Pandoraspace

A few friends have asked me to post more pictures of Siem Reap.  So, here are pictures taken by Padma.

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.

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.

If Cambodia is a jar, what would it contain? This was the question that my friend, Padma, and I asked ourselves before embarking on our journey to Cambodia.

Padma, of course, is also a Pandora and even more inquisitive than me.

Padma and I grew up in Baguio and were friends since we were six. We went to the same grade school, joined the same clubs and shared our secrets and angst. As adolescents, we survived our parents’ wrath and an earthquake together. Until our journey to Cambodia, we never traveled together. For years, Padma and I discussed traveling together but that was all talk. It was not until a dear friend of ours died that we realized we should stop talking and just go.

Other than deciding where to go and booking our flights and accommodations, I was unprepared for the trip. I started packing on the day we were leaving and it never occurred to me to bring a camera. Thus, unless otherwise stated, all the pictures of Cambodia on this blog were taken by Padma who allowed me to post them. Click on this, if you want to know more about Padma.