The joys of Cambodia

I’ve picked out ten photos to showcase what were, for me, the never-forget and laugh-out-loud moments, the heart-stopping places and heart-warming days, and my all-time favourite things from my six months living and working in Cambodia. These images are in chronological order – I couldn’t possibly decide which is the most special.

The many and varied temples within the 400 square kilometres of the Angkor Archaeological Park never cease to fascinate and amaze me, with their skilful engineering and their stunning architecture, and though extremely destructive if left unchecked, the kapok trees and strangler figs are an integral part of the Angkor experience. This magnificent kapok tree has buttresses that prove just how skilled an architect Mother Nature can be.

The Silver Pagoda was definitely the highlight of the few short hours I spent exploring Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and, once I spotted the reflections in the waterlily-filled urns, I couldn’t resist taking hundreds of photos. The combination of the superbly sculpted temples and shrines with the beautiful waterlily flowers, all reflected in the still dark water, was irresistible.

Sihanoukville turned on sunsets like this every night we were there and, as long as you walked past the boozy-bar, sleazy-tourist end of Ochheuteal Beach, you could enjoy the tepid waters and desert-island feel of this gorgeous white sand beach.

The two weeks I spent in workshops with creative artists from around the world and excited children from local NGOs, making the enormous puppets for the annual Giant Puppet Parade, were the most fun of my six months in Siem Reap. The children’s energy and enthusiasm were as charming as they were infectious, and performing as number two puppeteer on the Hanuman puppet on the night of the parade left me exhausted but wonderfully exhilarated – a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Another day, another temple. The combination of an hour-long tuktuk ride, relatively few tourists, a magnificent temple to explore IndiAnnie-Jones-style, and like-minded company to share the pleasure with – a perfect combination! I had been to Beng Mealea before, I went again in March, I would repeat the day at the drop of a hat!

In Cambodia I discovered the delights of waterlilies, their infinite variety of patterns, the delicate subtlety of their colours. Feast your eyes on these beauties and smile!

Cambodian children are wide-eyed, cheeky, desperately poor, smart, smaller and thinner than they deserve to be, cute, capable, hard-working, affectionate, creative, playful, sensitive.… And one of the joys of my last few months in Siem Reap was managing the transition of Helping Hands, the project these three girls attend, into the Globalteer family. I hope their future is a bright one as they each deserve to be stars!

Even now I laugh when I look at this photo. Whenever my spirits were low – which, luckily, was seldom – I would visit the pond at Wat Damnak where there is a healthy population of these little frogs, and their comic antics would always make me laugh out loud.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll be aware of my obsession with the pagodas of Siem Reap. This one, Wat Po Banteaychey, is probably my favourite, though each is special in its own way. I think it’s the combination of splendid architecture, the vibrant technicolour decoration, and the tranquillity of the pagodas that made them my favourite places for exploration and lingering.

Here’s another creature that made me smile, with its hilarious dance-like actions, its ability to change colour when aroused, and its truly impressive tail. Both these Oriental Garden Lizards and the tiny geckos that inhabit every nook and cranny of every building in Cambodia, as well as the Tokay geckos that cry out “okay, okay, okay”, charmed and entertained me, and helped provide me with the memories of Cambodia that I’m sure will never leave me.

Wat Damnak

I first started exploring Wat Damnak, just across the river from downtown Siem Reap, back in February, when I was taking part in the Giant Puppet Parade workshops and I have visited at least once a week ever since.

Not only is it on a slightly circuitous route to town from where I live, but its Buddhist pagoda, shrines and stupas, its gnarled frangipani trees and beautiful waterlilies, its delightful frogs and darting lizards all make good subjects for my photo-a-day project. 

I also find it a tranquil place to wander and sit – this despite the primary school incorporated inside its extensive grounds, the occasional young man asking for a donation to support some good cause or other, and the constant comings and goings of monks and laypeople.

The central pagoda is currently undergoing internal renovation

This is a living Buddhist monastery with an interesting past. It was a royal palace in the days of King Sisowatch, ruler of Cambodia from 1904 to 1927, hence its name: dam nak is Khmer for palace, and it also served as a Khmer Rouge military depot in the dark days of Cambodia’s recent civil conflict.

Now its biggest claim to fame is its Centre of Khmer Studies, an international NGO whose primary aim is to facilitate global understanding of Cambodia, its history and its culture. The adjacent CKS library is the second biggest public library in the country and its 11,000 publications draw scholars from around the world seeking to research Cambodia’s intriguing past.

The Centre of Khmer Studies

Though I am a book lover through and through, for me the library holds a very different fascination. Running along the front of the building is a long narrow water feature, filled with the most gorgeous varieties of waterlilies and the biggest population of green paddy frogs I have ever seen. The markings on the waterlily blooms, which come in subtle shades of white and cream, pink, blue and lilac, seem infinitely varied, and I return often to photograph them. I am also drawn to the cute little frogs – they actually make be laugh out loud at their frantic panicked leaps, and the comical way they sit and stare goggle-eyed at me. So funny!

The monastery grounds are also home to the Kossamak Nearyroath Institute of Buddhist Studies, a facility to educate monks and the general public in the ways of Buddha, and to a second NGO, the Life and Hope Association Sewing School, which has the wonderfully practical aim of providing young Khmer women with a vocation and a future.

Wat Damnak sits in large park-like grounds, which are well filled with buildings and meeting halls, temples and stupas, as well as a large deep pond, in which sits a bright yellow shrine. The air is sweetly scented with frangipani, the large trees provide welcome shade, and the Khmer architecture mesmerises with its intricate detail. I think you can see why I return again and again to this charming location.

Wat Preah Enkosei and its Angkor temples

On the first day of the Khmer New Year – year 2557 by their calendar – I set out to explore yet another of Siem Reap’s wats. This was the one I had intended to visit the previous day before I got sidetracked.

Although it is an easy two-kilometre walk from the central city, on the east bank of the Siem Reap River along River Road, I grabbed one of my local tuktuks, knowing I could enjoy the pleasant walk back a little later. This time we went further than Wat Preah Enkosa to the wat with the oh-so-similar name, Preah Enkosei.

This is a living wat, currently home to 35 Buddhist monks, but this is also the only place I know in Siem Reap where you can see Angkor temples, albeit small ones, for free. (I later found another freebie - see here.) Behind the modern temple sit two brick towers, the bases of two other structures, and the remains of the east gate of a complex dating from the mid- to late-10th century. It is possible that there were originally three towers but the third has now disappeared. As the platform base of the modern temple is made of laterite blocks, it seems likely that the building blocks of the ancient structure were used to help construct the more modern one.

The site was originally contained within a moat, though much of this has now been filled in and what remains has become something of a tipping place for garden and other rubbish. The towers, too, are now mostly ruins, though the larger of the two has a lintel with surprisingly well preserved sculptural reliefs. The broader lower panel shows a central elephant head flanked by dragons and other characters, while the narrow top panel features an interesting depiction of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. (This refers to a story from Hindu cosmology where the gods and demons toiled together for a thousand years to release from the sea of milk the nectar of immortal life.)

Gnarled old frangipani trees grew around the temples, filling the air with their sweet perfume and providing welcome shade on another of April’s over-40-degree days, and there was a pleasant breeze, so I sat a while in the shade of one tower, soaking up the peaceful atmosphere. I had expected the wat to be humming with New Year’s celebrations – and there were some (see my New Year’s blog) – but they were contained in two particular areas so didn’t encroach on the overall feeling of tranquillity.

The decoration on the modern building was relatively subdued for a Buddhist temple, but no less impressive. The reliefs above the doors and windows, the roof-edge ornamentation and the roof pediment decoration all gleamed with their gold and yellow paint.

Elsewhere in the wat, an ancient banyon tree was surrounded by more than the usual number of small shrines, and two stone Buddhas soaked up the sunshine, despite their golden umbrellas. All in all, it was rather a splendid start to 2557!

The burial stupas and a little monk washing

Koh Ker : corker!

The splendid assembly of ruins at Koh Ker are where the capital of the Khmer world was located in the 10th century, when King Jayavrman IV decided, on his ascension to the throne, that the court should come to him, rather than him move to Angkor.

Australian volunteer Donna, Marianne and I visited this magnificent place last Saturday. It’s about a 3-hour drive from Siem Reap, partly on tarmac and partly on dirt roads, currently with many detours around half-built bridges. The price of the air-conditioned car, with driver, was US$90 for the day and the entrance fee – or, rather, the road toll – to Koh Ker was US$10, so it was not a cheap excursion but it was definitely worth the expense.

Once we turned off route 6, the main highway to Phnom Penh, and got out into the countryside, there was burning of the undergrowth beneath the trees throughout the countryside. Whether to clear the land for cultivation or for some other purpose we weren’t sure, but a pall of dense smoke covered the entire area.

The temples were impressive, spread out over quite an extensive area surrounding a large baray (reservoir) that we circuited but couldn’t actually get close to. We started at Prasat Thom, which initially seemed quite ordinary and was much ruined, though we did find a fine statue of a bull’s head. Apparently, Koh Ker is renowned for its massive statuary, but most has now been removed to the National Museum in Phnom Penh.

Prasat Thom had an extensive moat, where I photographed some lovely tree reflections, and was relatively quiet, except for the little daughter of the temple warden, who became a cheeky and noisy character once spoken to, echoing our hellos, singing loudly and pinching both Donna and Marianne on the bottom. Luckily, she soon ran off into the bushes, as the peace and quiet of Koh Ker was a major attraction – it is one of those places where you can hear the leaves fall! And we only saw two other groups of two tourists here and no more all day – fantastic!

A big surprise presented itself at the back of the Prasat Thom complex, where there is a huge, quite well-preserved seven-tier pyramid. The guidebook said you could get great views from the top but, in fact, the old wooden staircase was blocked off and was missing several rungs. The guide said we could climb it for $5 – a cheap suicide! The guide also said there were landmines so we made sure to stick to the well-trodden paths but, in fact, I think it was safe enough as there were ‘mine clearance’ signs at all the various sites here.

On the other side of the baray, the first three ruins were towers with linga shrines inside. Linga are large, phallic blocks of stone, fertility symbols that you are supposed to caress for good luck. I stroked my hand around the head of one – though I’m not sure exactly what sort of luck I should expect.

Prasat Krachap had an impressive outer gateway, with large scroll-like decorations above the pediment – the influence looked almost Chinese. There were also several columns with Sanskrit engravings in good condition and a couple of quite well preserved pediment reliefs.

Prasat Banteay Pri Chean was interesting. Large rectangular columns splayed outwards, seemingly in imminent danger of collapse, though they may well have been like that for centuries; there was one tower with nicely engraved red sandstone columns and pediment, and the tall ruined tower at the back seemed almost burnt inside – their stonework was very black.

The three towers at Prasat Chrap were similarly black inside – cremation towers, perhaps? – and hundreds of tiny yellow butterflies fluttered around them – I imagine them being the souls of the dead. The place did have a slightly spooky feel to it and the burning nearby only added to the eerie atmosphere. A few moments of drama followed when the scrub fires flared up right next to the road as we drove to the next temple. Defying the danger, we leapt out and took photos of the tall flames.

Next came Prasat Damrei – we christened it ‘Damn right’! At first we thought it was a single tower but, tucked off to one side through the trees was an enclosure where we found another tower with some lovely, almost intact elephant and lion sculptures. Elephants adorned three corners of the platform and one lion guarded the front entrance. Elephants were also carved in the pediment panel.

Prasat Neang Khmau was a single blackened tower but here the blackened stone was on the outside, so perhaps the discolouration is caused by something other than burning. I’ll need to investigate further.

Last, but by no means least, was Prasat Pram, a glorious place for the huge strangler figs that almost entirely encased two of its five towers. The destructive power of these trees can be impressive and they have caused huge damage to so many temple structures from the Angkor civilisation but here the two trees seemed almost to be holding the towers together. Their roots were amazing to behold. Prasat Pram was a splendid temple to finish off a magnificent, if incredibly hot and dehydrating day exploring the ruins at Koh Ker.