i didn't take many of the 'obvious' photos of the temples, such as "angkor wat reflected in pool of water," because i already took them a year ago. many of last year's angkor shots are up at MediatedMedia.com. It would be easy to return every year, visit the exact same sites, and still be satisfied with discovery each time. It would be just as easy to spend an entire day or week or longer at a single temple, and necessary to really get a grasp of one.

i sat on this a couple more days to add the annotated maps. mostly useful for my own memory i suppose. "Read More" for the full flow.


Update: All images are working now

the pictures tell very little. it's a depth and perspective thing - all the grayblack stone looks flat and blend without definition. looking at one of the full res shots i can lose myself in the detail for hours, however that may be difficult to do without actually having been there - seeing the overall context of things before focusing on the details.

the temples were almost all designed to face the east towards the rising sun. entrances are usually located at the four cardinal directions, but typically from the east is the 'proper' entrance. one way to experience the temples is to enter as intended by the original design, experiencing a linear progression to the main sanctuary/shrine/gallery in the same fashion an Angkorian(?) Khmer would have. getting the idea of the layout before wandering chaotically towards whatever draws your eye. the more ruined temples lend towards an enjoyably chaotic exploration, approaching sections already visited from a new direction rendering them unrecognizable.

Please please use the comments at the bottom of the article (or poll if this is at all remotely interesting or rewarding to you, or if it is just disinteresting irrelevant 'tourist crap' (this took a long time to prepare and i will discontinue if does not float your collective boats)

we started day one off on a positive note, with a stop at a khmer rouge killing field just outside siem reap. i think losing the blue scalloped trim would be a good first step towards "dignified and proper"

the skulls with the bullet entry holes belonged to the slightly less unfortunate people - most of the killings were administered with wood club bludgeonings. mass genocide gets expensive with all those bullets.

we rented a couple of 'moto-bikes' or 'motos' in siem reap to get around (angkor is enormous even a bicycle is insufficient)

Preah Kahn - "Sacred Sword" - 12th century (1191) - Buddhist

1 - our first temple we sought out was Preah Kahn. it's a personal favorite. it's a large monastic complex, and most of it is in great shape. the interesting part comes in that while one half is restored, the other half is ruined and appears "how it was found." there are some great places to explore and climb. originally a buddhist temple, during a hindu revival period much of it was defaced. this is common at many of the buddhist era temples, with all of the thousands of buddha images hacked out or 'altered' and peppered with lingam shrines. of all these lanterns lining the eastern entrance, you can see here the only buddha that somehow survived the 'repurposing' of the temple.

2 - the main east entrance goes through the outermost enclosure, a huge wall that runs some two miles around the temple. every forty meters or so there a large Garuda figure (seen on the right and left extremities) Garuda is Vishnu's 'mount.' Have i made my comment before about the pokemon quality to the hindu gods' animorphic mounts they retain to ride and fight? each cute yet fierce, their are also one of many of their 'type.' in bangkok some months ago i did see a pokemon clone system featuring a "Garudamon." the causeway passes over the moat, and all the identical figures lining it are statues of demons. on the left side of the causeway are the figures of the gods. they are playing a game of tug-of-war with a giant Naga (sea serpent/spirit/demon thing also serving here as balustrade) over who will rule the universe. it's a popular element reproduced elsewhere. the figures are all headless due to theft over the years. in fact, most the temples were heavily damaged by art theft. i was hoping to do some investigation into rumors i heard of government complicity in current wholesale deconstruction of some ultra-remote temples. old temples = big cash crop. i didn't do it. the three gateways pictured with the beehive looking towers are Gopuras, typically in cruciform alignment with stone vaulted halls connecting them.

3 - this library inside the first enclosure wall was recently restored. most of the temples included libraries, as the monks were the educated forces of civilization. that and an available trained fighting force should the king or secularist government entertain overly ambitious aims.

4 - spoiler: to pass this level you must watch out for the "shifting columns" trap

5 - as hinduism in the region has all but disappeared, the buddhists have made their own statement by placing random buddhas atop the lingam fountains. perhaps this is an attempt to put a lid of serenity on the intense flow of primal lingam energy.

6 - this structure is undergoing restoration. the anachronistic fusion of metal scaffolding and stone temple is hot

7 - a gopura

8 - past the second enclosure wall, it's a straight run through several halls to the main shrine and out the other side

9 - the juxtaposition of nature and structure is impressive. you can see the trees tearing these structures apart, though on an infinitesimal time scale. speed it up and it would be monstrous hands tearing apart the stones. the natural vandalizing the artificial. in many places the roots damage but also protect, destroying and replacing the architectural support with their own. there are some prime examples of this at Preah Kahn

10 - atop one of the ruined halls affords a nice overview of the mostly ruined southern part of the inner sanctum. the tallest tower is the main shrine and series of gopuras lead out in the four cardinal directions, each lined with smaller shrines and chambers in various condition

11 - those geised with the restoration/conservation work seem to make several sweeps. first crudely shoring up the triage "gonna crumble" sections with timber and braces, then piling all the stones in some order, then sorting them in some logic, then piecing jigsaw sections together such as this lintel sitting on the ground. Years may pass in between these phases, and there must be some algorithm to determine the priority/schedule. Eventually they must come in intensively. There are lifetimes of work to do here.

12 - every square centimeter ornately carved. the work took place after the stones were already in place. i believe the system used was similar to keyframed animation, where master sculptors devise and create the outlines and basic forms, then the technically skilled lackeys do the rest. with the stones already in place, there is absolutely zero room for error, and i have yet to notice any obvious screw-ups. the size and number of temples, and the fact that they were all constructed within a three-century span, is remarkable. having slave labor of some sort is one thing (the egyptian pyramids [i know it's disputed if they were really slaves] are one thing), but the sheer number of skilled artisans necessitated who could work the hard sandstone so well is hard to imagine. somebody vandalized this wall with an "architecture" sticker

13 - it also made a nice gift for this khmer girl. like the indian children clamoring for pens, she will probably now hassle tourists for more stickers. such small influences can ripple and spread into significant cultural changes. commodities, concepts, value, desire. more on this later...

14 - the Apsaras or "dancing celestial nymphs" line the "Hall of Apsaras" These are common elements and there are thousands upon thousands of them. in a world of automated manufacturing, we are accustomed to seeing many infinitely repeated forms, images, and items, each being an entirely identical duplication. here you have to turn off those automatic assumptions, because every single one was hand carved and is Unique. one myth that the past two years of seeing so many geographically and culturally disparate archaeological sites has dispelled: that 'natural' or 'indigenous' cultures/peoples living in their "natural state" found sagging natural breasts attractive (like the triangular appendages in all the NatGeo african documentaries.) large round gravity defying nipple erect forms were just as popular; not warped modern aesthetics.

15 - these were some buddha figures until the hindus retrofitted them with beards to change them into sadhus (aesthetic wise men). the different colors, reds blacks and greens on the stone are different varieties of lichens or mosses.

16 - two headless sentinels stood watch outside the south entrance to the second enclosure wall. probably in some private wealthy japanese collection or french museum.

17 - an interior of one of the vaulted halls, near collapse

18 - the northeast quadrant is largely restored and conveys a strong sense of how it would have looked originally. the causeway has been restored as have the Naga balustrades. the end sections that curve up and look like hands are the many heads of the naga, the tail at the opposite end.

19 - this restored two-story structure may have been another library

20 - in the foreground is the head of one of the naga balustrades. Garuda is typically found riding Naga, as he subjugated her in combat. guess he got tired of always being Vishnu's bitch.

21 - after almost three hours of exploring, it was time to get our snack on. fortunately, i had learned with terry the previous year that packing in some basic food was a necessity - it's strenuous work tomb raiding in the jungle under the sun in a low tropical latitude. french colonialism resulted in baguette available from nearly every street corner in cambodia, and la vach quire(?) [laughing cow] cheese spread in abundance.

Neak Pean - "Coiled Serpents" - second half of 12th century - Buddhist

22 - the next stop was Neak Pean. originally surrounded by water with a causeway leading out to it, there is another pool of water at the center with a small island where sits the main sanctuary. the water flows out of this central pool through small channels in the four cardinal directions and into small enclosed shrines, pouring out of a carved head. a lion, horse, an elephant and this human head. from here, it would have poured out from the mouth (and probably still does during the rainy season) into a rectilinear pool radiating away from the central pool. from here it made a 90-degree turn pouring into another pool stretching away to the right (now overgrown). (i believe) this allowed the water to flow in a pattern very familiar to us and fundamental in hinduism, the swastika. the swastika shape reflects the flow of energies through the cosmos, out from the center where the gods live. it is an auspicious and healthy representation of a functionally complex world. the archetypal Symbol of the Sun.

23 - the central sanctuary on the small island, the base of which encircled by two large nagas, their tails entwined

24 - lotus elements are popular, the top and bottom of this and many towers formed to that shape.

25 - i went wandering through the overgrown third pool area looking for a detail indicated on an old map. i found somebody's recent seafood feast

Ta Som - "Ancestor Som" - end of 12th century - Buddhist

26 - We stopped at Krol Ko, not much to see there but some interesting frontons depicting Ramayana scenes. This is one of the entrances of Ta Som, our next stop. if you are really just too unimaginative to appreciate how awesome this is, pretend that the trees are covered in black rubber and imagine some sort of trite Giger cliché.

27 - main sanctuary of Ta Som

28 - a year ago the inner courtyard was a disarrayed mess of disorganized stone piles. all of the surfaces were covered with enormous desiccated ant colonies (some must have taken many decades to accumulate) now it's mostly restored, but also less interesting/unique.

29 - in this profile image of a random fronton resting on the ground, the depth of the carving is apparent. what a boring caption.

We concluded the day with sunset along the causeway at Angkor Wat, but as we didn't have time to explore the behemoth bastion of buddhism at the time, we'll come back to it late-uh.