Temples galore!

I clambered around ten temples in the two weeks I was in Cambodia. All different, all impressive for different reasons, all decaying to varying degrees although quite remarkable in how well they have withstood the elements for so long.  Some stood out for their intricate decorations, the pink or orange hue of their stone, the symmetry of their towers; others for the tranquillity of their moats, their mysterious carved faces or their immense size.

Angkor Wat, for example, is enormous. It is, in fact, the world's largest religious monument. In the 12^th century, the city of Angkor was the capital of the Khmer Empire and is known to have been the largest pre-industrial city in the world with a population of around one million, at a time when London’s inhabitants numbered a mere 50,000.

Yet, there was something very poignant about all the temples. They represent such grandeur, such immense power, all the wealth of times gone by, but are now just decaying relics of the former glory that was once the Empire of the Khmer people. Cambodia is now one of the world’s poorest countries with about one-third of its people living on less than one dollar a day.

 
 












Most of the workforce are
employed in subsistence farming. The Mekong River provides fertile fields for rice production but the government is also one of the most corrupt in the world and many thousands of people have been evicted from their villages as the government has received bribes for granting land to foreign companies keen to exploit resources. It is little wonder that parents prefer to send their children to sell postcards at the temples rather than to school.

So, where Kings once sat fanned by dozens of servants and watched ornately decorated elephants parade past, now tree roots twist and strangle beautifully carved doorways, rubble lies in piles where it has fallen, weeds creep over stone walls and beggars live amongst the ruins hoping to cadge a few cents from tourists most of whom know and care nothing of where they are except to get their photo taken in front of a tree they have seen in the movies. At sunset up the hill they totter in their silver dresses and high heels, cameras dangling, to get a photo not of the temple at the top but of themselves. ‘Me, somewhere in Cambodia’ the captions, if any, will read.