Cambodia - Choeung Ek, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap & Ankor Wat

The Kingdom of Cambodia, or Kampuchea as it is called in the Khmer language, was our next country. Cambodia has a population of 14 million consisting of 95% Khmer and some ethnic-Chinese, Cham and ethnic-Vietnamese, and a country motto of: Nation-Religion-King. We were here to unearth Cambodia’s history and culture, and to visit the famous temple ruins of Ankor Wat once ruled by Kings, Ankor Wat meaning: ‘Holy City’.

After the peace and tranquillity we found in the rivers and waterfalls in southern Laos, we had to quickly readjust to the populated and newly rebuilt cities of Cambodia; beginning with Phnom Penh, the capital. On our first day we travelled just outside the city to the burial site of Choeung Ek– or ‘the Killing Fields of Cambodia’; a painful but crucial historical site which remains from the cruel regime of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970’s. During their four year reign led by dictator Saloth Sar or ‘Pol Pot’, as he was then known, genocide destroyed the country killing one third of Cambodians, destroying schools, hospitals, temples and scarring the lives of the few who remained. The regime wanted to eliminate all foreign influence whatsoever and return Cambodia to the year zero. Through the most barbaric and brutal means possible, women, children and even babies were not spared from horrible deaths. It was a very harrowing experience to walk around the site listening to our audio headsets retelling the history and individual testimonials. As this is a burial site where three thousand people had been unearthered, teeth, bones and scraps of clothing which constantly rise up from the soil when it rains were present on the ground where we walked, making the experience so much more real than if you were looking at artefacts in a museum. In the centre of the site a tall glass monument has been erected with all three thousand skulls from the site scientifically categorised according to age, gender and so on. Offerings of flowers, prayers and burning incenses are left here. At present, UN High Commission trials continue to try some of the remaining regime leaders for Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes to bring some justice for the atrocities committed.

Whilst Neil headed on westwards to a small riverside town called Battambang for boat rides and bamboo trains, I stayed on in the city for a couple of days to soak up some of the culture, history and religion that Cambodia is so entrenched in.  I met a couple of Ozzie’s in the grounds of a particularly grand monastery which I happened to just wander into, we then went to the newly rebuilt Royal Palace grounds where many beautiful buildings and temples decorated in Hindu-Buddhist style were located amongst fountains and gardens. A faded murial which ran on all four walls surrounding the palace was all that remained from its original site before its destruction under the Khmer Rouge.

We spent New Years Eve on the packed out streets of Siem Reap, dancing to Western music blaring from towering speakers till the early hours amongst Cambodians and backpackers from all over. Siem Reap is a riverside town with markets and traditional dancing and food stalls galore and there is also an excess of Westernised bars, restaurants and souvenir stalls to accommodate all the tourist’ needs. We enjoyed many a fruit shake, massages and Aspara dance performances. But for us, the main reason for going to Siem Reap was to see the ancient temples of Ankor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site of dozens of temples sprawled out amongst forests and by lakes and moats, dating back to the 9^th –12^th centuries, only recently discovered by the French in the 19^th century. I found the temples absolutely incredibly, and took several hundred photos! There is a huge amount of detail on every crevice, corner and pillar of the temples that were painstakingly carved in bas-relief (meaning they are raised out of the stone work, almost three-dimensional). Popular images are of the Aspara dancers, (the many concubines and wives of the Kings) bejewelled in necklaces, belts and head-dresses). But the walls also depict battles of war; everyday scenes of village life; the sacred three headed elephants showing the influence of Hinduism; deities and Gods; animals; and intricate patterns ornately decorating walls, ceilings and doorways. The temples were originally lived in by the ancient Kings who once ruled Kampuchea, and are made of stone such as limestone and laterite which vary in colour from shades of grey and brown to orange and even pinkey hues.

We spent three days over the New Year period exploring the temples. On our second morning we rose at 4.30am to watch the sun rise over the ‘magnificent 3-tiered pyramid crowned with 5 lotus like flowers’ of Ankor Wat, beautifully silhouetted against the glowing sky. We saw the towering, smiling faces of the famous 12^th century temples of Bayon; another favourite of mine were the temple ruins of 13^th century Ta Prohm (famous for being the site of where scenes of ‘Tomb Raider’ were filmed). To me this was a magical place where towering trees grew above and over the temples, with big, thick roots and tangled vines intertwining with the stones creating a spectacular synergy of the wonders of nature and man. On our third day we travelled an hour north of the main temple site by rickshaw to the countryside where, after a half an hour or so walk along a path through forest and up hills we followed a stream to the 11-13^th century site of ‘1000 lingas’. By walking closely to the streams banks we saw Buddhist depictions carved into the rocks alongside the river, and ancient linga symbols of pattern and symmetry carved into the stone river bed! We also went to a Banteay Srey, a 10^th century Hindu-influenced temple which translates as ‘citadel of the women’, with pinkey coloured rocks with the probably the most preserved intricate carvings of all of Ankor Wat.