The time at Angkor Wat - like all places one visits - pass too quickly and soon enough, it is time to start making our way back out and to the bus.
What these would have looked like, unweathered and filled with water:
Peeking around the outside edge: homes, workshops, spaces where people lived and worked, all gone. Only Angkor Wat remains, a solitary memorial to the lives of the thousands that built it and the thousands that lived and worshipped here.
The back side of the temple from where we entered:
For everything else you take with you as you leave- the wonder, the amazement, the astounding nature of what was built by hand - one also leaves with a certain amount of peace. The stones are silent, the trees are silent. Even the temple is silent, especially on the higher levels where not everyone is. Quiet enough that - looking out over the sun and green of the forest - one has time to think.
I suspect I will never be back. But I will always have the memory with me.
Gorgeous. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and the pictures.
ReplyDeleteAnon - You are welcome. It is a genuine pleasure to do so.
DeleteGood work on taking so many photos with so few fellow visitors in them TB. Any restoration work being done when you visited?
ReplyDeleteNylon12 - For better or worse, I try to avoid people in my pictures. Sometimes it works out better than others.
DeleteThere was no current restoration work going on that we saw at the time (as opposed to The Parthenon when we were in Greece in 2023, where there was a lot of activity).
It just occurred to me this morning that one really no longer has to imagine what old ruins would look like unweathered and full of water. One could use A.I. to quickly make both of those a reality in your photograph. I used Gemini and was able to do so in about a minute. I'll send it your way just for kicks.
ReplyDeleteGranted, you are probably like me in that you would prefer to just imagine it versus seeing an A.I. version. Something about having A.I. crank out a version in a few seconds takes away a lot of the magical aspects of imagination. So I'll understand if you don't view the photo.
Ed, I have to confess that I am enthralled by recreations of what historical locations looks like back in the day. They are sometimes more jarring than others, but they do give one a different perspective.
DeleteIt was definitely interesting (I never think of sandstone as unweathered, for example). Thanks for sending it on.
It strikes me from these photos how elegant Angkor Wat looks. Everything seems to be complimented by nature around it. Maybe in part that's because it's mostly stone. It somehow looks as though it was intended to be there.
ReplyDeleteLeigh, it is very much a unified whole. Which is more amazing to me because they had only their vision and (potentially drawings).
DeleteAnd you are quite right - it looks exactly like it is part of scenery and belongs, as opposed to so much of modern construction.