Kesararam: the wat and the killing field

Earlier this week, in preparation for writing this blog, I googled Wat Kesararam, a wat in central Siem Reap, immediately adjacent to the five-star Angkor Sokha Hotel on Route 6. Little do the guests enjoying that hotel’s luxurious surrounds realise what sits next to their sumptuous accommodation. Much to my surprise and with not a little horror, I discovered that the wat had been the site of a security office, a prison and a killing field during the disastrous days of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, a fact not much advertised in this town.

A news story from the Phnom Penh Post, dated as recently as 12 September 2012, described the finding of a mass grave during excavations for a new building within the wat grounds. The disarticulated remains of at least 18 bodies were unearthed and now rest in a small wooden hut, amidst the burial stupas of deceased monks. It is rather a gruesome sight but, sadly, a very real part of the all too recent history of this country.

The news article related a conversation with the wat’s head monk, Sambath Ly Yeut, during which he described previous macabre finds in the wat grounds: ‘In the last five or six years we have been discovering human bones. In 2001, when we built our temple, we saw many bones of bodies, buried with handcuffs.’ The most recent bones also showed signs of having suffered violent deaths, with arm bones trussed with ropes and leg bones fastened together by iron manacles. Indeed, the skull I looked at had a large hole above the left eye socket and a smaller one in the right temple area, which may have occurred during the excavation process but may also have been bullet holes, or worse. There were, apparently, 24 known killing sites in the Siem Reap area alone, with the number of victims at these sites estimated at 44,528!

I find such violence difficult to contemplate and it seems appropriate to me that Wat Kesararam is now a place for meditation and prayer. Many sources date the wat’s construction to the early 1970s but this seems unlikely given the site’s violent history: in the early 70s, the Khmer Rouge were slowly gaining control of Cambodia and their genocidal regime was in full swing. Ly Yeut named 2001 as the year of the temple’s construction, though the wat may have been founded prior to that.

The temple’s excellent state of preservation supports this more recent construction date, and both its exterior and its interior walls are decorated with immense and very colourful depictions of the events from the life of Buddha. Lions and nagas (representations of seven-headed serpents) guard the stairways at the four entrances to the building, with the nagas’ bodies forming the balustrades that border the temple platform and fantastical bird-headed creatures (garudas?) supporting these balustrades.

Wat Keseraram is also known as the “Pagoda of the Cornflower Petals”, perhaps from the shapes of the gold-painted moulding that adorns the roof edges of the temple. The anthropomorphic ornamental roof supports, the windows, doors and their frames also glisten with gold paint, as do many of the burial stupas near the boundaries of the wat.

Most impressive is the tall shrine that sits in the large courtyard in front of the temple. It’s the largest I’ve seen here in Siem Reap and is wonderfully embellished with intricate sculptural reliefs. And encircling the whole of this wat, and the dark secrets sheltered within, is a garishly painted boundary wall, making its location very easy to find. Perhaps all this wat’s bright colour serves as the monks’ way of banishing the grim truth of its not so distant past.

Beng Mealea

Volunteers Donna and Jill and I have had dinner together several times now and did so again Friday night, at the Red Piano, made famous by the patronage of Tomb Raider Angelina Jolie. Jill mentioned that she had a tuktuk booked to take her to Beng Mealea the next day and asked if we wanted to go along. 

I’d been before but agreed immediately to go again. I haven’t been doing much with my weekends recently so the chance of a long tuktuk ride out of the city and of flexing my IndiAnnie instincts clambering about amongst ancient ruins was impossible to resist. Donna hesitated as she was feeling weary after a long hot week at the volunteering coalface and, in the event, decided more sleep was preferable.

Not me! I set my alarm for 6am and got an early night, excited at the prospect of an excellent day out. Soon after 8 the next morning, I was at Jill’s hotel and we set off with Mr Ong, her favourite tuktuk driver, at about 8.20. Riding down national route 6 is always interesting, if a trifle scary with all the crazy drivers weaving madly in and out but Mr Ong proved capable and cautious, and saw us safely there and back for the very reasonable sum of US$35.

The road to Beng Mealea takes you down route 6 about 25kms to the town of Damdek, where you turn left and head out into the countryside through, at this time of the year, the bone-dry stubble of rice fields and an assortment of small settlements. The hot wind blasted my hair into the most unflattering of styles; I smiled and waved at small children playing by the wayside and women sitting gossiping outside their wooden shacks; I savoured the ubiquitous smell of wood smoke and used my ever-present krama to avoid choking on the equally ubiquitous red dust; and I snapped photos of locals perched precariously atop trailer-loads of wood or squashed four to a motorbike, plus shopping. These are some of my favourite things about Cambodia!

The entrance fee to Beng Mealea is just US$5, unrivalled value for the three hours we spent exploring. Most tourists probably take just half that time, but Jill turned out to be a like-minded soul, a Classics scholar like me, fascinated with ancient architecture and keen to explore every nook and cranny.

The name Beng Mealea means ‘lotus pond’ but the only flowers I saw in the 45-metre-wide moat that surrounds the site were water hyacinths. The tourist approach is across this moat from the south, along a causeway bordered by long balustrades representing the bodies of the seven-headed nagas that guard the causeway entrance. The south gate itself is blocked by fallen masonry, but authorities have constructed a series of wooden steps and walkways that carry the visitor into this masonry maze, up and over stone walls and cloisters to the rooftops and first floor levels so you can get an excellent idea of the layout of the temple complex.

One of the nagas, with the south gate in the background

Looking back out through the south gate from inside the complex

It is large – approximately one kilometre square – and has been greatly ravaged by weather erosion and rampant vegetation, with tree roots and strangler vines prising apart the massive stones, causing them to tumble into large mounds like some giant’s abandoned Lego. Nothing has been restored so you can get a good feel for what all the Angkorian temples would have looked like when first reclaimed from the jungle.

Little is known of Beng Mealea’s history or why it was built at such a distance from the main Angkor temples near Siem Reap, but its architectural similarities with Angkor Wat have led archaeologists to surmise that it was built by King Suryavaram in the early 12th century. Although it was primarily a Hindu temple, it also has some Buddhist carvings amongst its ruins. Few of the sculptural reliefs are in good condition but it is possible to make out scenes from the Hindu myth of the Churning of the Sea of Milk, apsara dancers can be spotted amongst the confusion of stones, and a lion’s feet sit alone, forever disconnected from their owner.

At approximately 75kms distance by road, Beng Mealea is far enough from Siem Reap to be spared the hordes of tourists that can nowadays spoil the Angkor Wat tourist experience, though the busloads have begun to invade here too. Luckily, it is still possible to find a quiet spot to marvel at the wonderful variety of butterflies fluttering around the stones, to linger while small lizards do battle over their territory, and to try to imagine what this enigmatic place was like in its heyday.

One word of caution … don’t wander off the well-trodden paths here. A sign near the entrance declares that 438 anti-personnel mines and 809 UXOs (pieces of unexploded ordinance) have been cleared from the area in the past 10 years but the work is ongoing!