Banteay Srei, Kbal Spean & Roluos Group

Banteay Srei

Greetings,

Angkor Wat is huge. It is the largest spiritual building on Earth. It is a peaceful mixture of Hinduism and Buddhism. This makes it unique among other reasons. It dates from the 9th-13th Century.

Most tourists dash in, around and through spending four days of their very short existence. They get to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise along with hoards. It's a zoo. They visit the high points: Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, the interior of Bayon and, depending on their time and planning, other temples and areas of interest. 

A day pass runs $20, 3-day pass, $40 and a seven-day pass $60. The week long pass allows visitors the luxury of time (a great wealth) to enjoy the diversity of Angkor during a month. Seven visits in 30 days. I selected this option after visiting The National Museum and various galleries around town to learn about Angkor.

I wanted to go far away. For $25 I hired Pat, a tuk-tuk driver with three kids to feed and we left before dawn. A tuk-tuk is a motorized bike pulling a simple carriage. The air was chilly and refreshing. We reached the main entrance. It resembled a well designed airport immigration section with windows and attendants for the 1-3-7 day tickets. I paid for seven, they took my picture and a girl punched my ticket. Buy a ticket and take the ride. The meter began running.

It ran through deep forests, along empty roads, past forgotten shadows and figures of villagers stoking small red fires for cooking and heat beneath or beside their bamboo or wooden stilt homes. It skirted a long deep reflecting pool at Sras Srang. We stopped for coffee. A brilliant orange ball of flaming gas rose over expansive fields. 

We headed for Banteay Srei, 37 km from town. Objective: get there for early light before multiple buses of tourists.

As I'd witnessed earlier at The Silk Worm Farm, according to my guide there, "The Chinese, Japanese and Korean groups are the worst. They totally destroy the ambiance." Obnoxious Japanese camera idiots posed with a woman and her small boy sitting on the floor chopping kindling. Tourists hid behind dyed silks for funny pictures. They were rude and inconsiderate.

In brief: Srei was built in 987 AD and never a royal temple. Small and intimate, rumored to have been built by women with their fine hands. The carvings of pink sandstone cover much of the temple and the reliefs are deep and beautiful, the most incredible at Angkor. Discovered by the French in 1914, covered by forest and earth.

After Seri we continued north to Kbal Spean. We climbed through forests for 1.5km. This is the source of waters for Angkor and the Siem Reap river. Water flows over 100m of carved sacred lingas and Hindu deities; Vishnu, Shiva and Brahma. The Sanskrit name is Sahasralinga, or "river of a thousand lingas."

Kbal Spean

In the afternoon we headed south and then east of Siem Reap to the Roluos Group, a series of three temples, Bakong, Preah Ko and Lolei, dating from the 8-9th century. Roluos is the pre-Angkor original site. 

Bakong was consecrated in 881AD. The layout follows Mount Meru, five ascending levels, moats, and ten surrounding temples. It was reconstructed from 1936-1942 under the direction of Maurice Glaize, the conservator of Angkor.

Preah Ko, or Paramesvara, "The Supreme God," or Shiva was built in 880 AD. It contains a steele in Sanskrit with an inscription about war, fearsome in battle, flashing swords, and invincibility; a eulogy to Indravarman I.

Lolei, 893 AD. Four brick buildings in poor condition sit on an island above a former reservoir. The lintels, door jambs and inscriptions explaining the construction and divisions of tasks are well preserved.

Srei, Spean and Roluos galleries. Visually articulate.

Metta. 

Moon, silk, kids and water

Greetings,

I've been in Cambodia one month. The year is flying by, away, intent on new and completely unknown possibilities. 

New imagination galleries on the sidebar include:  Siem Reap, Artists and Pagodas, A silk farm (included in Bamboo Monkeys Photo Blog) My Grandfather's House rural school project and a floating village Kampong Pluck, presently high and dry.

Here's a sample. Feel free to explore at your leisure.

Metta.

Boiling silkworm cocoons to extract raw yellow silk. It will be separated into soft and fine threads and dyed using natural materials: banana (yellow), Bougainvillea (yellow), almond leaves (black), lac insect nests (red and purple), prohut wood (yellow and green), lychee wood (black and gray), indigo (blue), and coconut (brown and pink). Cambodian weavers also weave Ikat, a technique creating patterns on the silk threads prior to weaving. It is called "HOL" and there are more than 200 motifs. 

Raw silk on loom. 

Kampong Pluck floating village outside Siem Reap in the dry season. The wet season is July-November and the water level will rise 9 meters, (30 feet).

 Children at My Grandfather's House, a rural elementary school supported by volunteers. It will supplement their local Khmer education. Children will begin with basic English classes. Plans include math and basic computer skills.

Inside the floating world of nature, water, and light. Be light. About it.

Antipodeans

Greetings,

On a fine sunny yesterday Sunday a team of 15 brilliant volunteer Australian teachers from Antipodeans Abroad traveled 50 km into the countryside to visit Kranlanh. This is Kunn's village and the site of My Grandfather's House, being transformed into a small school for local children since last September. 

The teachers' role for two weeks is teacher training with local Khmer teachers in Siem Reap. Thirteen volunteer nurses are busy conducting heath checks and providing medical assistance in local villages.

The teachers stopped in a nearby village and transferred to ox carts. They rolled through villages and into massive open dry and dusty Cambodian fields. Horizons extended forever. Everyone swallowed billowing delicious dust. They were in the center of a huge open plain. Under a blazing sun and turquoise canvas painted with small white clouds they rocked, they rolled, passing villagers harvesting straw for feed. Boys fished in small lotus lakes.

They forded streams as hooves labored, pulling huge mud slicked spoked wheels grinding out a hollow form. They reached the edge of the village and went to the school where they met 50 happy excited children. Teams were formed to collect trash and debris, plastic leftovers, easily discarded. Rubbish, trash and garbage is a real health issue. Everywhere. Rats, vermin and lice prosper. People get sick. 

Anna, a nurse, conducted simple first aid training for some mothers. How to treat open wounds with salt water and protect the wound with a bandage.

After lunch the teachers demonstrated and taught the children dental hygiene; they distributed brushes and paste for the kids to practice - OPEN, brush the top, sides, back, front, rinse and spit. Then they demonstrated and conducted hand washing steps so the kids would learn the importance of simple daily hygiene. They distributed soap, smiles and love.

They gifted kids cloth satchels, pencils and small koala bears. Farewell!

Metta.

Coincidence Plus

Greetings,

Coincidence: an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental.

Two days ago I was waiting for Christina, a 50-year Belgium born French teacher currently teaching at John Hopkins in Baltimore for a day trip to a floating village and forest near Tonle Sap Lake. She'd suggested the idea the previous evening before returning to ice and snow with limited visibility after visiting her daughter in Laos and seeing Angkor Wat.

Kunn, the owner of Jasmine Lodge, walked up to the table with a man.
"He is going with you." "Great," I said, and we introduced ourselves, "Hi, I'm Brian." "Nice to meet you."

A soft spoken man with piercing eyes and gentle manner, laughing, Brian explained his family history. "This is the short version of a long story."

"My grandfather's father came from Switzerland. He was a preacher. He was persecuted and escaped to Italy. He returned and was beheaded. His son took up the cause and was also persecuted. He escaped to Holland. His family eventually moved to England, then Scotland, then Ireland. During the potato famine they managed to get to New York and settled in Arkansas. It was the Civil War and life was hard. They moved west and eventually settled in Fresno, California where I was raised."

We rolled through the flat countryside and reached the end of a long bumpy dusty road where we jumped on motorcycles to reach boats moored in shallow water. We left land, gliding through marshes toward the Kampong Pluck Village. Christina asked Brian about his life.

"I am a poet," he said, " and I am traveling the world for a year on the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship award."

Hearing this I turned in surprise. "What is your last name?"

"Turner," he said.

Mr. Brian Turner. I laughed. "Sure! I know you. Last October when I lived in Ha Noi I read your Home Fires blog post on The New York Times after you visited the Bedlam hospital in London. I wrote a piece about my becoming a ghost after returning from Vietnam. Your essay generated many comments from a diverse range of voices; veterans from all the wars, health care professionals, and the public. It was great."

"It's important to give these people voices," he said.
"I wrote seven poetry books before submitting Here Bullet."

Over lunch he talked about his book, Here Bullet," published by Alice James Books. Brian served a year tour in Iraq and returned to the states in 2004. "I wrote the poems in Iraq. I worked from my notebooks to create the manuscript from November through March, 2005. I submitted it. It won the Beatrice Hawley Award among others. 

"Later, an anonymous person nominated me for the Amy Lowell award. There were 360 poetry books in the competition. One day I received a phone call from the law offices representing the estate. They said my book was selected for the Amy Lowell Scholarship. I was amazed."

Brian received his MFA in writing from the University of Oregon. I also graduated from the UO. Another small coincidence. 

"You're a famous poet!" I said. "Congratulations! And here we are, two writers, two veterans, both graduates of the University of Oregon, meeting on a small boat near a floating village in Cambodia. Long live the creative geniuses!"

Brian reached Cambodia via England, Switzerland, Italy, Turkey and Thailand. His second book of poetry, entitled Phantom Noise, will be published this April.

The three us enjoyed a fine day sharing stories, exploring the village, local primary school, delicious seafood along the river, and gently traversing the amazing water world forest. 

So it goes in the world of joyful coincidence.

Metta.

Brian Turner, right. Two traveling writers and explorers in Kampong Pluck village, Cambodia.

  Explore a natural Impressionist painting.

Faces

Greetings,

Jasmine's grandmother. Such a beautiful face, filled with love, strength and dignity surrounded by family and friends.