Cambodia 2007, Angkor Thom

2007-1-11


I did not do enough home work before taking this trip, and therefore, was not prepared on what and where to see some important points in the temples. This had the advantage that what I saw was a complete surprise to me. Some tourists were having a guide book on their hands, and read as they walked. It was like they were in an orienteering trip. I compensated my ignorant about the place and Hindu story by taking a lot of photos, and then found the explanation in the books at home. It prolonged the fun of taking the trip, and it was like the regurgitation process. Korean has probably made large contributions in the restorations and the maintenance of temples in Angkor. Their languages appear in many of the notice boards, and many businesses in Sean Reap also have Korean signs.

Catching fish in the early morning in the moat

There was a nice straight road leading to Angkor Park which contained many of the sites built in ancient Angkor time. The driver said that the cost of the land along that road was cheap before, but now, it was very expensive. The road had fancy lighting. They sold different passes for one, two, and three days visits. And we bought one for 3 days at the cost of $40. The ticket booth was modern with all the latest technologies. Photo was taken and printed on the pass. Later I was told that only a small portion, probably 5-10%, of the revenues was used for the restorations. Most of them were taken up by the management which was controlled by the Vietnamese. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 and installed a puppet government. I didn’t know how much control they still had on this country. And I didn’t know what role the UNESCO was playing now.

Tutut in Seam Reap

Tutut was the favorite means of inexpensive transport by tourists. It was a cart towed by a motorbike on a hitch. There was no brake in the cart, and it was dangerous when going down a steep slope. When the bike brakes suddenly, the cart’s momentum will push the bike and caused accidents. When we were in town, a driver was drawn and a foreign tourist was injured in this kind of accident over a bridge.

The south gopura of Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom was the capital city founded by the famous king Jayavarman VII at about late 12th century. It was a square in 3 km on each side and was enclosed by a moat and 8 m high laterite wall. It was the first site we visited in Angkor, and it was unforgettable after seeing the 23 m height South Gopura (gate with tower) with triple towers. A mystery smiling face was carved on each of the four sides of the towers. The same face appeared in all towers in the temple. And it was believed to be the face of the founder of the city. At the base of the gopura, there were carvings of three headed elephants plucking lotus leaves. There was a wide moat surrounding the city. The causeway crossing the moat was lined on each side by a stone balustrade depicting many giants pulling a seven headed serpent. The giants on the left hand side (west) were the kindly looking gods, and on the other side were the fiercely looking auras (demon). I found that the side view of the serpent head resembles the head on the tower at the gate, and faces of some of the auras were not all fearful; one was smiling and the other was like a clown.

The Bayon temple inside Angkor Thom

The central tower

The damages in the central tower

Inside the city, tall trees line on both sides of the straight road. The driver told us that these tall trees were found only in Angkor, and not in other part of the country. There were many temples in Angkor Thom, and today, we would visit Bayon Temple, the central state temple of the king. Soon we arrived at a large parking lot with stores and restaurants in front of the temple, and saw the most enigmatic and powerful religious construction in the world. There was no moat and wall near the temple delineating its boundary. The temple was composed of two concentric square enclosures built on terraces on three different elevations. The first and the second level terraces were surrounded by gopura and galleries on all four sides. The gallery on the first level was 156x141 m and on the second was 80x70 m, and both of them were 4.5 m high. The third level sat the large, 25 m in diameter, very steep main tower 43 m height above the ground. The main tower had the shape of a bamboo shoot. The top of the main tower were partly ruined, and the rocks in the remaining bottom part were not piling up straight. Any significant tremour or blow might easily topple it down. There were extended lintel and post structure around the base and the halfway to the top of the main tower, I was not sure if they were used to support the wall of the tower like the flying buttress in the architecture of Gothic churches in Europe..

The same smiling faces were watching everywhere

The main feature of the temple was its 37 large faced towers carved with the similar smiling face on all its four sides, and many of them had the quality of the smile of Mona Lisa The guide book said that a few towers might have more or less faces. Some of the towers had a practical application of being a shrine. The Borobudur was large in its size, but it had nothing to capture the breath of the visitors. In this temple, I was completely overwhelmed by the complexity of the structures, and the numerous faces watching me wherever I was. Many of these large faces were only higher than our head. I kept on thinking of the extensive scaffolding made of bamboo to do the construction and the carving later. My first encounter of this large bamboo scaffolding was in Dhaka. They used it to construct over ten stories office building near my office. I also couldn’t figure out the ingenuity of these people for carrying out these complex constructions probably without the use of papers or drawings.

The arch and roof were mostly corbelled, but there were many simple post and lintel structures. The remain of the curve roof with skirt were not many in the temple. And the narrow skirt of the roof was supported by closely space rows of columns. The lintel and and pediment with beautiful bras-reliefs were also not much remained.

Bras-reliefs of dewata

Bras-reliefs of dancing apsara

There were many beautiful bras-relief in the galleries and on other facades of the temple. Many of them were ladies wearing fancy and towering head dress like that worn in Thai dance, bare breasts with jewelries hanging from the neck to the waist, wearing low skirt exposing the belly button. The skirt was made of heavy materials and hanging straight down without revealing the shape of the legs. It seemed the skirt was held by a wide band of jewelry belt. They were all in standing position and was alone, and many of them were raising one hand up. They were referred to as the dewata.There were also many bra-reliefs depicting gracefully dancing apsara. They were all smiling and wearing heavy head dress and jewelries. Te carving didn't reveal if they were wearing any long skirt, but they had the similar wide jewelry waist belt, and they tucked in bands of wide ribbons at the top of the belt. The ribbon flew as they danced to enhance their gracefulness. The only written story of the life in ancient Angkor Wat was from a Chinese Zhou Daquan who lived there from 1296 to 12797. He mentioned that the queen and ladies were filled with lust. I didn't know if this was a reflection of his own experience or his imagination after seeing too many of these beautiful apsaras. 

Musicians in procession

The bras-relief in the outer galleries depicted in detail and lively the processions and the fighting in battle fields and court life; and in the inner galleries depicted stories taken from Hindu mythology. There were a few panel of foliage in bas-reliefs, and one looked like the statue of Buddha. One reliefs depicted the procession of army lead by a leader riding on an elephant, and he was followed by a group of musicians. And another group of musicians were among other soldiers on the lower panel of the reliefs.I didn't know the distinction between the two groups of soldiers: one were almost naked and carrying spears and the other were not and carrying narrow and small shields.

One was depicting a group of elders with a leader at the middle kneeling. It seemed they were discussing something serious. On the lower panel, there were some apsara dancing to entertain them. There were also princes accompanied by their maidens kneeling in a boats under a canopy. A section of the bas-reliefs had colour, but the colour didn't enhance its artistic appearance.

Panels of Bas-reliefs with colour

Bras-reliefs depicting war

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Cambodia 2007, Phnom Pehn

2007-1-14 to 17

Phnom Penh was a much bigger city than Seam Reap. And it was a more interesting city. UNESCO office was across the street from the palace. The building was freshly painted and looked beautiful. Therefore, it must play a very important role in the country. Its pedestrian walk was as wide as the street or wider. Unfortunately, people used or blocked it. In this sense, Chinese had a much better control.

It was dry season, and we had good weather all the time.There was a temple called Wat Phnom built on a hill 27 m high. According to the legend, a woman name Pehn found four statues of Buddha deposited by the Mekong River during a flood. A pagoda was erected in 1373 to house these statues. And the city got his name of Phnom Penh (hill of Pehn).

The driver took us to the Russian market. I remembered that when we were in Dhaka in 1986, there was a big market where merchants from the East European countries came to buy clothing to be shipped back home. I didn’t know if this market was of the same nature, but there was no foreigners any more.

2007-1-14

The city was located at the confluence of the Mekong, the Bassac and the Tonle Sap rivers; and there was a wide Quay Karl Marx along the bank of the Tonle Sap. Next to the quay was the wide Samdech Sotharah Blvd where the Palace was located.

It was Sunday, and there were many people in the quay enjoying the nice weather. Many of them sit on mats laid on the quay or its grass and had picnic. There were many food and flowers peddlers and there were also peddlers for renting mats. There was a pavilion and beside it were two small temples, and one was crowded with worshipper while the other was quiet and empty.

There were many cages of swallows for sale. In some places the peddlers sold birds for the worshippers to buy and then freed them in a religious ceremony. However, the birds had been trained, and they would fly back to their nest in the peddler’s house. There were also many peddlers selling lotus flowers. They peeled some petals from the bud and fold other petals to make the flower look like in bloom. However, I didn’t see them being offered in the temple or in the river. We bought some lotus pods to eat its seeds. It tasted like young boiled peanuts, and it was bitter if the outside skin was not removed completely. We also bought a big pomelo. We had one before in Seam Reap and they were really good.

2007-1-15

We walked to the Palace in the morning. The ground was a square surround by high walls. We hired a guide, but she did not tell us much. There was a Chinese tour group and the guide was very good in explaining everything. Our guide tried to rush us through, and I showed her of my unhappiness. At the end she admitted that she had to go to the airport, and asked us to excuse her. I was mad and thought of not paying her. She ruined our day.

There were two main buildings in the palace ground. One was for receiving the senior mandarins; the other was more glamorous and was for receiving dignitaries. There was a rule that on each day of the week all people coming to this building must wear cloth of a certain colour. The building that attracted the tourists the most was the silver pagoda. Its floor was covered with over 5000 silver tiles, and it housed the Emerald Buddha and a life size Buddha made of solid gold and decorated with 9584 diamonds. There was an odd silver looking building which did not fit with others in the palace. It was a gift from Napoleon and was used for exhibition. The ground were surrounded by galleries decorated by paintings about the court life. Unfortunately, many of the paintings were damaged.

Like in Angkor Wat and other temples, there were two small white buildings in front of the main building; one was shown in 1723 and the other in 1607 and 1715. They are probably the libraries.

The residence part of the palace was surrounded by another walls and was not opened to public. Sihanuk was not there and he preferred to stay in China. His son was occupying the palace now.

We finished our visit at noon, and walked to a nearby Chinese restaurant for lunch.

2007-1-15

We didn’t have any photos about the art objects in the museum because it was not allowed to take any photos inside. It was a square building with exhibition halls on all four sides. Enclosed was a beautiful garden. It collected Khmer objects.


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Cambodia 2007, Bakong

Bakong 2007 -1-12

The Bakong Temple was built in 881 AD and was farther on the road from Siem Reap., For the first time we saw the country side of Cambodia and its stilted houses. The height of the stilts must be related to the seriousness of the flood. The driver told us that Sean Reap would be under water in rainy season. He drove taxi during the dry season, and took courses in the other season aiming at becoming a tour guide. Most of the houses along the road looked in good conditions. There were many traditional bike with high handle bar on the road. Its rider looked gracious with their back straight up while riding. The road was generally not very congested and the asphalted road surface was smooth and good with no holes. Many cars on the road were extremely overloaded.

The causeway

The naga on the causeway

Like many other temples in Angkor, the temple at Bakong also had three concentric square enclosures and two moats. The outer enclosure was 900x700 m but there was not much remnants left of it. There was supposed to be a moat at its boundary but it was hard to find. The road took us right to the second enclosure. It was 400x300 m and there was a monumental seven headed serpents welcoming visitors at its entrance on the east. The inner enclosure was 160x120 m and was bounded by laterite walls. The space between the middle and the inner enclosures was taken by a broad moat. The main structure in the middle of the inner enclosure was a five levels pyramid and eight brick towers, two on each side. A wide earth causeway connected the east entrance of the second enclosure to the base of the pyramid. At the end of the causeway was a gopura. There was a very narrow hall with balustered windows on each side of the causeway and I didn't know its purpose or usefulness..

Bas reliefs on the lintel of the brick tower

The pyramid was 67x65 m at base and 20x18 at top. The statues of elephants had been installed at the four corners of the lower three levels. There were remains of 12 small shrines on the fourth level. And the top level was 14 m above the ground, and was crown with a 15 m high tower in the style of Angkor Wat. There were five flights of stairs from the gopura on the east side, from the base to the top terrace, and on each terrace there was a lion statue guarding the stair. There were a pair of brick towers on all four sides of the pyramids, and two smaller brick towers, and in much worst shape, at the corner of the west wall, and two pairs of the same buildings at the corner of the east wall. Only some bas reliefs survived on some lintels on the brick towers. The carvings of apsaras carved on the brick walls were also badly damaged.

Brick towers in Bakong 

I had some small talks with a white middle age man, and we talked about Indonesia. He asked me if the Dutch had done a lot of good things in that country. I told him that depended on what point of views. It turned out he and his wife were from Amsterdam. Every year, they took two to three months vacations to travel around the world. They had been in many places. They commented that luckily they did not have children and therefore they could travel a lot. I thought that they were missing the fun and happiness for having GOOD children in the family.


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Cambodia 2007, Tonle Sap Floating Village

Tonle Sap Floating Village 2007-1-13

The last place that we wanted to visit in Siem Reap was the floating village in a tributary river of Tonle Sap (great lake). Tonle Sap was a large lake with an area of 7500 square km during the raining season. When we were there, it was in dry season and the lake had shrunk to half of its previous size. It was one of the world’s richest sources of fresh water fish. To live in such an environment, people who lived on land built their houses on high stilts to take of the changes in the water levels, but for fishermen it was more practical to live in boat houses. All stilted house in this area were poorly built. They were just simple hut made of bamboo and cover thinly with leaves. This reflected the economic situation of the people in this area. Some of the people in the floating village were from Vietnam. The floatation used was mostly bamboo, and I didn’t know if the houses would remain semi-permanently in the same location or would be scattered in a wider area in rainy seasons. Judging from the number of tourist boats and the rest stations in the lake, the area must be popular to tourist.


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Cambodia 2007, Banteay Srei

2007-1-13

Banteay Srei means Citadel of the Women or Citadel of Beauty. It was also known simply as the Lady Temple or the Pink Temple because of the pink sandstones used in its constructions. It was located on the road going to the Thailand border. It was only about 20 km from Angkor, but it seemed taking a long time to get there due to the bad shape of the road. It was asphalted but there were a lot of large and deep potholes. It reminded me of the road going to Kerinci in Padang. I like taking photos from inside the car as we traveled. But on this trip, I could hardly make it. I was surprised to see that some tourists were taking the motor-bike-trailer transport. It was not only very uncomfortable; I was worried that it could easily tip over. Fortunately, I did not see any accidents on the road. Strangely, I didn’t see many trucks at all. The driver said that the section of the road near the border had been re-surfaced, but on this side, the government was waiting some financial helps from Thailand or other countries to complete it. Many manufactured goods sold in Cambodia, like bikes, motor bike etc, came from Thailand. On the road, I saw a man on a motorbike carrying pig-lings in a cage fasten to the back seat of his bike. He took them to villages looking for their foster homes; he would come back when the pigs were ready for helping to solve the hunger in human.

The stilted houses along the road were much simpler than what I saw on the road to Bakong Temple. Instead of wood, they used leaves from nepa palm not only for roofs but also for walls. And the leaves were not thickly overlapped to stop winds and rains. The yards were generally kept clean and tidy. There were many sugar palm trees along the road. The villagers were cooking the sap to turn it into dark brown and fragrant palm sugar, and sold them on a primitive table set up on the road side. We also passed a village where there were many roadside stalls selling beautiful bamboo baskets etc.

Unlike the other temples that we had visited, this temple was not a royal temple. It was built by a king’s counselor Yajnavaraha in 967 AD and was discovered in 1914. Most of the surfaces in all building were covered or decorated with beautiful bras-relief and statues. And it was surprising that there was not much serious damages on them. Many of the bras-reliefs are still very sharp and deep. All buildings were not very tall, and their lintels and pediments were almost on the eye level. It was a photographer paradise.

The temple complex had four concentric rectangular enclosures. The gate or gopura was opened at the east and the west walls and numbered in descending order from outside to inside. The outter most gopura was therefore called gopura IV. Presently, only the gopura on the east wall was in good shape. The wall itself, however, didn't survive and there was no remnants of it could be found. The bas reliefs on the pediment of this gopura showed Indra on his three headed elephant. This gopura was connected to the next gopura by a 70 m long causeway lined with 32 stone posts on both sides. There were two galleries on the sides of the causeway, and they had some interesting bras-reliefs. 

The remaining three enclosures were in good condition, and they were about 1.5 m low walls built by stone blocks. The third enclosure measured 95x110 m, and the other two was 38x42 m and 24x24 m. The third and the second enclosure were separated by moat.The narrow space, about 7 m, between the second and the first enclosure was taken up by two long galleries on the north and south sides, and two pairs galleries on the east and the west side. Looking from the wall of the third enclosure, the whole temple complex was like a miniature version of temples in Angkor.

There were gopura on the east and the west walls of the third enclosure. On the pediment of the Gopura III east, the bas relief showed a scene from the Ramayana in which a demon seizing Rama's wife Sita. We didn't go to look for the gopura on the west wall. We crossed the dirt causeway and reached Gorupa II east.

The inner enclosure contained the sanctuary, which consisted of a mandapa and a row of three towers forming a T. The mandapa was connected to the middle tower of the three towers. At the north-east and the south-east corner of the sanctuary were two libraries facing east. The bras-relief on the pediment of the eastern face of the north library depicted the following story quoted from my book “Indra, God of the sky, riding his three headed elephant Airavata and creating rain to put out a fire on the Khandava forest, created by the God Agni in order to kill the naga Taksaka who lived in the forest. The God asked Krishna and his brother Balarama to help, and they positioned themselves on either side of the forest, to stop the animals from fleeing”.

The apsara in this temple seemed not wearing any head dress, and braided their hairs like what Fong had in Kuta. It was also possible that their head dress were flat. According to my book, the carving on one lintel shows Narasimba clawing Hiranjakasipu. But to me it was more like a light pornography.

On the way back, we stopped at a ruined brick temple at the road side. I didn’t remember its name.


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Cambodia 2007, Angkor Wat

2007-1-11 and 13

The west entrance causeway

We had arranged with the driver who took us to the guest house from the airport to drive us to various tourist spots in Seam Reap. After taking a long nap, we left the guest house at 14:30. Our destiny was Angkor Wat. It was built during the reign of Suryavarman II, in the first half of the 12^th century. It was surrounded by 190m wide moat with an outside dimension of 1.5x 1.3 km. There was causeway crossing the moat from the west and the east. The west entrance was more popular and impressive. The causeway was surfaced with laterite and sand stones, and was  guarded by seven headed naga and lions. The east entrance only had low gate and a dirt causeway with no special structure except a low stone fence.

The entrance gopura

Halfway after crossing the west causeway was a cruciform platform which descended to the water. The causeway ended on a courtyard with some palm trees and benches made up with seven-headed naga. On the other side was the square outer enclosure wall surrounding the temple complex. The wall had a dimension of 800x1000m, and the side facing the causeway had roof on top, and the roof were supported by a row of square pillars and the whole structure looked like gallery. At the centre of the wall were three tower gates. This kind of tower gate was very common in Angkor and was call gopura. The top of the tower was originally conical in shape, but it was damaged during wars in ancient time, and was now appeared to be flat. These three gopura and the wall were the first structure people seen when entering Angkor Wat from the west. 

The causeway in the inner courtyard

The library beside the causeway

The gopura was cruciform with portico on both its outer and inner side. We enter the gopura by climbing some steps into its portico and entered into the inner courtyard. And immediately we saw the main temple complex including three of its five main towers at a distant. There was another 300m long and 10m wide elevated stone causeway connecting the entrance gopura to the main temple complex. The balustrades on both side of the causeway were in the form of the body of naga.Along the causeway, there were many cruciform platform with stairways leading to the ground. Halfway before we got to the temple, there was a small stone buildings on both sides of the causeway. It was generally referred as the library in the guide book. It was probably used by visitors to pray before they entered the temple. Similar buildings were also found in other temples complex. Further on we saw two ponds, and the guide book said that the temple was best distant  viewed from the bank of the ponds. We did not read the book and missed this. Later I found on the internet that one could take a good photo of the temple at this location by showing its reflection on the pond. The causeway terminated at the entrance of the main temple.

The gallery

The main temple complex was built on three level terraces. The first level had a dimension of 180x250 m and was known as the gallery of bas-relief. The second level was the gallery of meditation, and the third level represented the heaven and could be reached only by the king, his royalty and the high priest, and it had a large tower on each corner, and a main tower at the centre. The main structure on the first level was a square corridor enclosing the whole complex and was called the gallery. There were three cruciform gates at the middle of the west gallery and the east gallery. And there was only one similar gate at the north and the south gallery. There are also gate  at each of the four corner of the complex with two set of portico and stairs descending to the ground.

The two tier roof over the gallery

The roof of the gallery was corbeled stone supported by stone columns on the outside, and stone walls on the inside. In some section of the gallery, the roof had two tiers and was supported by another rows of columns. The two rows of columns had only a narrow separation. Only under one roof that was a ceiling. The cross section of the roof covering the gallery had two shapes: the inverted V and the inverted U. 

Bas-reliefs in the gallery

The walls of the gallery were filled with beautiful and detailed bas reliefs depicting the battle field, the story in Hindu mythology, and the cruelty of life in hell. The reliefs depicted many people fighting in the battle field, in processions and in many other actions, many of them looked similar but in closer look they have different facial expressions and postures. The artists managed to squeeze many people in various acts of fighting in a battle field. There were also many reliefs on the pediments. The artists seemed aware that their art works would be subject to harsh weather, and many of them were carved in mid to high reliefs.

Churning the sea of milk

Each wall was divided into two sections by the gate in its middle, and the theme in each section was different. Therefore, in total there were 8 sections each depicting a different theme.

West wall and north of its gate - depicted the Hindu myth of Ramayana.

West wall and south of its gate - depicted the Hindu epic of Mahabaratta.

South wall and west of its gate - depicted the life history of King Suryavarman II, and his court and the major events happened during his reign.

South wall and east of its gate - depicted the life in heaven and hell.

East wall and south of its gate - depicted the Hindu myth "Churning the Sea of Milk".

East wall and north of its gate - depicted the Hindu epic "Victory of Vishnu over Demons".

North wall and east of its gate - depicted the Hindu myth "Victory of Lord Vishnu over Demon King Bana". The relief was carved under the reign of King Ang Chan.

Gallery and tower on the second level

Another three separate corridor also with two tiers roof ran from the three gates in the west gallery in the west-east direction to the second level of the terrace. They formed a crucified corridors with another corridor which ran in north-south direction. These four corridors enclosed four basins on the west side of the first level terrace. The same lay out of galleries and gates was extended from the first level terrace into the second level. But the galleries were simply corridors enclosed by walls on both sides and there was no more column supporting the roof of the gallery. Many large windows were opened on the wall, and stone balustrades were installed in the window. I assumed that the gallery was where people meditated. Furthermore, the middle gates in the east gallery had been reduced from three to one.

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The façade of the gopura and at its walls were filled with many beautiful and large breast carvings of apsara. They were mostly standing gracefully in groups and holding each others. They wore tall and fancy head dress. There were about 1800 of them in Ankor Wat, and they could be seen in all temples in the area. One of them found on this gopura was unique. She was showing her teeth in her smile. The carving showed that the skirt was probably made of lighter material, and it hanged closely to the body and revealed clearly the shape of the leg. Many of them no longer wore the jewelry belt, but they still had the wide band ribbon tucked on the top of their skirt. Many of them hanged a large pendants on their necklace.

The bright lower portion of the panel

We were fascinated by the bas reliefs on the wall in the gallery, and ended up spending all our time looking at them. It was late in the afternoon and the gallery was facing west, sun light shined directly at the lower portion of the 2m high gallery. The dark top and bright bottom made it difficult to see the whole things on the wall. Therefore, it would be better to see them at noon. There were colours on some sections of the relifs. It was done by Buddhist monks who occupied the temple and turned it into their monastery. 

As the day was getting darker, we took a quick tour of this gallery. When we left, we  were the last one to leave the temple. We ended the day by having dinner in a restaurant own by Taiwanese. The food and décor were good.

Thousand Buddha hall

We had not seen the rest of the temple other than the bas relief on our first visit, and therefore, we came back again on the third day (2007-1-13,) after seeing the Banteay Srei Temple. This time we entered by the East entrance. We passed a wooded area and reached the east side of the inner courtyard. After passing the stairs on the entrance, we were in the east gallery, and then we climbed up another stair to the second level terrace. We visit the Thousand Buddha Hall, and was disappointed that there were not many of them, and many were damaged by deliberated acts. 

The corner tower on the top level

There were three steep stairs going to each side of the third level terrace. And the total was twelves. And again the same lay out of the gallery and gates was extended to this highest level of terrace. The four towers at the four corners on this terrace were linked by galleries to the tallest and the largest main tower in the centre. And this layout formed another four basins on this terrace. 

The main tower

We were stunned by the massive central temple structure rising from the narrow courtyard. The third level terrace was only 11m high, but the stair was very steep and I felt like climbing a tall mountain. The steep stair reminded me of the similar stairs found in Inca temples. Many visitors dared not take the challenge of going up the stair. There were three stairs reaching each side of the third level terrace. Among the twelves stairs, there was only one where a handrail had been installed after a tragic accident. The third terrace offered a commanding view of the temple below and beyond and there were many beautiful apsaras in these areas.

The cruciform corridore and the basin

The bas-reliefs depicted only the Hindu myth and the celebration of victories in many battles. It did not show anything about the construction of the temple. It must be a difficult task to pile up all those big rocks into steep and tall towers, and furthermore, the worker had to carve out beautiful arts object on its surface.

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