I am back from a trip to Angkor. It is indeed a wonderful experience to see the (ruins) anceint Hindu culture in a South Eastern Country so far away from India.
It all started two months back when a friend of mine told me they are going on a trip to Angkor and Phonm Penh in Combodia. I had visited Combodia Phnom Penh about 8 years back but at that time did not have time to visit Angkor. We were 17 in our group 5 of them children, and the average age of the elders in our group was roughly 60!!
We took a flight from KL to Siem Reap the city where the Angkor site is found. We were met by a guide at the airport whose name was 'satya', a very pleasant gentle man. I was surprised to see the street leading out of the airport lined with lovely hotels on both sides. I had heard in my last visit that in the Angkor area facilities are not much. I was amazed at the improvement. We were put up in a nice hotel in the centre of the city which looks as though it just lives for the sake of the vast number of tourists. It is a bubbling small city which has an Indian restuarant too. Though there is a local currency whole transaction is made in US dollars only. So we all had lot of small denomination like 1 and 5 dollar bills as we did not want to get back the change in the local currency and it might be too heavy ! to carry as one dollar is some 5000 local currency.
Since majority in our group were vegetarian we had told repeatedly we need some vegetarian food. We did get different varieties each day some leaf and vegetable, but managed with some 'podi' which we had carried with us. We did get rice every where and we got some yogurt from the super market also. Since food was included in the package everything was arranged and we got to eat in the Indian restuarant for one day lunch.
Angkor had a great Khmer civilization empire beginning roughly around 8th century AD till 14th century which saw the peak in 12th century when the king Jayavarman VII built big temples and buddhist shrines. Many other kings also contributed to the building spree in the Angkor.
The kingdom ended as it was over run by the neighbouring Siam (Thailand) and the capital shifted to more safe Phonm Penh . All these things got lost to mankind due to the buildings covered and ruined by tropical forest and vandalism by greedy men but luckily restoration started from the middle of last century by French who were occupying the country. But some of the artifacts were taken (stolen? ala Kohinoor) by French and we were told some of them are displayed at the famous Louvre museum in Paris. Combodia got independence in 1953 and the restoration work continued. But unfortunately during the terror regime of the tyrant polpot all work stopped for 10 years and now the restoration work is progressing in leaps and bounds thanks to the site being declared as a world heritage.
we were told by the guide that in ancient times, there were three great civilization in Asia, India in south asia, China in the East and Combodia or Kambhoja as it was called, in the south East Asia.
Indeed it does seem it is true when one completes the tour of the anciet ruins in the Angkor area.
2 comments:
Did you feel at home there, as if visiting a city in India?
Apart from the difficulty in good veg food, that is.
Initially I thought Indian kings had conquered the country. But later I understood the kings were of combodian origin who followed hinduism and indian culture. So it was like visiting another country highly influenced by India.
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