ANDYBROUWER.CO.UK
CAMBODIA TALES 1999
A tour of Phnom Penh's Wats and beyond
My second day in Phnom Penh began with
Choy, my motodub, ferrying me over the Japanese Bridge and onto
one of my favourite spots, the Chrouy Changva Peninsula. The road
alongside the Tonle Sap river was bumpy and busy with locals
going about their business and schoolchildren filing towards
home. Our first stop was at Wat Botiyarap, where a friendly young
monk invited us into the temple to inspect the colourful wall
murals showing popular versions of the Buddha's life. As I
removed my shoes, he opened some of the side doors to let in the
sunlight and explained in broken English about the early life of
the Buddha, who was
known as Siddhartha Gautama before he
gained enlightenment. It was about now that I silently scolded
myself for forgetting to bring my copy of Ray Zepp's excellent
guidebook on Phnom Penh's wats, 'A Field Guide to Cambodian
Pagodas'.
After taking a few photographs, I
thanked the monk for his time, gave him a small donation and
moved onto the largest wat on the peninsular, Wat Prachum Sakor.
The houses either side of the track leading to the temple were
surrounded by water following recent rains, as we drove into the
temple's extensive grounds. Two giant Banyan trees occupy a
prominent place upon entry and amongst their branches, a group of
monkeys keenly
watched our every move. In the shadow of the trees, two long
wooden boats used in the recent water festival races on the
nearby Tonle Sap, were housed in a covered shed and nearby, were
a series of colourful but unusual statues, one of which depicted
the young Buddha riding in his chariot (left). The pagoda itself
was founded as long ago as 1880, although the paintings inside
the darkened vihara are much more recent. A collection of quality
paintings lining the walls of the monk's quarters were however,
much more visible.
At the end of the riverside track,
the temple built in the shape of a boat was padlocked shut and
devoid of any sign of life. We continued our journey along the
quieter Mekong side of the peninsular, stopping to watch a few
small boats struggling against the strong current, driving past a deserted Cham mosque and a
couple of factories from where the heavy duty lorries have cut up
the track badly. Making our way back onto the main highway, Route
6, we turned right past the numerous popular Khmer restaurants at
Prek Leap and onto the colourful temple at Khien Klaing (right),
after a quick diversion to the VVAF (Vietnam Veterans of America
Foundation) rehabilitation centre for disabled landmine victims.
The vital work of the VVAF deserves closer inspection, which I
plan to do on my next visit to Cambodia.
We returned to town for lunch and to
retrieve Ray Zepp's guidebook from my hotel room, in preparation
for an afternoon of wat-watching. I'd visited quite a few of the
capital's wats on previous trips, so this was an opportunity to
see a few of the less popular ones. Our first port of call was
Wat Srachak, a pagoda built in the early 1990s, with a series of
statues outside and a set of elaborate and unusual wall paintings
inside the vihara. Next were two temples close together, Wat
Putgosachar and Wat Piphoat Rangsey, located near the Japanese
Bridge. In the first, an elderly monk
proudly showed us the pagoda's murals,
still looking as fresh as the day they were painted, whilst
Piphoat Rangsey is a temple dating from the 1870s and has a
series of older and more recent paintings side by side. Heading
out along the airport road, we turned right and crossed the main
railway lines towards the far side of Boeung Kak lake. The area
was pretty run-down, the road was extremely bumpy and the locals
seemed a little surprised to see me when we arrived at the gates
of the pagoda of Wat Neak Kawann. This temple stands very tall
but a brief encounter with some belligerent teenagers sitting on
the steps leading to the
entrance and
indulging in what has become an increasing problem amongst the
city's youths of glue-sniffing, meant I only had time to quickly
scan the series of wall paintings that are dedicated to the life
of Buddha and to other legends and morality tales. As we exited
the temple, a group of younger children restored my good humour
and delighted in my gifts of balloons and other knick-knacks
(above right). Choy, my motodub, was keen to show me the next
temple on our itinerary, as it was his local wat and featured a
fascinating collection of wall murals, both inside and outside
the vihara, as well as a series of colourful statues. He called
it Wat Twai Donkum but its also known as Wat Monkolwan. However,
we didn't stay long and moved quickly on towards the Olympic
Stadium area of the city.
Best known as
the headquarters of Preah Maha Ghosananda and his Dhammayietra
peace marches, Wat Sampeou Meas was padlocked shut and no-one
could find the key, so we moved swiftly onto the other side of
the Olympic market and the temple at Wat Preah Put. This has a
newly-built vihara with brilliantly-coloured paintings inside but
it was the school in the temple grounds that caught our
attention. As we arrived, the children were at play and once
they'd spotted me, I was literally mobbed and playfully forced
into a game of football with the boys and skipping with the
girls. At one stage, surrounded by dozens of cheering children,
the noise was deafening and trying to take a few pictures was
near impossible, but it was great fun (left). The school bell
restored some order as the youngsters filed back into their
classes and we took our leave, heading for the landmine and polio
disabled workshops of Wat Than on Norodom Boulevard.
Wat Than is home to a successful vocational training
program, assisted by the Catholic Maryknoll Mission, aimed at
helping to reintegrate disabled Cambodians back into their
society in a dignified way. I met Hay Kim Tha, the workshop and
showroom co-ordinator, and he accompanied me around the separate
silk weaving, tailoring, carpentry and computer workshops. Since
the program began in 1991, the core skills that the students
learn are supplemented by basic business skills, English language
tuition and health education, whilst the furniture, clothing and
handicrafts they produce are sold through the on-site showroom
and other outlets, including Baray Tukvill in Siem Reap. Tha has
also established export opportunities in a number of countries,
usually through contact with visiting tourists impressed by the
high standard of workmanship they've encountered and I recommend
that any visitor to Phnom Penh takes time out to stop at Wat Than
and support this very worthy cause.
As we
approached late afternoon, Choy suggested a visit to a pagoda
with a gigantic concrete Buddha under construction, a few
kilometres over the Chbam Pao bridge and along the road leading
to Vietnam. I'd stopped briefly at the temple - the name of which
escapes me - back in March 1998 and was keen to see what progress
had been made since. As it turned out, the Buddha was still
obscured by scaffolding poles and the main vihara was shut but
the children's library below was open and I introduced myself to
a group in their late teens, who were idling away their time at
an old, battered piano. As is the pattern of these encounters, I
was asked all the usual questions, ie. name, age, job, marital
status,
family,
length of stay, and so on before we played a game of barefoot
shuttlecock inside the library. Then Chay, the quietest of the
group, picked up his flute and played a lovely melodic tune that
everyone responded to with raptuous applause. His beaming smile
said it all. My new acquaintances then lined up for a group
photograph (above left) and we said our goodbyes, sorry to leave
such a friendly bunch of individuals. On our return to Phnom
Penh, we stopped briefly at Chbam Pao market for a quick look
around and to allow Choy to bargain hard for the cheapest
possible share-taxi ride to his home village the following week.
He intended to visit his parents for the first time since moving
to the city over a year before. It was dark by the time we
arrived back at the Walkabout Hotel (right) and I settled for an
early night, after a bite to eat at the hotel's busy bar, with an
early start scheduled for the following morning.
I could
barely keep my eyes open after a restless night's sleep when Choy
appeared, bright eyed and beaming, in the hotel lobby at 7am. A
brief stop near the Central Market for petrol and to check the
times of the Ho Wah Genting bus to Kompong Cham, and we were then
on our way out of the city, through Takhmau for a return visit to
Tonle Bati and Phnom Chisor. Noticeable as we passed through
Takhmau were the long queues of men and women waiting outside the
garment and cement factories, hoping to be selected for work that
day. National Highway 2 was in fairly good condition and we made
good time but it was Choy's first trip out of the city, and
despite my assurances that I knew the way, he kept stopping to
ask directions from farmers tending their cattle or catching fish
and crabs in the small pools of water that lined the side of the
road. We reached the Tonle Bati turn off, about 35 kilometres
along Route 2, after just over an hour and turning into the
well-kept park
containing
the two twelfth century Angkorean temples, paid the 'ticket of
constribution for foreign guest', which had increased to $2. On my
last visit, in March 1998,
the entrance fee was just $1 and the site was still as neat and
tidy as I remembered it and just as deserted, apart from a few
children playing by the entrance to the main temple, Ta Prohm.
The path through the outer
laterite wall to the main sanctuary of Ta Prohm was bordered by
colourful plants and flowers and spoke volumes for a site
lovingly maintained by elderly laymen and nuns. Decoratively
carved lintels were placed on the ground at
intervals around the whole complex while the five chambers of the
central temple had statuary and lingas inside, with apsaras,
unique lintels, frontons and other carvings on the outside walls.
I enquired about the damaged statue of Preah Norey that I'd seen
on my previous visit and one of the widows offering incense
sticks in front of a large Buddha statue explained, via Choy,
that the carving had been seconded by the National Museum in the
capital for restoration work to be carried out. The smaller
ancient temple of Yeay Peau, 150 metres north of Ta Prohm and
nestled adjacent to Wat Tonle Bati, was our next stop. Treading
carefully through the building work in the grounds of the pagoda,
there were a couple of lintels still in place on Yeay Peau but
the modern temple next door had more to offer with its colourful
wall murals, gaudy statues and a trio of high-spirited children.
We finished off our stop with a quick tour of the lakeside
beachfront, which housed an increased number of picnic shelters
and brightly-coloured umbrellas.
Another
twenty kilometres along Route 2 lay the prominent hill of Phnom
Chisor and its Angkorean temple. Choy was keen to see it for the
first time - I'd previously visited in March 1998 - and he was a little
confused when I tapped him on the shoulder and told him to pull
over into the grounds of Prasat Neang Khmau, a few kilometres
short of our destination. An open-sided prayer hall was packed
with worshippers and monks, with the head monk chanting
repetitively into a microphone that drowned out my explanation
that next to the nearby modern wat were two crumbling tenth
century brick towers. Inside the left-hand tower, nuns were
praying to the spirit of the 'Black Lady' (Neang Khmau) and
children
crowded the
entrance to both towers and the adjacent pagoda as word of the
foreigner's arrival spread. We were soon on our way along the
dusty four kilometre track that ended at the foot of the 348
steps leading to the top of Phnom Chisor. Accompanied by Noy, a
young girl from the family stall next to the nearby school, as we
climbed the steep staircase she gave us a running commentary,
which included "same same Angkor Wat", a comment often
used by locals to indicate the approximate age of ancient temples
throughout the country.
At the summit, I met the smiling
but toothless temple caretaker, who shook my hand with gusto as
we soaked up the gorgeous view of the surrounding countryside,
where Phnom Da and Angkor Borei appeared as a small outcrop
amidst a sea of water in the far distance. Resuming her role as
our unofficial guide, Noy pointed out the ruined 11th century
temples' best features as the sun reached its highest point and I
searched for the shadier areas as we wound our way slowly through
the hill-top compound. I gave Noy a few gifts as a thank you for
her efforts as we sat under the shade of her stall at the foot of
the stairway and gulped down some
refreshing
coconut milk. Soon we were on the road again and by early
afternoon, I was back in Phnom Penh and sat in the Foreign
Correspondents Club tucking into my lunch, thankful for the
comfortable seat after more than six hours and 100 kilometres on
the back of Choy's moto. An hour later, I walked around the
corner and into the National Museum to view the exhibits that had
been missing on my previous visit. They were all back in their
positions of prominence within the museum, including the
reclining bronze Vishnu from the West Mebon, the Shiva & Uma
couplet from Banteay Srei and the exquisite Jayavarman VII head
from Preah Khan, amongst many others. On the spot restoration
work was being carried out by Khmer and French restorers, while
some of the more fragile items had been encased in glass. I
rounded off the day with a delicious evening meal at the Special
Rice Crust restaurant a little way out of the centre of town with
some friends and retired to bed early to catch up on my sleep
ready for my trip to Kompong Cham the next day.
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