The Visit - Day 3

Day 3:
After two tiring days, we started little late on the third day. First we drove to Pre Rup. This has been the crematorium for the common people. (The Leper King Terrace has been the royal crematorium) Strangely, this complex, apart from towers for washing the body and burning it, has a shiva temple in the second tier. Again steep steps. They too have had the tradition of taking the ashes of the cremated body in small urns and keeping at home for ancestral worship. This complex seems to have been badly destroyed by the treasure hunters. The heads of the lion statues and beautifully decorated pillars are all stolen.
From there, we headed to Beantey Srei. A temple which highly resembles the Hindu temple architecture. Mainly because this temple was not built by kings but by a brahman. Right from the entrance, every doorframe depicts a scene from hindu mythologies like Bhagavatham, Ramayana, Krishna Leela, Shiva Purana etc. One could also see the ‘Nrisimha vadam’ in one of the door frames. The complex has 2 big lilly ponds on either side of the temple. Most of the temples have either 2 or 4 ponds surrounding the temple. Also the stem of the lilly plant is used as an important vegetable in cambodian delicacy. This temple has more been used as a library rather than a temple.
Then we proceeded to visit Beantey Samre. This is a temple “for warriors”. (samurai ??) This has been a ‘hari-hara’ temple - union of saivam and vaishnavam. A doorframe depicts lord Vishnu relaxing on the snake adisesha in the sea of milk. The temple has 3 praharas. The first prahara has 4 small sanctorums for Shiva. The second prahara has 4 sanctorums for Vishnu. The third and the inner most prahara has one sanctorum, which is bigger than others and has housed the statue of Hari Hara. But no statues are seen now. All are replaced by Buddha statues.
After this, we had plans to drive to the the Mebons and Thommanon. But my wife was feeling sick and we decided to go back to the hotel. In the evening we went to the see the “floating village” on the lake Tonle Sap. This lake is very interesting. It is a ‘big’ lake. It is formed by the river Mekong which starts from Tibet and flows thru China, Myanmar, Thailand, North Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam. It runs for about 4100 kms before joining the south china sea. Inside cambodia, the river forms a lake. This lake is about 160 kms long and 40 kms wide. One end of the river lies Siem Reap and in the other end lies Phnom Penh. There are ferry services between these two cities. It is a 4 hrs journey by lake. By road it takes about 7 hrs to travel between these cities. The floating village has been formed by the illegal immigrants from Vietnam, who fled Vietnam during the war and those who lost their limbs by landmine blasts. There are about 20000 people living in this floating village. They’ve got floating houses, shops, garages, a diesel station, a hospital, a school, restaurants and even a crocodile farm. The boat ride to the village is for about an hour. The boat takes us thru the village waterways. When the boat is halted at the middle of the lake for the tourists to take a good view of the surroundings, we could see small boys (mostly maimed) sitting on a small aluminium vessel, rowing with hands or a ladle, come near the boats and beg. It is really sad. I was talking to the boat driver and he said that many people born here have never seen the land before they died. Their life runs more on diesel than on blood. I was wondering if their life will ever change. We are calling ourselves a ‘civilised’ society. [This is indeed a complex situation. Cambodia is facing the same situation what Tamil Nadu is facing now with refugees from Sri Lanka. I dont know what we can do for these people and how we can overcome this situation.]
The day ended with such a poignant note. The sun had already set and we didnt feel like visiting any other place after this depressing boat ride and went back to the hotel. There are still many more temples to visit in the Angkor region. It seems atleast a week’s stay is needed to visit each of them and enjoy the richness of the heritage and culture. But even this short visit has made a permanent mark in my memories. I can never forget those 3 days. The hospitality of the cambodians is just too good. They have a brotherly affection towards the Indians. As an Indian, I was feeling proud that our ancestors had reached such distant lands from Myanmar to Vietnam. Later, after Gautama Buddha, people have shifted to buddhism. Lets talk about this in our coming blogs.
The next morning, we packed our bags and started our journey back to Singapore. The return flight was little longer as the flight had a transit at Da Nang, a coastal city of Vietnam, for an hour. Going back home by taxi, Singapore, though an ultra modern city, seemd to have lost the ‘human’ touch.

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