Angkor Thom

The city has four doors, linked by two roads that meet in the middle, where the temple of Bayon is. The Bayon Temple is the temple of smiling faces you see in all the photos of Angkor. It's beautiful and famous, and my advice is that you to take a guided tour to understand a little more about the history and beliefs surrounding it. Each door has a bridge that's over a moat, which is a place where there's water that offered protection against invasions. Inside the enclosure is also Angkor Wat, the Terrace of the Elephants, and Bang Thom. It was an incredible visit!

The great Khmer period lasted roughly six hundred years from 802 to 1432. Jayavarman II initiated the period by unifying many of Cambodia’s cat-fighting kingdoms. He spelled-out in great deal what Angkorian civilization would look like and what its internal logic would be.

Jayavarman declared himself a devaraja, or God-King, specifically a representative of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. For Jayavarman and subsequent Angkor rulers, the temple represented legendary Mt. Meru, the heavenly home of Hindu gods. For Indian Hindus, Mt. Meru was the Himalayas; for Jayavarman it was Phnom Kulen, 40 kilometres away from today’s Angkor Thom. Each following king built his own temple – a beautiful amalgam of spiritual submission and assertive ambition – symbolizing the god’s abode on holy Mt. Meru.

Indrayarman II (877-89) began the first great wave of Angkor construction – the Roulous temples located a few kilometers away from the walled Thom and the first stages of an intricate irrigation system based on barays or reservoirs which watered Khmer lands for centuries. Indrayarman dedicated Preah Ko and Bakong temples to Shiva and for the first time employed more durable sandstone in their construction as opposed to the previously used and less architecturally-sound brick.

With Preah Ko, the essential layout of Khmer design began to take shape. As stated, the temple had to resemble the mythical Mt. Meru. In the design, a central tier-based tower represented the mountain and at its summit four doors, representing each compass point, enclosed a sanctuary. As time passed, the designs became more ambitious and included grand causeways adorned with balustrades of mythical serpent creatures, called Nagas, entry towers and elaborate courtyards flanking the central tower.

The Golden Age of Khmer civilization crystalized with the reign of Suryavarman I (1002-49). History remembers him for two reasons: expanding Angkor to include central Thailand and southern Laos and the promotion of Buddhism whose sculptures began to grace some newer temples’ floors.

Rival factions sprouted in the following decades until Suryavarman the second further unified Cambodia and extended his rule to Malay and Myanmar. He built Angkor Wat, the ostentatious centerpiece of Khmer identity; but in breaking with tradition, the king dedicated it to Vishnu, the Hindu protector god.

Although Angkor Wat represented the apogee of Khmer civilization, signs emerged that decline lurked around the corner. For one, the hydraulic system started to strain under demographic pressures: overpopulation and deforestation began to literally suck the grounds dry. Also, in 1177, the Chams of southern Vietnam rebelled and sacked Angkor, burning their wooden buildings and plundering their treasures.

The last great king of Angkor, Jayavarman II (1181-1219), drove the Chams out of Cambodia and added the final pieces to the golden Khmer mosaic. Following the Cham devastation, he fortified his new city, Angkor Thom, with a massive, 12 meter-high wall and deep, 100 meter-wide moat ensuring that Khmers would never feel vulnerable to a surprise attack again. In the centre, stood Bayon, the magnificent state temple. Jayavarman II also organized the construction of other famous temples, including Ta Prohm and Banteay Chhmar. More controversially, Jayavarman adopted Buddhism as the state religion and dedicated himself to Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.

From there, Khmer went into steady decline. A combination of internal squabbling and the expansion of the Siamese Ayuthaya Empire precipitated the fall. The Khmers eventually moved their capital to Phnom Penh, the temples largely left to the elements.

I don’t do hype. Travel writing is notorious for undue hyperbole. Yet when describing the experience of witnessing Angkor’s towers for the first time, no magical metaphor or apt adjective can do it justice. Walking down the sandstone causeway, past the ancient libraries and carved images of Vishnu, across the sacred pools, towards the central tower, the Hindu’s Mt. Meru, one cannot help sense approaching something divine. The construction of this site, however, was very much a human affair. It is said that it took 300 000 workers and 6000 elephants to complete Angkor Wat; the giant sandstones were mined from holy Phnom Kulen and were floated down the Siem Reap River.

Three storeys, enclosing a square, compose the central tower complex. Three towers rise from each storey, giving the structure a spiritual unity. Every inch of the fabled temple is covered with complex Hindu and Buddhist iconography. Whether playful nymphs, the Apsaras, cheeky devils, the Asuras, or multi-headed serpents, the Nagas, these wonderfully detailed carvings will make you wish you had brushed up on your Hindu mythology before arriving. Around the outside of the central temple, stretches an 800 meter long series of bas-reliefs. These etched panels detail epic events spanning everything from Hindu legends to Suryavarman II’s great armies.

In the morning, we stand in the rain, our flimsy one dollar umbrellas already broken, waiting for light to explode behind the towers. We take turns seeking refuge underneath trees, while more and more people file to the pond’s edge desperate for the most photogenic spots. And when the bright pink light methodically breaks through the heavy clouds and washes over the morning sky, igniting the towers as if they were sticks of dynamite, a hush falls over the crowd. Everything is dark and light. And we don’t care which way it settles.

Less grandiose, but equally spectacular, Bayon stands nearby. Bayon lacks the symmetry of Angkor Wat and from a distance its 54 Gothic-esque towers look like over-flowing rock ice-cream cones. The scene is much more chaotic and disorganized, more labyrinthine and disorienting. It is only when you enter its narrow corridors and climb its steep staircases does the typical Khmer lay-out unfold. At every turn, huge smiling faces, the compassionate Avalokiteshvara, stare and shadow you around. They permeate power and a megalomaniac will – chilling in their ubiquity, they appear to have been an ancient surveillance technique. Like Angkor Wat, bas-reliefs decorate Bayon’s walls, each telling another epoch of Angkorian history. The panels illustrating the Cham advance and retreat are particularly striking.

When I enter Ta Prohm, the atmospheric and shadowed temple swallowed by the ruthless jungle, I remember Siem Reap’s Christmas lights. Trees stalk and strangle the crumbling walls like a python tightening its grip, like an octopus’ tentacles smothering a crab. Massive roots slide and slither across the once grandiose corridors like a spider’s web stickily and silently enveloping space. Moss sucks at the sandstone. Dead leaves lie on piles of disused blocks. The jungle eats away. The forest reclaims its space. And as we step over the forest’s muscular, unrelenting clutch, we understand the natural order of things: of rising and of falling, of the impermanence of now and of the inevitability of darkness.

Angkor preaches the only historic truth: Things Will Fall Apart.