Blog 4
CAMBODIA:
An Ancient Culture
Moves Toward the Future
Cambodia was the final leg of my travels in southeast Asia in the winter of 2014/2015. With its complicated ancient history and its people today trying to shake their recent past, Cambodia was a fascinating country and one that was difficult to fathom. But Teddy's desire became mine to visit the great cultural milieu.
In 1949, Teddy and Peter Olwyler were living in the Philippines, writing articles for any magazine or newspaper that would buy them, running around on a motor-scooter in the jungles with a few of the WII guerrilla fighters of that tropical country where barely four years earlier Japanese soldiers had extracted a horrific toll of cruelty. While in the Philippines, Teddy and Peter talked of traveling to other SE Asian countries. Especially attractive to Teddy was Cambodia, and in particular, Angkor Wat.
Angkor Wat is quintessential Cambodia, and everyone knows it. Though Teddy worked in Thailand at the Cambodian refugee camp at Aranyaprathet in 1980, she was never fated to see Angor Wat herself. I hoped to travel there, to make a pilgrimage, a visit to Angkor Wat for her, and to bring back photos to substitute for her never-to-be-made journey.
Thanks for the inspiration to go, Teddy, for the pioneering spirit you showed that led me to SE Asia and led others from Cambodia to a new, prosperous, and joy-filled life here on this continent.
Enjoy your visit to Cambodia!
...It all started in the dark of dawn when I rode my bicycle 6 kilometers thru the city of Siem Reap into the forests of the Angkor Archeological Park to watch light come to the world at Angkor Wat (Temple).
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I was not alone
A time to be contemplative.
And in the background, I could see the apsaras swaying and dancing
Tourists capturing a self illusion.
   
One of the central courtyard of Angkor Wat...
   
Today, modern technology helps archeologists, technicians and restorers monitor the
structures for shifts and changes to the stone structures.
I spent a few hours in front of each of the bas-relief outer walls of the temples...
The once Hindu culture morphed into a Buddhist way of seeing the world.
The depiction of the Churning of the Ocean of Milk (above and below). This is what I think of as the natural workings of the universe.
  I love temples, archeology, people, cultures. I spent three days wandering in the baking sun, pedaling from one marvel to the next while others burned out early on "...too many temples!" Not I! On to the astonishing Bayon temple complex at Angkor Thom!    Crossing the bridge to Angkor Thom you are judged fit or not by stone guardians and...
...on thru the east gate of Angkor Thom, the complex ordered built by
King Jayavarman the 7th in the 12th century, the last of the major
Khmer empires.
  The central towers are built of faces, some say similar to what Jayavarman the 7th looked like.
The bas-relief of the Bayon temple of Angkor Thom.
   After the long war, there is much restoration
needed.
   
Departing Angkor Thom by the east gate.
On to other temples far and wide, stretched across the lowland plain.
  
The dusty footprint of Jayavarnam the 7th?
    
From Angkor Archeological Park, Siem Reap, you can catch a boat thru the winding birder's wonder of the upper reaches of the Tonle Sap lake, huge in it's dimensions, squalid in its low-water period...like now. The waters can rise 52 feet during the hight of the rainy season, but now they are very low. The hard wooden benches gave my skin "fisherman's but".
Everyone works here and everything is associated with....
 
Everyone waves here, or watches.
Shopping? The store comes to you!
Or, you paddle across the channel to get sugar.
   
Huge cantilevered fishing nets line the water channels.
  
The poorest of poor survive until the rainy season by fishing and planting a few crops.
 
And finally, after the back-crunching, sunburned, fascinating time on a hard wooden bench, the city of Batambang!
 
And finally, on to the capitol, Phnom Pen for an overnight stay before starting the trek back home.
        
Cambodia is difficult for me to figure out: do they want me to be there? Do they wish for me to return? The people are very friendly, but a bit shy. After such long suffering there is a need to open again to the rest of the world. Good luck Cambodia!
Continue on to the "Blog Archives" at the bottom of this page to see the three earlier posts for April (Myanmar), March (Sri Lanka Stage II), and February (Sri Lanka Stage I).
All photos by Michael Olwyler 2014/2015.
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