angkor wat

siem reap, cambodia

huge temples, you might already know that. to take a trip behind the music is to have a somewhat greater appreciation for the architectural/archaeological accomplishment that lies in this edenic, jungly swamp. to save you an afternoon of reading some dense tome of indecipherable names or even the quick trip to wikipedia, i've got the history right here for you.

basically, angkor wat is a huge complex. think of it as the capitol for the former khmer empire, a millennium ago more or less. so, one guy is king and his nephew, whom we'll call suryavarman II (history remains mum as to whether he had a cape and large 'S' on his chest), is fourteen years old and wants to be king. sounds like a total type-a prick, if you asked me. anyway, the dilemma is solved by attacking his great uncle (who is apparently riding an elephant at the time), bludgeoning him to death, and then receiving the loyalty of the two armies that had just clashed. the problem is that the khmer empire is massive and is always ensconced in some form of tension with the bordering siamese. if any part of the vast kingdom wants to separate, now would be the time. the consequences would be dire. we're talking domino effect here, people. our barely adolescent protagonist has to consolidate.

how? dude wants a huge temple constructed. there are others in the nearby area (this is the capitol, remember), but this must be the biggest, the best, the most holy. and he's ambitious (type-a, remember), so he wants it done in his lifetime. the solution? get a bunch of people (we'll use the term 'peasants', but 'slaves' or 'serfs' are more or less interchangeable) to cut, transport, and set more than five million tons of sandstone into blocks that will form the greatest temple in the land. the effect of such a project will be to reinforce his status as godlike among his people, earn their devotion, secure his legacy, and assure his passage on to a rewarding afterlife.

you see a parallel? so do i. let's go through the checklist:

• built for a guy jealous of a powerful, older, male relative.
• built to fool the populace in order to post-justify the use of armed force.
• built by minions in a humid place no reasonable person would ever want to work.
• build by an insecure leader preoccupied with securing his posthumous legacy.

you guessed it. this is basically the twelfth-century, asian version of the george w. bush presidential library.

if you asked me to be your guide
then i would recommend that you definitely go for the three-day pass to angkor wat. definitely rent a bike. day one, seeing as how you probably arrived late the night before, should start in the late morning/early afternoon and cover the heavy hitters (my guide book says to hit the smaller stuff first.) go to angkor wat first (only one compound is angkor wat, there are several others, but the name for the most prominent has been applied to the whole) and then angkor thom. if there's more time, do more. if not, not. the reason being that the crowds are so ridiculous that you won't be able to tolerate them on a second or third day.

day two: wake up at dawn to catch the sunrise at angkor wat. thousands will gather on one side of the main walkway and a dozen on the other side. join the smaller group. when the sun has fully yawned and stretched, go for a walk around the outside of the compound. all the tour groups go back to siem reap for breakfast and the ones that remain stay on the assigned path, so the grounds will more or less be entirely yours. when you start to really feel the sun, get a breakfast in one of those restaurants with plastic chairs "sir, bottle wa-ta? sir, bottle wa-ta?" spend the rest of the day biking around, getting a cold can of angkor beer from time to time, and-this is key-buy a tapestry from one of the stands (us$6.) when you get tired (you woke up around 5, remember, plus you biked about ten kilometers) lay that tapestry out and listen to your ipod in the shade of a temple.

day three: sleep in, you're tired. no need to do so much ascending/descending of temples, unless they're empty. go deep into the complex, make sure you bike that circuit. i certainly would never do such a thing, but i imagine one could, assuming one were of the disposition, get a takeout slice of happy pizza to enjoy just before sunset. again, this could be heresay.

soundtrack
it's midday. any sunlight that is able to penetrate through the low-lying, rapid-moving cloud cover is caught by the tall foliage above. there is a gentle wind. your shuffle playlist comes to "take care" by yo la tengo and the gentle strums set a rhythm to the serenity around you. the soothing voice, the sliding guitar, the lyrics so simple so as not to distract you from the nothing that is happening around you. breathe in. breathe out. this feels good.