angkor wat

Angkor Wat.

With over one thousand temples ranging from anonymous piles of stones to magnificent complexes and covering 1,000 square kilometers of area, it is no wonder that Angkor is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The name Angkor Wat, meaning monastery city, precedes all the other temple complexes in fame, as it is the largest and most frequently visited.  These temples were built by various kings, who anointed themselves "god-kings," from the ninth to the thirteenth centuries as dedication to themselves and a holy place for transition into the afterlife.  I guess the lesson here is that no matter if you're Egyptian or Khmer, you crave everlasting fame and respect and fear unknowable death so such a degree that you must have awe-inspiring buildings constructed in your honor and protection.

One of the more interesting piece of history that I learned from our guide is that throughout the four centuries of temple construction, the religion changed back and forth between Buddhism and Hinduism.  Therefore, when a king took power and held a belief different than that of the previous, he would command the destruction of previous images and statues and replacement with those of his own.  Thus, some temples were repeatedly destroyed to become Hindu then Buddhist and then Hindu again.  The surprising element is that I've always thought of Buddhism as the benevolent religion and that its follower would not endorse any act of violence or destruction, something which is more reflective of Christian followers, at least in the American media, who come across as narrow-minded people who do not respect anyone who differs from themselves.  I repeat - I am referring to the Christians generally seen in the American media, not all Christians in general.

Perhaps most people are inherently narrow-minded and egotistical:  they believe what they want to believe and want everyone else to do the same, what is it that they actually believe in is irrelevant.  I don't know if this is true. 

What I do know is that all religions have resulted in stunning creations of art - paintings, buildings, music, and writings - so much so that Angkor Wat was jam-packed with tourists from all over the world.  To provide services to these tourists and an additional method of income to Cambodians, temple tour guides are increasing in number, rising to approximately 2,000 as the time of my journey.  These are officially trained people with knowledge of Angkor who have studied a foreign language.  And just as all things, the laws of supply and demand are in order.  The two languages most in demand are Russian and Korean; hence these tour guides command a greater fee.

As I walked through Angkor Wat and bumped into tourists (I do mean physically bumped) from all over the world, mostly China, Japan, and Korea, I realized that a quiet moment to reflect on the significance of being in this holy and artistically inspiring location was hard, if not impossible, to come by.  Don't let my images fool you; the number of people was up in the thousands:  long waits of up to several minutes and some strategic cropping on Photoshop were necessary to capture these fictitiously solitary shots.

The religion at Angkor Wat is Hindu, its legacy splendid, and my respect undying.

robes of buddhist monks

"you got that surgery after all?"

don't wear a scarf in angkor wat