An Introspective Angkor Wat
I did not travel directly from Laos to Cambodia. I stayed with my friend Heloise in Bangkok for a few nights before flying into Siem Reap International Airport. Arriving by night, I gazed at my own reflection in the light of the bus window as we drove into town. Siem Reap would not reveal itself to me just yet, no matter how much I tried to look past my own eyes, nose and mouth. It was waiting I think, until I was ready.
Cambodia. A country I had been dreaming about for a long time. There was a childhood bucket list activity waiting for me here: Angkor Wat—the largest religious ruin in the world. You see, I spent many evenings in my teens wading through travel books, circling the places I wanted to see most, finding them on maps and sticking these maps to my wall. I had a Lonely Planet: 100 Most Amazing Places to Visit type book, and there, in the number 1 spot, was Angkor Wat. “One of the most inspired monuments ever conceived by the human mind”. Well, that’s one way to convince a teenager that she has to go somewhere - especially if that teenager was, like me, a massive nerd. Angkor Wat has always been there, floating around in the back of my mind. Beckoning me from far away. All of a sudden, I was closer to it than I could have ever imagined, and I entered Siem Reap with such eagerness and excitement that I hadn’t even realised that I’d left my bank card in an ATM in Bangkok.
As you approach Angkor Wat, you will first be greeted with a wide moat. This moat represents the ocean. It surrounds the temple, and to cross it, there is an old bridge, crafted in sandstone, in keeping with the entirety of the ruin. Beyond the moat stand the pillars, gates and passageways of this incredible Khmer creation. The temple represents the Earth. It is a microcosm of all earthly life. More than simply a religious Mecca, the site once housed hospitals, libraries, and homes, all dispersing out from the temple’s core. It was a community.
I arrived at the temple in darkness once again. We could just make out the terraced spires beyond the moat. Our guide, Chong (whose name is actually Chong, and if you go to Angkor Wat, you should absolutely seek him out as your guide because he is brilliant), gave us all some free time to explore the perimeter of the temple in advance of the sunrise. I settled into a corner nook of one of the ancient libraries and sat in witness as the sky tested out its palette of early daylight. From cornflower blue to peach to tangerine, the pastel sky came into view and brought with it Angkor Wat itself. I rested my head against the ornately carved sandstone while the cockerel sang out in the distance; he, too, was now aware of the rising sun.
The longevity of the structure that held me came into focus. I was sitting amongst sandstone which had taken residence here for over ten thousand years. A structure which had endured through millennia, grounded so firmly on the Earth that even the Khmer Rouge could not destroy it. A temple and an Earth, surrounded by a moat and an ocean, with its sights on the sun and with it, the heavens. I could concur, Angkor Wat was indeed one of the most inspired monuments conceived by the human mind. I nestled further into this nook I had found on the side of the library, imagining myself becoming one with it. I wanted the roots of natural overgrowth to encumber me until I, too, was an ancient piece of relic, carved into sandstone, able to withstand the changing conditions of time.
I returned to Angkor Wat two days later to witness the setting sun this time. I sat in solitude once more, in a doorway which framed the view perfectly. It was at the top of quite a steep flight of stairs, and so I remained undisturbed despite my location. My own little temple, as it were, hidden away, where I could just be. I thought about the journey I was on, already four weeks down. Memories and ideas refracted in the glow of the setting sun. But my thoughts were interrupted by a phone call from a friend back at home. Ben. A work-bestie. One who had, funnily enough, lived in Siem Reap for two years. It seemed like divine timing. I picked up.
It was a Sunday morning for him, and he was just opening his laptop to start working. As my sun set, his was rising. The same big ball of light, departing my life and entering his, providing us all with our fair share. Hearing his voice was comforting. He felt like the perfect person to share this moment with in an odd way, even though we were not much more than friends from work. I knew he could understand where I was, even if he wasn’t there. I updated him on my life, and he updated me on his. He’d been promoted, and he’d found a new house. He and his wife would be moving in within the month. I was so unbelievably happy for him. He was so unbelievably happy for me.
We spoke a little about life in general, too.
“I don’t know, I’m so happy to be doing all of this in London, you know, buying a house, settling down. But sometimes I wonder, is this all life is?”
He continued.
“I lived in Asia for eight years, and you realise when you’re there, as you maybe are now, that the things you care about at home, they don’t matter as much as you think. And it’s so easy to get all wrapped up in these things when you’re back in London. KPIs, mortgages, and tube times. But out there, life is just happening, and it's not all good, but people figure their way through. You don’t find yourself sweating the small things so much.”
It took thirty-seven years to build Angkor Wat, six hundred thousand men, and six thousand elephants. It took remarkable vision, unbridled passion, and extreme hard work. I found myself chuckling a little internally when Chong told us this. Here I was on that first visit, longing to infuse some of this magnificent temple’s essence into my own lungs in the hopes it might give me some power of endurance. Forgetting that I was the only person working on me, and she had only twenty-four years of experience. Forgetting that I was not made out of stone, but flesh, water, muscle and bone. Forgetting that I was not built for stillness, but for motion. Built to bruise and bleed, but also built to heal. Built to nestle into nooks, not to become them. Built to run, float, and fall. Built to travel to places like Angkor Wat, to live them, and also to leave them too.
And leave I did. It was odd walking away from that temple for the last time, a place which had once seemed so out of reach in my life, but had quickly become somewhere deeply personal. Angkor Wat is particularly intriguing to historians because, unlike most temples, it faces West and not East. It faces the setting sun and not the rising one. Some scholars believe this to represent a connection between the temple and death, debating whether the structure was in fact built as a potential tomb for the king who conceived it. I am no historian. But what I do know is this. As I walked away from that temple, I was walking into and not away from the warm glow of the sun. Into the end of one day, and the prospect of another.
