02 May 2024

Cambodia

We offer a wide choice of cheap flights to Cambodia together with Cambodia hotels, tours and self-drive itineraries.

Other Asia Reviews

Temple of secret smiles

Less than 25 years after the savage rule of Pol Pot ended, Bel Mooney finds Cambodia returning to it's roots of gentle culture.

1 Temples at Angkor Wat 2 Bel Mooney at Angkor 3 Bayan smiling Buddha

THE BOY HAD GENTLE BROWN EYES and looked about 13. He told me his name was Pir. I didn’t really want somebody taking me around the great temple of Angkor Wat but how could I refuse such a guide?

As he pointed out this carving and that, in surprisingly good English, he mentioned sadly that his parents had been murdered by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge.

It didn’t take a mathematician to work out that this was hardly possible. The Khmer Rouge ruled between 1975 and 1979, killing at least a million people, obliterating all intellectual, professional classes and stamping out pre-revolutionary culture. The dates didn’t fit.

I couldn’t blame Pir for attempting to gain my sympathy. Perhaps he meant his grand-parents and, in any case, the legacy of Pol Pot continued its destruction long after the regime was overthrown. Once you have smashed a civilisation to a heap of broken fragments, it takes a very long time for it to rebuild.

Pir is just one of many who can now make an innocent coin or two from the burgeoning Cambodian tourist trade. I was glad to make him smile with a couple of dollars.

Sublime achievements

It’s ironic that we tend to associate the word “Khmer” with horror instead of with a great civilisation. I wanted to banish the image of “the killing fields” from my mind by finding out more about the other Khmers. From the 9th to the 14th centurys the mighty Khmer empire ruled much of what is now Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. They were warriors but great builders, too, and some of their creations, such as the fabled temple of Angkor Wat where I met Pir, rank among humanity’s most sublime achievements.

I felt I might expunge the 20th century image of heaps of skulls by seeing for myself the secret smile on the famous Buddha towers of Angkor Thom.

With no time to visit Laos I began my trail in Northern Thailand because I was in Bangkok for other journalistic work and because it was easy to fly up to Buriram - the base for visiting the Khmer temple of Prasat Phnom Rung, one of the finest in Thailand.

Buriram is an attractive little town, right off the tourist trail. It’s easy to hire a taxi for the drive to the temple complex.

The Khmer word “phnom” means hill and it’s easy to understand why they built their temples on hills approached by complicated causeways, steps and platforms. It is as if the building becomes a stone mountain. Khmer architects responded deeply to the symbolism of the mountain: the higher you get the closer you are to heaven.

Wandering across the bridges edged with many-headed serpents towards the red sandstone terraces I felt I was indeed crossing from Earth to another place. The temple glows in the heat, unfolding in building after building, linked by doorways with fantastically carved lintels and posts, telling stories from Hindu mythology.

One of the lintels here has become the most famous in Thailand and raises an uncomfortable issue of how the Western art market has plundered temple sites for treasure. When restoration began in the early Sixties this particular stone, showing the god Vishnu reclining on the back of a dragon, was lying on the ground. One day it was found to be missing. It turned up in the Art Institute of Chicago, having been “acquired” by an American art foundation, which means stolen and bought by a dealer.

As the rebuilding of the temple neared completion in the Eighties, Thailand demanded its return. After complicated negotiations it was brought back in 1988, to great rejoicing. When I see antique Buddhas and other sacred figures on sale in smart galleries in England, I always wonder where they have come from and if they should be there.

Wonders of the world

I thought prasat Phnom Rung was unbeatable - before seeing Angkor, the magnificent Khmer temple complex which is counted as one of the wonders of the world. I travelled to Angkor via Bangkok, flying to the small airport of Siem Reap.

Angkor topped my wish-list of places to see and the discomfort of a nasty tummy bug wasn’t going to stop me from seeing all I could in just three days. My taxi driver from the airport was keen to be hired on a more permanent basis and, at £12 a day, it seemed a good idea.

Tourism in Cambodia has increased dramatically, bringing employment and a desperately needed boost to the economy - and a threat to the fragile, priceless ruins.

In 2001, about 130,000 visited the sites but by 2010 this is expected to have risen to 850,000.

I saw people climbing all over the stones, touching the carvings. No wonder UNESCO says it is one of the most threatened World Heritage Sites.

Most people think of one name, Angkor Wat, but in fact there are ten “groups” of temples, adding up to more than 35 sites to visit. I let the driver decide the “must-sees” and to start he picked the last capital of the Khmers, Angkor Thom.

This mini-city was the centre of the Empire and, within the city walls that still stand, lived King Jayavarman (1181-1220) and all his court.

Walking across the causeways flanked by huge stone gods and demons, exploring the Terrace of the Elephants and looking up at the astonishing towers, it is easy to imagine why Angkor Thom was referred to by all its visitors in the ancient world as “an opulent city”.

At it's heart was the wonder I had so wanted to see: the twin temples known as The Bayon. On 54 crumbling towers are carved vast faces of Buddha -or are they portraits of the great Khmer king himself?

A visitor in the Twenties wrote: “The faces with slightly curving lips, eyes placed in shadow by the lower lids, utter not a word yet force you to guess much.”

Smile of Angkor

These represent the famous “smile of Angkor”: a philosophical acceptance that whatever we do in life, the end is inevitable and we must accept fate without struggle.

It’s so overwhelming you run out of adjectives. What is it about ruins that so fascinates us? When I saw the little Temple of Ta Prohm, all but strangled by nature, I wanted to cry out with the delight of it all.

Foliage snakes around carvings, trunks split masonry and birds squawk out their mocking message that we shouldn’t be so arrogant because Nature will always assert her power.

That brings me back to Pir and Angkor Wat itself. I could write reams about the exquisite carvings at Banteay Srei, a series of doorways leading to infinity at Preah Kahn, but always my mind returns to the vast replica of the universe in stone which is Angkor Wat.

Its size defies description rising as it does in layer after layer, like an elaborate cake. Studies show that when the Khmers laid out the temple, distances between certain architectural elements reflected numbers related to Hindu mythology and cosmology. It’s easy to believe because the whole thing is so rich and complex.

You reach the upper layers by impossibly steep steps, which I found terrifying. Yet from there the layout reveals itself, a breathtaking spectacle of harmonious proportions.

Pir took my hand near one of the dizzy edges. What will become of him and the hordes of children who crowded around selling bracelets?

I imagine they will find work in the many hotels that have sprung up in the once-sleepy little town of Siem Reap. After a day in the temples you can eat well, watch vividly costumed Cambodian dancers and hang out in civilised piano bars. All this brings employment. The bell hop at the Sofitel told me he earns £48 a month and loves his smart uniform. Thus are lives transformed by tourism, even if monuments are threatened.

Also in Siem Reap you can visit Les Chantiers Ecoles, a school founded in 1993 to teach the old skills of carving which had all but died out after the Khmer Rouge massacres.

In a sense, this is my happiest memory. There were busy young Cambodians getting the training they need to support their families and rebuild the country - by making truly beautiful objects to sell to tourists. I tottered home with bracelets and wrap-skirts I didn’t really want, bought from the children at the temples - as well as a stone head of Buddha, a wooden standing Buddha and a silk cushion and dress, all bought from the Chantiers Ecoles shop.

Why not? There’s more to travel than ruins. Helping (in a small way) to rebuild a once-great Empire matters, too.

0330·100·2220i 0330 calls are included within inclusive minutes package on mobiles, otherwise standard rates apply. X 0330 calls are included within inclusive minutes package on mobiles, otherwise standard rates apply. X