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Siem Reap, Cambodia
Cherry ice cream smile, I suppose its very nice
This is the entrance to Bayon Temple, located at the center of Angkor Thom, a once thriving city abandoned in the jungles of western Cambodia and the first of the Angkor sites that I visited. It took me four flights and well over twenty hours of flying (not counting time at paranoid airports) to reach this place, a place that felt truly farther away than any I've ever been.
After entering the temple, sneaking through its bat infested corridors and ascending to its wonderfully steep highest level you find yourself here, face to face (to face) with many a thousand year old Buddha, quite content it seems in their jungle existence.
Some small details of the massive (and terribly intact) reliefs found populating Bayon's outer walls. Many of the sculptures and decorations have faced a less fortunate fate, between invasions by the Thai and Burmese, the religious battles between Buddhism, Hinduism and later Buddhism, as well as invading Vietnamese, the ever brutal Khmer Rouge and nearly constant thievery.
In the center of Angkor Thom (which is pretty much just a jungle now with inquisitive monkeys hanging out on the side of the road), Bayon is best known as the temple with all of the faces. Built by King Jayavaraman 7 (he was no Jayavaraman 6 if you ask me) in the 1200s (I looked that up) when most of Europe was busy hiding from Vikings or whining how cool Rome was a thousand years ago, Bayon remains a personal favorite.
There is a real difference between the photos and actually being there, which of course is true of all photos but somehow feels heightened here. First off is the weather. It was so incredibly hot and humid that all I ever did was hope that it would rain, until it started raining when all I did was hope that it would stop. There’s no way around the weather, and also apparently there is no way around me whining that its hot and humid in the jungle. Go figure.
Despite the weather, there is a real magic at Bayon that is unlike anywhere I have ever been. Even though it’s a thousand (or so) years old and has been seen and photographed by millions of people, it still feels like you’re the first person to see it, that each of those perfectly calm faces was carved all those centuries ago just for this moment.
This is the south gate at Angkor Thom, where even the railing protecting you from the surrounding moat has an awful lot of faces on it.
I think that elephant may be trying to escape. Just saying.
