Kingdom of Cambodia in life: Angkor Wat, the Bayon, Preah Khan and Ta Prohm~

“”There is a place so pure and true, beyond your deep and restless thoughts you'll find an imaginative longitude for dear shelter, completely lost in time... It's made of love, of magic dreams, where you can be yourself and free... Where roses of white and scarlet bloom...tranquility, waves kissing shore... A place you'll never want to leave, a place for dreamers to believe... So, spread the wings and let your soul fly up high and reach your castle in the sky.””

Oksana Rus: 

                       

 

As I pick through images, I have chosen to focus and share some of the elements~ I can only say this about Cambodia: I felt like a child being re shaped by my environment, being re-tuned to a different level an awakened level. I cant believe how much I’ve changed since I left.

As children we were shaped by our parents, our surrounding’s, other siblings, teachers and mother nature. This is where we all started as infants on the on the floor crawling to look, walking to touch, viewing with our eyes with one goal to absorb life to follow what made us take that first step.

Under the canopy of  humid air Cambodia held me tight.   Whether floating around the capital of Phnom Penh or towns or the provinces in Battambang, Sihanoukville, Siem Reap or Kampong Speu, It was, as all the paths that I seemed to cross were known to me. I never felt uncomfortable or out of place it was always this is the place I should be at this moment~ What I recall, what I received was more then an image…

 

Again when I say we all started as infants and being shaped by our parents, our surrounding’s other siblings, teachers and mother nature, here walking around barefoot it was amplified by the millions.  The teachers are everywhere they were/ are the trees, the red ants, they are the men and women selling food in the make shift stalls, they are the monks that I’m sitting with, they are the children that are leading me and following me, they are the dogs that lick your legs or fingers as they pass you, they are the cows that migrate across the road to warn you to slow down, they are the broken stones that were once part of building, walls or a grand Wat that has fallen into ruins. I had so many questions floating in my minds eye. 

The how and why I cant answer, the because it is just what it is, is not enough.  While here in the moment I had collected a few broken tiles from the walls of Wats, a few pieces of the what was once part of the stone steps that I had climbed up, I have pulled flower petals off flowers that caught my eye, I have marked up a few notebooks with scribbled notes, keeping a few bottle caps that had my favorite number on it, pocketing broken sea glass and heart shaped rocks as well as other relicts that were on my path and got consumed while strolling, walking or just sitting watching life pass. The thing is that as much I as lifted, as much as I handled, as much as I took in, what I left I feel was more. Much much more.

Important facts and Tid bits:

Cambodia (i/kæmˈboʊdiə/;[8] Khmer: កម្ពុជា, Kampuchea, IPA: [kɑmˈpuˈciə]), officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia (Khmer: ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា, Preăh Réachéanachâk Kâmpŭchéa) and once known as the Khmer Empire, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia.

Temples of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon ... The remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/668

The park is inhabited, and many villages, some of whom the ancestors are dating back to the Angkor period are scattered throughout the park. The population practices agriculture and more specifically rice cultivation.

Criterion (i): The Angkor complex represents the entire range of Khmer art from the 9th to the 14th centuries, and includes a number of indisputable artistic masterpieces (e.g. Angkor Wat, the Bayon, Banteay Srei).

Criterion (ii): The influence of Khmer art as developed at Angkor was a profound one over much of South-east Asia and played a fundamental role in its distinctive evolution.

Criterion (iii): The Khmer Empire of the 9th-14th centuries encompassed much of South-east Asia and played a formative role in the political and cultural development of the region. All that remains of that civilization is its rich heritage of cult structures in brick and stone.

Criterion (iv): Khmer architecture evolved largely from that of the Indian sub-continent, from which it soon became clearly distinct as it developed its own special characteristics, some independently evolved and others acquired from neighboring cultural traditions. The result was a new artistic horizon in oriental art and architecture.