Siem the Reaper: Temple of Angelina Jolie

I write this post back in Bangkok after an amazing trip to Railay, Krabbi Province Thailand, my heart isn't really in this one, but I think a visit to the world's largest religious structure/complex and one of SE Asia's biggest tourist attractions is an obligatory post. Perhaps a bit on Cambodia's capital Phnom Phen while I'm at it. I've also decided to beef up my previous Kampot post with a few more pictures. Sorry, but I got behind in Cambodia and I wasn't going to choose my notebook over my fiance during the short time we had in beautiful Railay. What can I say? Blogging is hard work sometimes.

Before I post any of my pictures for this entry I would like to moan about some camera drama. The kit lens, my main lens, that I purchased with my beloved Nikon D90 camera completely fell apart while I was in Kampot. (The blades that made up the aperture fell apart inside the lens leaving me with a bunch of metal blades rattling around inside my lens shredding my optics) Fortunately I packed a second lens for my trip, a Nikon 50mm 1.8f prime, but unfortunately the crop factor of my camera's CMOS sensor converts the 50mm focal length of my lens into the equivalent of a 80mm telephoto which is really only good for portraits. At 80mm my camera was completely incapable of any wide angle shots that you need to photograph the temples of Ankor or the ruins at Bokor Hill Station but I pressed on with my long lens and diminished photographic capacity. Several hundred dollars later and a trip to the only Nikon authorized repair shop in Bangkok (Who would not honor my warranty without a hard copy of my original warranty certificate)everything is all good and my camera is back up to full speed. I even traded the the frustratingly long 50mm for Nikon's new 35mm 1.8 and I am very happy with the nicer and more versatile lens. Razor sharp, even wide open at 1.8. Ok, enough gear nerd talk. Get ready for some awesome shots from Railay, but first a whopping double blog entry for Phnom Phen and Siem Reap/Ankor Wat!



I think it was Fifty Cent that said: "You ain't nobody if you don't drive Porsche" Well in Cambodia you ain't nobody if you don't drive Lexus, and apparently a Lexus just isn't a Lexus without a gigantic decal applied to both sides, the hood, and the back of the car. Seriously I didn't see a single Lexus without the extra "LEXUS" decals plastered all over the car. I wish I had pictures but I also saw "Lexus" brand crackers, chocolate chip cookies, and toothpaste. All real Lexus brand products produced under license on behalf of Toyota Motors Inc. of course.


On my way from Kampot to Siem Reap/Temples of Ankor I stopped and spent one night in Cambodia's busy capital of Phnom Phen. I had not heard much nice about Phnom Phen, mostly I had heard about how crime ridden and dangerous the city was but I found nothing of the sort. I found Phnom Phen to be a busy happy city chock full of optimistic teenagers and new decaled Lexuses. (?sp) It was a town flush with new foreign investment cash (I was told it was the Chinese and the Koreans) and you could definitely tell it was a town that was going places. Even as a fresh off the bus farang there was no mistaking that Phnom Phen was in the middle of some pretty radical changes. Despite the appetite of the locals for international brand names the city was strangely but also refreshingly devoid of any large fast-food chains. No Mc D's, KFC, etc. I did enjoy a few nice pieces of "Louisiana USA" fried chicken at one shiny new fast food establishment popular with the local teens. It appeared to be a rough imitation of Popeye's/Bojangles. If there are any entrepreneurs out there with good political connections in Cambodia there is a fortune to be made in opening American fast-food franchises.


One of my reasons for visiting Phnom Phen was to see the city's dark side from it's sad and violent past. The word "autogenocide" was first coined to describe what took place in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and nowhere is the gruesome legacy of the Khmer Rouge's madness and cruelty better preserved than inside the notorious torture and detention center know as S-21 or Tuel Slang.


Tuel Slang, a.k.a. S-21

A former elementary school that was converted into a shop of horrors Tuel Slang has been left as close as possible to how it was when the Vietnamese found it in 1979. 15,000 Cambodians were tortured and killed at Tuel Slang during the two years it was used by the Khmer Rouge. Outside of a small handful of guards and high ranking Khmer Rouge officials there were only 14 Cambodians who were known to have passed through the gates of Tuel Slang and lived to tell the story. Those scant few survivors owe their escape to the haste and confusion of the Khmer Rouge's retreat when Phnom Phen fell unexpectedly to the invading/liberating Vietnamese. In a sick turn of justice very few of the guards that worked at Tuel Slang ever escaped its vortex of death as the guards they unwittingly trained as their replacements would routinely execute their mentors as their first rite of initiation. The paranoia and wanton disregard for life displayed by the Khmer Rouge leadership is unmatched in modern history. Most of the prisoners tortured and killed in Tuel Slang were loyal Khmer Rouge themselves who fell under the suspicion of "Angkor"

Weak of stomach or soft of heart may want to skip the next few images.






As many as 800 prisoners were processed at S-21 a day so whenever you see a number it is not a unique number or a special prisoner identification number, it is just that person's number for the day they were processed. This little boy was the one-hundred and fifty second prisoner processed at Tuel-Slang on the day he arrived. Notice the placement of the safety pin. Entire families were disposed of here.














OK, no more really bad stuff I promise. Maybe a picture or two from the Hanoi Hilton or some UXO information from Laos but from now on this is a happy blog.

Siem Reap is a bit shocking coming from the rest of Cambodian. Stepping off of a plane from Bangkok one could be forgiven for believing Cambodia is roughly at the same level of development and tourism as Thailand even though nothing could be further than the truth. I would reckon Siem Reap to be at least 25 years or more ahead of the rest of urban Cambodia and light years ahead in tourism. Siem Reap has been packing in western tourists making the pilgrimage to see the temples of Ankor since the 1860's when the writings of the Frenchman Henri Mouhot excited the imaginations of Europeans in search of ancient grandeur and mystery. Understandably, Siem Reap is a bit more attuned to the western sensibilities and more adept at catering to their tastes. The Angkor Temple tourism industry like many other things was completely wiped out during the madness of the war years but Siem Reap started making a comeback in the early nineties as Angkor quickly became the most popular tourist attraction in Cambodia. In less than 15 years Siem Reap has transformed itself from a tiny sleepy backwater to the wealthiest city in Cambodia and a premier destination for the international jet-set crowd.


The tourist friendly streets of downtown Siem Reap



Fancy Art-Deco style 5-star hotel around the corner from my hotel. One of the many new luxury hotels which seem to be multiplying like mushrooms in Siem Reap.



The super-mod and very minimal chill-out lounge in the fantastic "Blue Pumpkin". Exquisite ice-cream, cakes, cookies and pastries downstairs and the free Wi-Fi and pillow lounge upstairs with a full bar, complete menu and table service. If you could operate a Blue Pumpkin franchise in the States at even a 200% markup of the Cambodian Blue Pumpkin's prices the sky would truly be the limit. Air conditioning and free WiFi aren't quite as exciting to find in the US though.


The temples of Angkor are the surviving relics from the golden age of the Khmer empire, which thrived roughly between 802 AD to 1432 when the city of Angkor was overran by invading Thais. The temples at Angkor, and Angkor Wat in particular are a source of great national pride for all Cambodians. Angkor Wat is the crown jewel of the temple complex and the largest religious structure in the world. It appears on the national flag, money, beer and almost everything in Cambodia. During the the heyday of the Khmer-Hindu god kings the borders of Cambodia stretched deep into Thailand, all the way across Laos and included much of the south of Vietnam. Cambodia was the regional superpower of southeast Asia and their only real rivals were the Chams or modern day Vietnam. In the six hundred years since the fall of Angkor Cambodia as been forced to suffer many indignities at either the hands of its more powerful neighbors Thailand and Vietnam or by colonial powers such as the French and more recently the Americans.

The surviving stone temples seen today were for for religious purposes and ceremonies only. It was forbidden for mere mortals to live in houses made of stone. The actual city of Angkor lie to the west of the temple complex and was made entirely of wood. Virtually no trace of the wooden city which housed over a million inhabitants at its peak is left today. All of the early temples at Angkor were erected as shrines to Hindu deities. As Buddhism gained popularity through the Khmer empire later temples attempted to merge the gods of both religions in an attempt to smooth the religious strife that was developing among the subjects of the kingdom. Later kings declared themselves Buddhist and would go about retrofitting older temples with Buddhas only to have successive Hindu kings reaffirm the Khmer empires' Hindu-ness and proceed to remove all of the retrofitted Buddhas. So it went until the Thais invaded and chased the Khmers out of Angkor and down to Phnom Phen.


Me standing at the east gate entrance to the Ankor Thom temple complex



Gate Face detail



The fantastic crumbling temple of Banyon with more bewitching smiling faces than you can count.



My tour guide knew how to set this one up. Pretty cool right?



My guide and photographer for the day, KimHour (Kim-whoOHHR)



Well you knew the temples were crumbling but did anyone wonder what happens to the stones? First they fall off and land pretty much where ever they want. Hopefully not on top of a rich American with a good attorney. Then the workers here stack them up along the outer walls of the temple and maybe one day someone will be able to get a team of skilled archeologists to put them back.



One of the thousands of beautiful Apsara sculptures among the temples at Angkor. This one was at Banyon.


Japanese tourist worshiping Lord Buddha inside Banyon temple.



The fabulously overgrown Ta Phrom temple of Angelina Jolie/Tomb Raider fame. Locals were very proud of their connection to Hollywood's most famous and glamorous starlet and credit the film with doubling the number of tourists visiting Angkor. Ta Phrom was pretty awesome, but the crowds, the roped off areas, and the construction equipment attempting to arrest the assault of the jungle on this magnificent place did diminish a good bit of the mysterious lost jungle temple charm this place must have radiated just a few years ago. Regardless, you would be hard pressed to find a building with more character anywhere. It still has a very powerful energy and immense authority.



I know I've already bored everyone with my camera talk, but my shots at Ta Phrom would have been so much better with a wider lens. Oh well. Perhaps an excuse to come back.








What? I didn't say anything....



Inner most chamber of Ta Phrom. KimHour said all of these holes used to have giant diamonds in them. I guess Lara Croft must have snatched them already. I'm not 100% sure I believe KimHour. I read something somewhere about holes and bronze panels but I guess its kind of cool nobody really knows. Maybe the holes used to contain gigantic diamond skulls with the blood of virgins inside.






Same tree as picture above, but seen from the outside of the temple grounds.



Main entrance to the granddaddy of them all. Just the moat on this sucker is huge! You should see the aerial photos of Angkor Wat.



Cheesy, yes I know, but how can you resist? My guide KimHour had Ankor wired. Dude knew the exact positioning and framing for all of the trick shots.



Detail of one of the many elaborate and beautiful carvings adorning the walls of Angkor Wat. All of the relief carvings illustrate narratives either from Hindu mythology or the history of the Khmer kingdoms. There's quite literally miles of this stuff stretching along the walls and corridors of Angkor Wat.


Gorgeous Sanskrit writing adorning the walls of Angkor Wat. The stone has been polished smooth over the years by many hands trying to read the elegant script. Can any of my Indian relatives make out what it says? I'm not a Lord of the Rings fan but it looks like elvish to me.



END.