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Siem Reap, Cambodia
He sees there's cattle in the marketplace, scatterlings and orphanages
When the temples of Angkor were first discovered by generally clueless white guys early last century, they found most of the temples in this condition, absorbed into the disrespectful jungle. Trees ignored the finely detailed carved stone walls, termites didn't care and built impressive nests inside moss darkened corridors, bats found the remaining vaulted ceilings a good home and never bothered cleaning up after themselves. Who knows what rogue elephants, tigers and rhinos did before locals banished them to areas frequented less by tourists, remaining monkeys (not to mention guerillas) show up still, claiming the temple as their own. The selfishness of the jungle has its benefits, the ruins have become more powerful even as detached conservation groups grapple over their future- an imminent collapse never looked so good.
Here at Ta Prohm there are even more ruins, more trees, more stone and more bat guano (in this case, guano means crap). Never, never enough... except maybe for the bat guano, one of those smells I could live without experiencing again.
Wonderfully intricate vertical elements have withstood time, thieves and the unintentional harshness of the jungle. Plus, there's also some carved stone to see too.
These are towers at the North Gate at Angkor Thom where (supposedly) Khmer circus folk walked between towers on wires to entertain kings. Today the circus folk (along with the 100,000 people who once lived here centuries ago) or nowhere to be found.
This is the view from Banteay Kdei, the citadel of chambers, where the view includes that (somewhat) distant mountain on the far right where all of the Angkor stone was actually quarried.
Here at Preah Khan, the walls and most of the statue have stood for 810 years, although the head is now somewhere else. It is remarkable how well preserved the site and temples are all of these years and decades and centuries alter, although it still kind of breaks your heart a little to see any of it missing due to straight out greed.
No more quotes from Angelina Jolie, no more over written descriptions, no more complaining about the weather or the bat guano or temple fatigue- just some last Angkor images, scattered from many sites across stone and moss and jungle and time.
