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Ta Prohm - February 2003 |
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I can only describe Ta Prohm as "majestically decayed." Since the jungle has not been cleared away, as with the other temples, its condition is quite close to what it looked like when re-discovered by the Europeans. It is my favorite out of all of the temples. |
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The pathway becomes rougher and strewn with debris as it approaches the main gate to Ta Prohm. |
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This is the entrance to Ta Prohm. The pathway takes you about 100 meters to the outer wall of the complex. |
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Once through the main entrance, there is a quiet courtyard just before the inner temple complex. |
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My guide explained that this building was used to dispel sins. You enter, stand against the wall, and then hit your chest with your fist. The thumping echoes rise up through the roof, giving absolution. |
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The old man in the previous picture and this one is named Nien. He was featured on a Lonley Planet cover. More importantly, at his claimed age of 88 years old, he was one of the few elderly people in Cambodia that had survived Pol Pot's purges. I bought a small statue of Ganesh from him (as you can see from the gap in the three remaining statues to his right). |
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Entire trees grow out the temples, splitting the stone like butter, on a geologic time-scale, of course. |
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"I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
-Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" |
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This photo give a sense of scale to the previous one. I am dwarfed by the roots of the tree which grows from one of the stone wings of the inner temple complex. |
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