9 - 15 January 2008

The dream

I'm having a wonderful dream. A dream I never want to wake up from.
I realise that I'm dreaming, but I don't want to know. This dream is too marvelous to step out of, a dream come true. Still I will have to open my eyes. Later, don't think about it now.
I dream about a phenomenal city, built of sandstone, laterite and teakwood. A city of palaces, temples, pagodas, monasteries, large water reservoirs, teakwood houses, sandstone streets embellished with impressive statues and huge palm trees.
The buildings are massive and spacious, composed in geometric patterns and symmetric circles.
Every wall, ceiling and door is artistically decorated, displaying scenes of kings, battling armies, religious symbols, Hindu and Buddhist legends, and daily life events. One of the high terraces is very special, featuring life-size elephants seemingly walking right out of the wall.

Some temples consist of dozens of towers, most of them sporting four Buddha-like faces oriented toward the cardinal points. The eyes are downcast under lowered lids, the mouths smiling serenely.
I have to step aside to let a row of real elephants pass. Red satin blankets embroidered with gold cover their backs, a mahout leads the animals to another place.

There is no traffic other than elephants and human beings.
Exotic music sounds from one of the temples. Between the identically carved columns I peep inside and see some fifteen women perform a gracious dance, exactly following the musicians rhythm. The dancers seem to be carbon copies: they look exactly alike, wearing the same make-up and costume.
The temple glitters due to the golden Buddha statues, vases inlayed with precious stones and gracefull ornaments. Then my attention is diverted by a delicious odor penetrating my nose. In one of the huge kitchens a formidable buffet is being prepared for tonight's celebrations, honoring the king. I turn around and bump into a lion, which is very lifelike but fortunately hewn from stone. From a smaller temple, near to one of the largest pagodas, I hear the murmur of monks reciting prayers. At one of the squares four boys are playing with an old fashioned spinning top which starts its fast spin over the tiles after a fierce pull of the rope.
The town is alive, people are everywhere, things are happening all over the place, yet still the atmosphere is serene. This is a special place, where you can walk around for days and not be bored for a second. There is only one place like this in the whole world.
This dream town.
If I could only stay here.
But, unfortunately I have to leave. This town doesn't exist, I am dreaming. I have to return to reality.

I am awake and find myself in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
With a fresh three-days entrance pass in our pockets, Peter and I cycle into a mysterious forest at twilight. After peddling through a hurricane of cicadas we arrive at the first monument. We park our bicycles and walk towards the entrance of Angkor Wat, the world's largest temple, which shows her majesty in the soft orange glow of the setting sun.

We are quiet.
I am back in my dream, relive all of it, smell the food aromas, hear the playing children and the music, watch the elegant dancers and fumble the cool stone lion. This is the town of my dream, it still exists, but now as a World Heritage Site. The children, musicians, chefs and dancers have turned into tourists, swarming antlike through the richly decorated hallways and buildings.
We step onto the ancient paved entrance road, which leads across the moat to the huge temple. Even at some distance the entire horizon consists of Angkor Wat.
I feel happy.

The Khmer empire had its heyday from the 9th until the 12th century AD.
During this period kings, who were regarded are gods, showed their power by usurping large parts of Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. The Khmer, or Cambodians, were extremely powerful, economically, agriculturally, culturally and military. In this period the former capital of Roluos was abandoned. A new capital was needed, one reflecting the allure of the mighty empire. This new capital was called Angkor, literally meaning 'sacred town' or 'capital'. It became the political, administrative and religious centre of the kingdom, where 750.000 people lived and worked. The capital's main temple was called Angkor Wat.
It's one thousand years later now. Angkor Wat is still standing. In its heyday it was the world's largest religious monument. Now, January 2008, it still is: a dazzling part of an even bigger complex of seventy monuments in two-hundred square kilometres.
Our three-days entrance pass is insufficient to visit every building, temple and ruin. During one evening and three long days we see the thirty most special monuments; we cycle over one hundred kilometres, from temple to gate, from bas-relief wall to pagoda, from monastery to engraved terrace and on to the next monument.

We are deeply touched by the artistic architecture of the pyramid and lotus shaped towers of Angkor Wat and the six-hundred metres long wall containing bas-reliefs from floor to roof, depicting the creation of the world, scenes from heaven and earth and mythological wars. A work of art of exceptional class.

Angkor Thom makes an everlasting impression, its highlight being the Bayon: a temple consisting of 49 towers of over ten metres high, showing an almost enigmatic Buddha-like face on all four sides.
And we're completely fascinated by Ta Prohm, a complex of temples and monasteries only partially recovered from the jungle. Giant figs, kapok trees and banyans hold large parts of the temples in an iron grip. The roots of one of the strangler figs, thick as a human, snake in all directions like lava flows. Sometimes they keep the stones together, in other places they push the immense stones apart, like thin porcelain. An entrance gate is completely overgrown, the tree gently left the entrance free. Another tree seems to grow on and out of a temple roof; the weight must literally be squashing, but the tree seems to push its roots against the ground in order to lessen the pressure on the building.

Here a dream wedding is taking place, between culture and nature.