ANGKOR WAT Date: Early 12th century (between 1113 and 1150) with later additions Style: Angkor Wat Reign: Suryavarman II Capitale and state temple dedicated to Vishnu It combines two major features of the Khmer architecture: a pyramid and concentric galleries. The pyramids were built by means of stepped terraces, the center represented the Hindu universe (Mount Meru) SYMBOLISM The moat represents the mythical ocean surrounding the earth and the galleries the mountain ranges that surround Mount Meru, the home of the gods. The towers represent the mountain´s peaks. Unlike other temples, Angkor Wat is facing West instead of East. One of the explanation is that Vishnu is associated with West. It is a break with the tradition! BANTEAY SAMRE Date: first half of the 12th century Style: Angkor Wat Reign: Suryavarman II continued by Yasovarman II about 15 km away from Angkor The design of the main tower is like Angkor Wat THOMMANON Date: first 12th century
Style: Angkor Wat Reign: Suryavarman II It has the typical layout of a single towered temple of the period. A main tower connected by a short corridor to an antichamber (mandapa)
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BANTEAY SREI Date: 2nd half of 10th century (967) Style: Banteay Srei Reign: Rajendravarman About 30 km away from Angkor, at the foot of the Kulen mountain. It means Citadel of the women or Citadel of Beauty. It was built by one of Rajendravarman´s counsellors and is The jewel of Khmer art because of the rear decorations. It was a real disappointment as we could not go near the temple. It was the only temple in a very good state with great lintels and pediments. We could only see a part of the carvings, some information are missing. We could have spent hours in Banteay Srei, but it was such a tiny temple and so packed... We decided to leave after 1 hour visit. BAPUON Date: middle of the 11th century (1060) Style: Baphuon Reign: Udayadityavarman II Enormous temple mountain, five tiered pyramid. Bapuon style: naïve, episodes are divided into panels, to be read from bottom to top. It includes scenes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Its chief interest is in its bas relief panels: tiny scenes carved in small panels representing animals, duels between warriors and men fighting animals. More on Ramayana and Mahabharata: Ramayana: Major Hindi romantic epic tracing the effors and adventures of Rama (one of the earthly incarnations of Vishnu)to recover his wife Sita, who was kidnapped by the demon Ravana (multi armed and headed demon). The Khmer version is the Ramker Mahabharata: Major Hindu epic written between about 400 BC and 200 AC with a central narrative of the feud between Kaurava and Pandava dynasties 10 days in Siem Reap 7 days visit about 150 km by bike. We started the day with a breakfast at our local street food vendors and then we went to visit temples ! We enjoyed everyday! We present the temple in a chronological order. We started our visit with the temples located outside Angkor. We dedicated our time to Angkor Wat on 5th day. The very first temples were built in 6th century: either they are destroyed or they are just a ruin. THE ROLUOS (15 km from Siem Reap) Preah Ko (sacred beef) Late 9th Century (880) Style: Preah Kho Reign: Indravarman I Brick temple with 6 towers and lime mortar decoration Indravarman I had his temple dedicated in honour of his predecessors. It shows that Indravarman I was ruling over the lands of these three kings. - The middle tower was dedicated to Paramesvara: the supreme lord. - The towers North was dedicated to Rudresvara, the protecting divinity of Kind Rudravarman, his maternal grandfather. - The tower S was dedicated to Prithivindresvara, the divinity of his father (King Prithivindesvara). The 3 towers behind were dedicated to the principal queen of each king. Bakong Late 9th Century (881) Style: Bakong Reign: Indravarman I State temple of Indravarman I at Hariharalaya, the capital utilized by Jayavarman II at the end of the 8th century. It is the first significant temple mountain. It appears that it was previously constructed in laterite possibly built by Jayavarman III and finished in sandstone by Indravarman I (last work). The temple is dedicated to Shiva. LOLEI
Date Late 9th century (893) Style: Preah Ko to Bakheng Reign: Yasovarman I Lolei was an island temple, Indravarman I started building Lolei and Yasovarman I, his son completed the project. Lolei means “stay of Harihara”(Vishnou and Shiva). Unfortunately the temple is in mixed conditions: either damaged or parts are missing. (no picture) Phom Bakheng Date: Late 9th century to early 10th century Style: Bakheng Reign: Yasovarman I The first state temple of the first city of Angkor Yasovarman I moved his capital from Roluos, langer than the later Angkor Thom. It was centred on on the isolated hill (Phom Bakheng). Bakheng imitates the temple of Bakong at Roluos. The name of the divinity and the temple was Yasodharesvara – the Lord of the one who bears glory. It was abandoned after 928 but briefly rehabilitated in about 968 by Jayavarman V. On the top of the Pyramid: 60 shrines arranged symmetrically around all the five levels. In 16th century there was an attempt to build a large seated Buddha with sandstone blocks taken from the towers. One of the biggest Buddha´s footprint in Asia. We saw people worshipping and donate money but skip the visit of the temple! The temple is in a poor condition mostly damaged. PRASAT KRAVAN Date: Early 10th century (921) Style: Bakheng to Koh Ker Reign: Harshavarman I The temple is dedicated to Vishnu. East Mebon Date Middle of the 10th century (953) Style: Pre Rup Reign: Rajendravarman The huge East Baray (reservoir) that surrounds East Mebon was built half a century earlier than the temple, by Yasovarman I. It was needed to guarantee a regular water supply for his new city: Yasodharatataka: the reservoir of Yasodhara. A stele engraved with Sanskrit poem that declared it under protection of the Ganga, the goddess of India ´s holy river Ganges. PRE RUP Date Middle of the 10th century (961) Style: Pre Rup Reign: Rajendravarman I East Baray, the state temple of Rajendravarman. A bit of history .... After Jayavarman IV ´s reign whose capital was away from Angkor, at Koh Ker, there was a struggle for succession and Harshavarman II, one of his sons, took power. But he died a few years later and his cousin succeeded him, re establishing the capital at Angkor. Rajendravarman chose the East baray as the site for his capital and Pre Rup was built at its centre. Pre Rup is a temple mountain and means turning the body. This is a cremation rite and the existence of a stone cistern has prompted the legend of a king accidentally killed by the gardener of the sweet cucumber. Two towers were added later, probably during the reign of Rajendravarman´s son Jayavarman V. Srag Srang _ Date: mid 10th century, remodelled late 12th century or beginning of 13th century Style: existing structure Bayon Reign: Rajendravarman then Jayavarman VII Srag Srang means royal bath and now paradise for cows! After Thailand Cambodia was very different in terms of organisation, infrastructures. We arrived in the countryside which reminded us so much of some places we went because of the garbage all over the place and burned and the animals walked freely in the villages. In terms of landscape, Cambodia is a flat country with paddy fields, scattered coconut trees and Khmer houses and lots of rivers. Travelling through the country is quite monotonous! The road system is quite simple: all the roads go to and through Phom Penh. B O P H A N A What about history? Cambodia still needs some time to recover from colonialism (French colony: 1863-1953), imperialism (Cambodian Civil war 1970), dictatorship (Pol Pot regime 1975-1979) and Vietnamese invasion (1979-1989). Since 1992 Khmer people came back to their country and tried to start from scratch. To learn about the history, we went to Bophana Audiovisual Resource center. (www.bophana.org). Rithy Pahn a filmmaker and founder of the centre collects images about the Cambodian history. It took 10 years to convince authorities to open the centre. We watched documentaries, films, news especially about 1970 – 1975 and after 1992. It turned to be my second cinema in PP, I spent hours there even though it is not an easy cinema. It was about the Khmer genocide and Pol Pot regime, killing, starvation, the destiny of families or people who died or survived the regime and the trials in 2009. Bophana: Love in the Time of the Khmer Rouge http://bophana.org/boutique/1284-2/ Duch, Master of the forges of Hell (2012) http://bophana.org/boutique/duch-master-of-the-forges-of-hell-2012/ S21, the Khmer Rouge Killing Machine (2002) http://bophana.org/boutique/s21-the-khmer-rouge-killing-machine-2002/ After each session, once outside the centre, I looked at people old enough to have lived in 1975 and wondered what they did during that time: which side were they 40 year ago? It was a strange feeling. Life style People adults as well as kids work hard and long hours, they always have a closed face. It was not easy to have them smile. If you meet a person several times and also make some efforts to speak Khmer, the attitude will change. It takes time. We managed to eat all the time at the same places or buy at the local markets some coconut cakes, the vendors welcomed us differently after a while. Hammocks are very present in a Khmer daily life, they hang everywhere where it can be fixed. It replaces cradles, chairs or bed at night especially for tuk-tuk drivers. A tuk-tuk serves as bedroom, a bit more comfortable than a motorbike. A funny things are the bike for kids. It seems to us that families buy one bike for one child for their whole life or there is only one bike for the family and kids ride it even it four times bigger than them! Eating habits: it is very easy: Cambodians eat constantly, it is maybe a hobby! They do have two hours break for lunch! 7am local restaurants are full and people eat a portion of rice with meat or soup. They eat everything spiders, worms and any kinds of bugs. They do have sweets such as coconut cakes, pumpkin, croissants and baked stuffs, most of them shapes are different but things taste the same! We are experts as we tried everything from a bakery!!! Generations live under the same roof, in a small room or flat in the city. Unfortunately we did not succeed of finding a volunteering job in the countryside without being asked to pay at least 6USD a day per person! What Khmers love as most of the South East Asian country is karaoke. We had the opportunity to go but we did not sing... Cambodians who were with us, were really talented!! It was a fun night! We had the chance to immersed three weeks in the capital life while working in a cinema owned by a British expat. During the day we explored the city during the day and we adapted to the busy city life style after spending two and a half weeks in quiet place Otres beach 2! Our job was dead easy pressing the start button to play the movies and to cuddl the cat Eddy! What was more complicated was to cope with the management and the Khmer employee. At the end everything went well and we enjoyed one or two films per day! We started our day with a nice breakfast either at the bakery round the corner or at the central market where we bought those delicious coconut cake! Then we watched a movie or did some sightseeing (palace, S21). We had to be back for our shift, 3 hours of work per day and on weekends a bit longer. From where we lived we had a good observation point at any time of the day. Most of the scenes occurs on the pavement! Street 130, 34 – We were not in the most touristic street during daytime but evenings! On the left side Morning next door men gather to chat and drink Mekong wine accompanied with dried fish. Only Önder was invited and he accepted once but at the end he had to pay!!! LOL Lunchtime is like in France from 12 to 2pm: almost everything is closed and people have a lunchbreak. Nothing happens until 2 or 3pm. Afternoon: the drinkers of the early morning left the place. Around 2pm a couple installed a couple of tables and chair and sold some fried food tasty and spicy! Evening: Around 6pm the couple finish work and the drinkers went back for 2 hours. In front of the cinema and next door (right side): a motorbike shop surrounded with bar girls. After three weeks, I could have contacts with our neighbours (right hand side), mostly smile, greetings as they do not speak English. They start their day at 4pm (make up and eating) and depending on the day stay longer outside if there was no customer. They look very young and we really want to communicate more, we had to face a language barrier. At night the streets were not that empty as some people sleep in the street either on motorbikes or in hammock such as tuk tuk drivers, kids begging for money and sniffing glue, people collecting carton boxes or cans have to sleep on the floor, they cannot even afford a hammock, motorbike shops who cannot closed so vendors installed their beds in the street in the middle of their bikes etc and of course tourists… Later at night streets were quieter and the girls next door sometimes were crying in silence with their teddy bears in their arms. During three weeks it was our daily life, it was like a theatre and we soaked up in the atmosphere of the Street 130. We recommend the German movie "Same same but different" based on a true story. The action takes place in Phom Penh and it deals with a German guy who travels in Cambodia.. |
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