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'I'm sure he was one of them,' she said, hard eyed with lips pressed into a thin line. It was unlike her; this lady was one of the most fun members of the group, lively and smart, but she had 'taken agin' our gentle guide's replacement and her displeasure was obvious. She hung back, wouldn't attend and never kept up as the new guy tried to guide us round the temples.'I'm not taken in by his goofy grin,' she announced, 'there's something wrong with him.'I was as astonished as I would have been had one of us accused a Munich guide of being a Nazi, and wondered if it was all built on the remnants of shock combined with incipient heat stroke.
'[Our earlier guide] told us he learned English in this chap's house,' I mused aloud, 'and it's clear that this gent is a very devoted Buddhist. He's not what we're used to, maybe that's all.' Our tour leader had hurt his foot and needed to take some time off. His replacement was a Unesco trained local, an eloquent man full of smiles and information.
'My instinct is pretty good about this sort of thing,' came her rejoinder.
The source of tension didn't remain for long; Our original guide was quickly back with us, and temple based travels were many. The pass covered three days, including Angkor Thom with its bridge of adversaries facing each other. On one side stand the demons who have a certain attitude:
On the other stand the heavenly warriors who are supremely unbothered about griefy vibes from their foes;
And here is the Buddha welcoming you into the city, though there's more to him than meets the eye. https://www.facebook.com/727806753/videos/pcb.10163693690236754/1098422637939989
Just goes to show one can never be sure of what's in people's heads.
Then there was Banteay Srei, called the Lady Temple;
Ta Prohm, familiar to devotees of Lara Croft,
And and and...so much incredible artistry and beauty everywhere.
One place struck me more than any except Angkor Wat itself. Ta Keo is a strange temple, very high and steep, built in a way which renders climbing right to the top almost impossible without putting ones hands on stones which grow increasingly hot as the day progresses. Most tourists don't bother, but now and then I am possessed by a spirit of unbearable machismo and have to do stupid things. I climbed to the top. How grand and forlorn it was, silent under the relentless sun. I felt alive and alone.
Later I learned one legend of this temple; it was intended to represent Mount Meru, home of the gods and centre of many if not all universes. The temple was specifically sacred to Shiva but was struck by lightning before most of the carving started. The builders treated this as a sign to go no further and leave it alone. I was puzzled, attributing lightning to Shiva and therefore surely favourable. But in early Hinduism, Indra ruled the sky, rain and lightning. Indra, once the king of the gods, is demoted in later Hinduism and his relationship with Shiva in particular seems turbulent. No-one would want to get caught in the crossfire between this pair.
It made me think of the Lightning Struck Tower, which has a different name in the Marseilles Tarot; La Maison Dieu. This gets translated as the House of God, but it actually means The God House. I feel a distinction between those two meanings. On the other hand, leaving out the 'de' may have been easier for 17th/18th century card printers. An old friend of mine called Mark McCann had a pet theory that Turkey's Mount Nemrut, with its decapitated gods, was the origin of the card's symbolism, but from Babel to the Bastille the possibilities are endless. And even if we accept the theory that a lot of medieval imagery/legend made its way from India across trade routes to Europe, Turkey makes sense, Cambodia less so. How would travellers know about Ta Keo?
Whatever the story, I looked out and down at a world grown small, the stones radiating thick heat back at me. Unlike some other high temples, there was no easy way back, and no, I never consider these things til I have to, like a cat up a tree staring down wondering how this happened. I retraced my steps a little shamefacedly as I spotted the whole group waiting for me under nearby trees. Worth it though. It felt like a place of power. Ask me what power/whose power/how that feels/why that is, and I'm worse than the lady with her instincts; I have no cogent answer at all.
'[Our earlier guide] told us he learned English in this chap's house,' I mused aloud, 'and it's clear that this gent is a very devoted Buddhist. He's not what we're used to, maybe that's all.' Our tour leader had hurt his foot and needed to take some time off. His replacement was a Unesco trained local, an eloquent man full of smiles and information.
'My instinct is pretty good about this sort of thing,' came her rejoinder.
The source of tension didn't remain for long; Our original guide was quickly back with us, and temple based travels were many. The pass covered three days, including Angkor Thom with its bridge of adversaries facing each other. On one side stand the demons who have a certain attitude:
On the other stand the heavenly warriors who are supremely unbothered about griefy vibes from their foes;
And here is the Buddha welcoming you into the city, though there's more to him than meets the eye. https://www.facebook.com/727806753/videos/pcb.10163693690236754/1098422637939989
Just goes to show one can never be sure of what's in people's heads.
Then there was Banteay Srei, called the Lady Temple;
Ta Prohm, familiar to devotees of Lara Croft,
And and and...so much incredible artistry and beauty everywhere.
One place struck me more than any except Angkor Wat itself. Ta Keo is a strange temple, very high and steep, built in a way which renders climbing right to the top almost impossible without putting ones hands on stones which grow increasingly hot as the day progresses. Most tourists don't bother, but now and then I am possessed by a spirit of unbearable machismo and have to do stupid things. I climbed to the top. How grand and forlorn it was, silent under the relentless sun. I felt alive and alone.
Later I learned one legend of this temple; it was intended to represent Mount Meru, home of the gods and centre of many if not all universes. The temple was specifically sacred to Shiva but was struck by lightning before most of the carving started. The builders treated this as a sign to go no further and leave it alone. I was puzzled, attributing lightning to Shiva and therefore surely favourable. But in early Hinduism, Indra ruled the sky, rain and lightning. Indra, once the king of the gods, is demoted in later Hinduism and his relationship with Shiva in particular seems turbulent. No-one would want to get caught in the crossfire between this pair.
It made me think of the Lightning Struck Tower, which has a different name in the Marseilles Tarot; La Maison Dieu. This gets translated as the House of God, but it actually means The God House. I feel a distinction between those two meanings. On the other hand, leaving out the 'de' may have been easier for 17th/18th century card printers. An old friend of mine called Mark McCann had a pet theory that Turkey's Mount Nemrut, with its decapitated gods, was the origin of the card's symbolism, but from Babel to the Bastille the possibilities are endless. And even if we accept the theory that a lot of medieval imagery/legend made its way from India across trade routes to Europe, Turkey makes sense, Cambodia less so. How would travellers know about Ta Keo?
Whatever the story, I looked out and down at a world grown small, the stones radiating thick heat back at me. Unlike some other high temples, there was no easy way back, and no, I never consider these things til I have to, like a cat up a tree staring down wondering how this happened. I retraced my steps a little shamefacedly as I spotted the whole group waiting for me under nearby trees. Worth it though. It felt like a place of power. Ask me what power/whose power/how that feels/why that is, and I'm worse than the lady with her instincts; I have no cogent answer at all.
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