Traveling Ds Days 7 & 8, Part 1: Thousand Lingas, Reclining Buddha & Preah Khan
Phnom Kulen National Park, a sacred stream, a steep climb to reclining Buddha and a crumbling temple that once had over 100,000 staff.
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Preamble (Wedding Festivities): The Traveling Ds Head Southeast
Traveling Ds Day 1: Khao Sok National Park
Traveling Ds Day 2: Phang Nga Bay
Traveling Ds Day 3: Chiang Rai and Blue Temple
Traveling Ds Day 4, Part 1: Chalermchai Kositpipat’s White Temple
Traveling Ds Day 4, Part 2: Doi Tung gardens, Ban Dam House, Goddess of Mercy and Lalitta cafe
Traveling Ds Day 6, Part 2: Bayon Temple and Ta Prohm
Traveling Ds Days 7 & 8, Part 1: Phnom Kulen, one thousand lingas and Preah Khan
Traveling Ds Day 8, Part 2: Banteay Srei, an astonishing man, and good bye!
]]
What I came to realize as we made our way through Cambodia is that Buddhism and Hinduism were like two siblings in a love-hate relationship. The more they try to forge a separate identity, the more enmeshed they get, caught in each other’s force of attraction. Our trip to Phnom Kulen and Preah Khan strengthened the case for this thesis.
Phnom Kulen National Park is 30 miles north of Siem Reap, a couple of hours drive. Our guide Rain arrived early on Day 7 with the van and driver. It was going to be another hot day, so he came laden with cooling supplies. About thirty five years old, with a young son and a wife in the hospitality business, Rain projected a bubbly energy that didn’t fade with the heat as the day went on. Our charioteer on the other hand remained a total mystery, with not a word other than an occasional utterance in Khmer to Rain.
We drove through scrubby landscape with swaths of fenced off areas on either side. The surroundings got greener after 90 minutes or so. We were nearing Phnom Kulen mountain. The van climbed up the mountain on a winding road through dense woods, with occasional vendors waving us down to sell water or snacks and bananas.
Despite our early start, a makeshift parking near a view point was already full of vans and cars. Mysterious medicinal roots and dried herbs were on display at a small stall, promising vitality, longevity and other virtues. A brief walk took us to a cliff, a sheer drop off of a stony mountain ledge. Influencers, mostly young women in high heels and pouty expressions, stood dangerously close to the edge in search of the perfect shot for their followers. The brisk wind made a mess of our hair but it was a nice break from the growing heat and humidity.
After a brief stop for a mandatory photo-op, we drove on to our next destination, Kbal Spean, a rocky river bed carved with a thousand lingas. These are symbols of Shiva, and represent the re-creation of the Universe after Lord Shiva’s cosmic dance that destroys the world in an eternal cycle of destruction and remake. The other two figures in the Hindu trinity, Vishnu and Brahma, along with numerous gods and goddesses of Hindu divinity were also featured prominently in the carvings. The river had been diverted by King Udayadityavarman II in the 11th century to flow over these carvings commissioned by his predecessor King Suryavarman I to sanctify downstream Siem Reap river.
The water’s constant movement and the play of light and shadows made it hard for us to spot some of the carvings. Rain, our guide, threw pebbles into the stream and yelled: “There, there! Look there!” After several minutes of this we finally managed to spot the reclining Vishnu as well as Brahma sitting on a lotus coming out of his navel. The conception and execution of these extensive carvings dating back to the 11th century were quite remarkable. (Links to Wikipedia included as always.)
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We waded in the waters a little and then hiked upstream to a small shrine near a bridge that gives the name to the area, Kbal Spean, which means “bridge head”. Surrounded by festive umbrellas, the shrine itself was quite small as is the norm for Buddhist shrines, just a little a stall on stilts, perhaps 4 feet by 4 feet, but its location at the headwaters gives it special significance.
Rain hustled us on, to stay on schedule so as to get the bulk of our sightseeing done before the heat got too intense.
We drove further up the mountain, this time on a busy road and came to stop at a large, paved parking lot where a school had just let out. Groups of children in school uniform crossed the road. Some were barely 14 years old but drove motorized two-wheelers with two to three younger children clinging to them on the pillion. Helmets seemed optional. But the joy at the end of a school day is universal and the kids chattered and skipped across the road, happy to be released from the confines of classrooms.
A paved path to the temple was lined with shops and vendors and led to a long flight of wide steps of the Preah Ang Thom temple, famed for a reclining statue of Buddha. The layout with sculptures on either side of the wide steps and vendors hawking their wares of flowers and incense were highly reminiscent of Hindu temples in India. The concept of a reclining deity too was most likely derived from anatasayana, the representation of Vishnu recumbent on the infinite serpent Adiseshu floating on the Milky Way. The presence of a Shiva Linga in front of Buddha’s shrine made the Hindu-Buddhist coupling even more prominent. Another flight of stairs, this time much narrower, took us to the famous giant reclining Buddha in a sanctum filled with murals. A steady stream of devotees passed by the deity, justifiably impatient as Rain took a photo of the Traveling Ds.
Our final sightseeing stop for the day was a series of water falls. To get there we had to drive midway down the mountain where another small short hike and a knee-challenging descent down steep ladder-like metal stairs brought us to a lake formed by the pooling waters at the foot of the falls. It was crowded with non-Cambodian tourists, swimming and splashing in bathing suits. A little detour over a small bridge took us to a vantage for photo-taking. The viewing point, probably known only to insiders like Rain, bordered on a bohemian camping site. We elicited stares from the campers, which we returned with equal intensity.
As we climbed back up the ladder-stairs our knees were once more put to the test. On the way we ran into a former teacher of Rain. While they confabbed under a tree in French, we walked back up to the parking lot where our van waited. Rain bounded up behind us and announced it was time to drive to our lunch place.
An hour’s drive took us through small villages clustered along the single road. We were surprised at the number of large signs for roasted pigs (whole) confirmed by pigs rotating on spits in what seem to be people’s front yards. These small compounds also had verdant gardens with banana and papaya trees and red hibiscus bushes spilling over the low walls.
Our lunch spot was surprisingly large, with tables arranged in neat rows, most of them meant to seat large groups. Rain whispered our vegetarian needs into the ears of a hostess and disappeared to lunch with his van driver buddy. We placed our order and looked around at the prim and tidy restaurant. Soon large groups of college-age tourists (late teens) started to arrive and filled up the big tables in an instant. Our order of fresh coconut water, vegetable fried rice and vegetables in red curry arrived speedily. The food was good, and the restroom, my bête noire, was super clean.
Another hour’s drive brought us back to the doorstep of our hotel, for our last evening in Siem Reap. After Rain and the inscrutable van driver departed, we freshened up and made a beeline for the hotel’s cafe which served us the most amazing dark chocolate cake with orange mousse, and excellent coffee and tea. We closed Day 7 with a brief trip to the night market to pick up the clothes we had purchased and given for altering two days earlier, and a middling dinner at a nearby Punjabi Dhaba.
Day 8 started early since we wanted to see Preah Khan and Banteay Srei temples before being dropped at the airport for our flight back to Singapore. I will defer Banteay Srei to my next and last post about our Thailand and Cambodia trip, and focus on Preah Khan for the rest of this post.
Once upon a time more than 100,000 people were part of the Preah Khan complex, a thriving Buddhist temple and university built in the 12th century. With the loss of royal patronage it fell into disrepair and nature took it over. We had to cross a small moat via a ladder to enter the complex. Like the Bayon temple, a long path lined with sculptures on either side led to Preah Khan, a temple in ruins. Yet, the majesty and the sheer artistry and aesthetic sense of its creators were in evidence. Carvings of gods, nagas and apsaras, embellishments, stupas, and a seemingly infinite stretch of carved doorways still survive.
The pendulum of Hindu-Buddhist power struggle was manifested in the defaced statues of buddha carved into niches held aloft by garudas. There was no evidence of any archaeological restoration at this site.
The heat started to ramp up once more, and the tourists rushed back to their vans and cars. We too hurried and joined them. A large pond we passed by was covered with algae, yet another sign of the passage of time that dims the grandeur of many an edifice of past.
