkor slideshow (from my dailymotion page) since there were some having problems accessing the original one I posted (from photobucket). So the slideshow ought to work better now - updated My Angkor Movie entry.

Images from Angkor # 4

Indra sits atop his three-headed mount, the elephant Airavata.
Pediment detail, Banteay Srei. 2/12/2007

[View larger version.]

Banteay Srei, the "Citadel of Women", is one of the most intricately decorated temples in Angkor. It is widely considered as the "jewel of Khmer art". Unlike the others, it was built not by a monarch but by a courtier and scholar named Yajnavaraha who served the king as advisor and guru. The temple was dedicated in 967 A.D. to the Hindi god Shiva. The temple is not vast, but miniature in scale, and largely made of red sandstones.

My Angkor Movie

Passage to Angkor
Uploaded by imogen_ph

Presenting my Angkor movie. The file runs for 4 minutes 12 seconds. Click on "Play" to start the movie. Turn up the volume. If the video stops and starts, just let it load until the end, and then replay. It should go smoothly then. Known to work in IE (on PC) and Firefox (on Mac). Freezes up on Netscape (PC) in my case, but that may be due to a glitch in my Shockwave plug-in. I don't know about other browsers.

The song is Somewhere Only We Know by Keane.

Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm getting old and I need something to rely on.
So tell me when you're gonna let me in,
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin.
And if you have a minute why don't we go,
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything.
So why don't we go, somewhere only we know,
Somewhere only we know.

Images from Angkor # 3

Sunrise over Angkor Wat, 2/13/2007

The sun rises over Angkor Wat, the temple considered to be one of the most perfect architectural structures in the world. Built sometime in the 12th century under the rule of Suryavarman II, it took 37 years to accomplish. How many suns have risen and shone over Angkor Wat? This thought alone is staggering.

Images from Angkor # 2

South Gate, Angkor Thom. 2/11/2007

Angkor Thom or "Great City", measuring about 900 hectares, is said to be one of the largest cities in its heyday (from the 12th to the 17th century). It was built by Jayavarman VII, the most prolific Khmer god-king known for building some of the most magnificent temples in all of Angkor. One reaches the South gate through a causeway flanked by 54 gods on the left, and 54 asuras (demons) on the right, each row tugging on an end of a great naga (a multi-headed snake), depicting a scene from the great Hindu creation myth of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. On top of the 75-foot gate is a tower with four faces representing each of the cardinal directions.

Images from Angkor # 1

The walls of Nirvana are lined with apsaras.
2/11/2007, Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Angkor: Damned if you do, damned if you don't

So my friend falafel, worlds away, `neath the middle-eastern skies (whenever she manages to go out, that is), e-mails me and remarks, “Have you heard, seems Siem Reap and Angkor are sinking.”. Eek. So I googled it and sure enough, this article states that there is growing concern among experts over the hotels that have been sprouting like mushrooms in the city known as the gateway to Angkor.

National Geographic Traveler’s November/December issue features this article (Pssst my Angkor companions, check this out, see those tourists sprawled over the temple steps?) and this telling image on page 112:

(View larger version here.)

Incidentally, a Destination Scorecard survey recently conducted by Traveler and its National Geographic Center for Sustainable Destinations with George Washington University asked 419 well-traveled experts worldwide to rate 94 World Heritage destinations according to aesthetic appeal, quality of tourism management, social and cultural integrity, overall outlook for the future and such other criteria. (Check out the full criteria list here.) Angkor earned a dismal score of 48, dropping 4 points from its 2004 score. (To think that just 5 years earlier I was drooling over an Angkor article in Traveler’s 50 Places of a Lifetime special collectors' issue. *sigh*) A score of 48 means that the site is in moderate trouble (all criteria medium-negative or a mix of negatives and positives). The experts say that yes, Angkor and its environs rate high in aesthetics and conservation efforts, but very poorly overall in terms of sustainable tourism and destination stewardship. As in the article I mentioned above, the magazine reports that the water table has become “so depleted by hotel wells that it is destabilizing the foundations of the ruins”. So yeah, Siem Reap and Angkor may be sinking.

In an impoverished country which relies solely on tourism for its lifeblood, it's no wonder that money is prioritized over preservation and sustainability. Even as Cambodia still suffers from the trauma wrought by the Khmer Rouge in the late `70s, those in government continue to fatten their pockets with the fruits of a continuously growing tourism industry. In the meantime, its citizens, most of them ethnic Khmer, descendants of the proud, highly-cultured society who built the famed temples in ancient times, struggle to eke a living out of the ruins of their heritage. (I cannot say how sad it is that I mean that literally.) Children work during the day selling books, postcards and souvenirs around the temples. A lot of young people, I imagine, are studying to become tour guides as one stands to earn a decent income in that occupation. Aside from hotels, ranging from budget guesthouses to the expensive boutique and five-star resort and spas, karaoke bars and who knows what other recreational establishments, are built every day. Siem Reap is fast losing its character as it is literally overrun by busloads of tourists (that includes those coming in planes and taxis, too. *cough*) I read elsewhere that a few years ago, horror of horrors, there were plans of installing a cable car network in Angkor. Let’s hope they never try to take that up again.

So my overly eager footfalls may well contribute to the continuous defacement of one of the world’s most remarkable man-made wonders, and my very arrival at Siem Reap to the irreversible loss of its old-world charm. Great. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Perhaps. National Geographic, UNESCO, I’m counting on you. Pardon me if in the meantime I still go anyway. I don’t want to have to go to a theme park, darn it. Cable cars? Presposterous.

Contemplating Angkor

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

~ Henry Miller

Yeah, you read that right. Angkor. “Angkor what?”, you say? Exactly, Angkor Wat. You know, the UNESCO world heritage site, Hindu & Buddhist temple ruins, one of the wonders of the world, site of some of the most magnificent man-made monuments on this planet. Huh, still asking “Angkor what?”? *sigh* Eh, haller, try to remember Tomb Raider movie # 1 then, that might ring a bell.

I had always wanted to go see the Angkor temples. You see, I have a thing for ruins and other vestiges of the ancient world. In any case, when my friend Cho and I heard about discounted Bangkok flights a couple of months back, my first thought was setting foot at last on Cambodia, that land of the Khmer that is associated with Pol Pot’s killing fields as much as it is with the magnificent sandstone monuments built in the heyday of Khmerian god-kings.

The route we picked (the overland Bangkok-Aranyaprathet-Border -Poipet-Siem Reap route) involves what by most accounts in the web, is popularly known as the bus ride to hell. At first I was unfazed. Surely it can’t be worse than the transportation system here, huh? For instance, I have taken the Baguio-Sagada bus ride that yes, is breathtakingly scenic and all that, but one that goes on forever and ever and ever, with toilet stops that make French tourists virtually cry while taking a pee in holes on concrete floors, or bumpy jeepney rides aggravated by worries about being ambushed by highway robbers in Kalinga (or is it Abra, I forget) and insensitive bus conductors and passengers who sing the karaoke (and very badly) on an hours-long trip where you’d rather sleep since there isn’t much to see anyway as you traverse the arid Aurora plains. And oh, let’s not forget my most hated bus trip of all: 10-hour Tuguegarao-Manila day trips. Arggh, boredom that stretches out to 10 hours, and that involves sun (being in an air-conditioned bus makes no difference to me)! Now that’s the pits. So going back to Cambodia. I was thinking: hmm, two four-hour bus rides across two foreign countries, with an interesting border crossing in between, how hard can it be? Might turn out to be a piece of cake, yeah?

Well, my research tells me the answer is No. Interesting yes, but hardly a piece of cake. For starters, take a gander at the picture here and here. Hwaah! Now I’m daunted. Once at Aranyaprathet, one is supposed to pass through Immigration, in itself proven to be an event-filled chore particularly for those who have to get a visa (thank goodness we Pinoys don’t have to because we're part of ASEAN), then take a short tuktuk ride to get to the Cambodian side. Poipet is said to be a hellhole (other travelers’ words, not mine) filled with thieves and scammers. The detailed description and travelers’ accounts in talesofasia.com, lonelyplanet.com, and travelblogs.com make me think of Poipet as an exaggerated version of Quiapo or Cubao or Baclaran, but what do I know? The main thing to remember, they say, is not to spend more time in Poipet than you have to. Alright then, I guess I won’t be setting my tripod there. I haven’t even talked about the other bus ride yet. The Poipet-Siem Reap bus trip has been described as a total nightmare. Apart from the shitty road condition (there’s a rumour that a Thai airline company has been paying off Cambodian officials so that they won’t fix the roads thereby ensuring said Thai airline’s monopoly; not too farfetched, imo, if you check out how much the airline is charging for a crummy 45-minute flight), let’s see, there’s the “official” (government-run) bus which can take a good while as it is alas-puno, as we say in the vernacular. Alas-puno essentially means the bus will leave when it is full. Who knows how long that will take, huh? The alternative, the tourist bus is even worse. That is why this is called the scam bus. Unfortunate suckers who go for the dirt-cheap Bangkok-Siem Reap package commonly sold in Khao San Road have reportedly suffered through 10 hour or longer trips punctuated by interminable stop-overs, flat tires and all kinds of vehicular problems, only to find themselves magically booked in one of the bus company’s partner hostels and guesthouses. By “magically” I don’t mean they can Houdini themselves out of the uh arrangement. What a frack of an obstacle course to get to Siem Reap, huh? Fortunately, there’s a 3rd alternative: taking a taxi. So to hell with buses.

All of this will take anywhere from 6 to 8 or 9 hours of travel, assuming one doesn’t take the scam buses, as those can take forever. If one is clueless and is the type who sticks out like a dolled-up socialite standing amidst the human traffic in Villalobos Street on a Friday afternoon, then well, yeah, one might want to think twice about taking this route. But us? Nah, we’re not afraid, are we? What else is there to be afraid of? Swarms of locals selling their wares? Missing the sunrise and sunset hours? Viewing sunrise and sunset at popular Angkorian spots while rubbing elbows with thousands of tourists? Cameras running out of batteries? Running out of memory cards? Getting a guide who annoyingly commands you to “quick, take picture here!”? Accidentally falling into Tonle Sap? Climbing up Angkor Wat’s steep stairs (70 degrees baby!) under an unforgiving sun? Yeah those are daunting. But land mines? Terrifying.

ETA. Sssh don't mention land mines to my mom. Or Poipet.

A dream of saffron-robed monks

Some nights ago I had this dream. I am not sure where I was, somewhere in the city. There was an event, lots of people were coming to this place. My friend Q was there, she was coordinating with her hubby S on a walkie-talkie, apparently in-charge of securing the visiting monks. Buddhist monks in saffron robes walked by with fashionable duffel bags, Cartier and Gucci maybe, made of canvas and leather, predominantly brown-colored with saffron accents and big buckles. I was the main event. I was a boxer. Pretty strange because I don’t like boxing at all, as it’s a savage sport. (This was several days after the much-vaunted Pacquiao-Morales fight, which I didn’t watch with the rest of the country.) I went across to another building, my relatives were there. Some didn't take notice of me.

Now that I think of it, what was so striking about the dream was this: Buddhist monks, the most ascetic of creatures, were coming in droves (so many that security measures had to be ensured) to see me, the savage, perform my trade. Eh, that’s a lot to chew on.