Pandoraspace

Prasatkutrung

There is an ordinary looking room in Angkor Wat with a floor area of about nine square meters.  It has two entrances with exactly the same dimensions that face each other. It has no doors.  According to our guide, it is called Prasatkutrung (which literally means Knocking Chest Chamber).

Padma and I entered Prasatkutrung, closed our eyes, made our wishes, and with our fists, beat our chests. As we beat our chests, we could hear the echo of the sound of our chests being beaten. Strangely, no echo is heard when other noises are made in the chamber. The echo is only heard when the chest is beaten. Our guide did not give us any scientific explanation on why this is so and I do not care to know. I would rather that this remains a mystery.

The sound and early morning mist of Angkor Wat

After sunrise, Padma and I entered Angkor Wat and were greeted by the sound of men (perhaps monks) chanting their morning prayers.  Their voices were not loud or aggressive but meditative and peaceful. As their deep low voices resonated throughout the temple, I sensed that the sound was coming from deep within them.  For a time, I listened and lost all sense of time, space and myself. There was only the sound.

What later pulled me away from the sound was the early morning mist at Angkor Wat.

As there is a wealth of available information about Angkor Wat, I thought that visiting it would merely confirm what I read about it.  I was wrong. Angkor Wat astounded me with its grandeur and many mysteries.

Angkor Wat at dawn

We visited Angkor Wat at dawn.  Like most tourists, we saw the façade of Angkor Wat during sunrise. Here is a glimpse of what we saw.  

Our guide showed us this carving on one of the walls of Ta Prohm.

At that time, I asked myself whether there were dinosaurs in Cambodia?  After putting up this blog, this is now my reaction to this image:  ”Hey, It’s me!”

On the second day of our stay in Siem Reap, our guide excitedly told us that he was taking us to the jungle temple where the movie Lara Croft was shot. Although I enjoyed that movie, using it to promote Ta Prohm did such an injustice to this alluring and mystical temple.  Ta Prohm is a sight to behold and no words are needed to promote it.  Fortunately, our guide later redeemed himself by taking us around Ta Prohm and sharing with us a wealth of information he had about this jungle temple.

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Do you remember this segment in a Sunday paper called Slice of Life by Larry Alcala?  The segment contains funny illustrations of the Filipino way of life.  The carvings on the walls of Bayon remind me of Slice of Life.  Those carvings depict everyday Khmer life such as men slaughtering a cow, a dog fight, a man wrestling a crocodile (unusual for us but a way of life for the ancient Khmer) and a woman being assisted in birthing. Interlaced in those images are funny scenes of Khmer life. The funniest of them all is the image of a woman holding a turtle that is biting a man’s butt while some on-lookers are smirking. Naturally, the man being bitten by the turtle looked peeved.

While Padma’s friend suggested we experience sunrise at Bayon, she did not tell us what to expect. Being the Pandoras we are, Padma and I headed for Bayon on the first morning of our stay in Siem Reap.

As we passed Angkor Wat, our driver, Tony, asked us if we wanted to go there instead. We said no. It was then that I noticed that the headlight of our Tuk-Tuk provided the only flicker in the darkness. After a few minutes of cruising in the dark, Tony stopped the engine and told us “Here is Bayon. I will see you there later.” The word “where” was just on the tip of my tongue when Tony quickly drove away.

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Padma and I laughed when her mom referred to her Siem Reap, Cambodia experience as the Magical Mystical Tour.  Our journey had just begun then which is why I did not understand what Padma’s mom meant. On hindsight, I realize that that description of the Siem Reap experience is apt.