Angkor
I don’t think I need to waste anyone’s time going on and on about Angkor Wat. We all know it’s a World Heritage Site, one of the most fantastic architectural accomplishments of mankind, and breathtaking to behold so I won’t repeat that which has already been said a million times by a million people. However, I would like to say a word about the trees.
If you ask me, the magnificence of this place wouldn’t be half of what it is if it weren’t for the surrounding flora. The buildings themselves are pretty, but when buried in the jungle, grown over with trees and dappled by the sunlight filtering through the heavy foliage, they truly are magical. It is enchanting.
Of the sites that we visited on our two-day exploration of Angkor, I think my favourites are Ta Prohm and Preah Khan. (That probably means little to anybody who cares to read this, but I needed to get the names in there for posterity.) Both of these complexes were almost entirely shaded by trees that grew out of the jungle, then migrated into the courtyards and finally penetrated the structures. The curvy roots creep around window frames, push stone walls aside and grip gateway buildings so tightly that they look as though they would surely fall to pieces if a tree was not holding them together.
The greens are luminous. Mosses and lichens fringe the walls and rubble and seem to dampen echoes inside the buildings. The trees bend and hook their branches through door frames to lift up tonnes of rock and force their verdure indoors. These ruins are peaceful, quiet, sublimely serene. When we visit again, I will go straight to Preah Khan to sit, again, in the silence and breath in the hot, ancient air.
