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Angkor - 2003
Angkor - 2003
Jacek Pałkiewicz2006-06-25 13:29:32
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French colonial forces, the intervention of American troops seeking to ferret out the Vietcong troops that took refuge there, the civil war, Pol Pot’s ferocious Khmers Rouges, and the Vietnamese invasion, all constituted virtually insuperable obstacles, which made it impossible, except for a fortunate few, to visit these wonders. In 1978 the reopening of the sacred temples was announced, but the situation quickly deteriorated. However, since 1993 more and more foreign visitors have come to tour the country.
Though concealed by the extremely dense vegetation, what remains of the Buddhist temple Ta Som, which dates from the end of the twelfth century, emerges all the same. Unfortunately, the walls of the building are partly inclined, almost as if resigned to undergoing the inexorable assault of nature, owing to the weight of the superstructures and to the constant washing away of the soil by the torrential rains. Within the outer enclosure, however, there remains a “prasat”, tower which, still upright, defies the centuries; while clinging to its summit a ficus tree, now a few hundred years old, luxuriates triumphantly in its conquest.
The roots of this monstrous vegetal squid envelop, shatter, but perhaps even support the four silent and timeless faces of the Buddha Bodhisattva Lokesvara. The white tentacles hang, creep, penetrate every crevice, slip out again to wind about the stone head, or descend to close its lips. The imperturbable look and the divine smile, however, could be interpreted as the expression of someone determined not to collapse; so that titanic face-off of nature and stone still has no winner and no loser. I was unprepared for this incomparable vision, so that the combined effect was quite mind-boggling, and even hair-raising; indeed, it was an ideal subject for some work by the great surrealist painter Salvador Dali.
I have loved Angkor since 1972 when, provided with a special pass issued by Unesco, I ventured
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See photographs from:
Cambodia Gallery
