Beyond Angkor - The Lost World of Pnohm Kulen
Jan 18, 2016 22:21:21 GMT 7
rgs2001uk and onionluke like this
Post by Deleted on Jan 18, 2016 22:21:21 GMT 7
I'd never heard of it -
When I got to Phnom Kulen with my guide, Chanthorn Kong (“Chan”), and he had shown me the sacred river (with the serene faces of Hindu deities gazing up through water turned golden by sunlight) and the Reclining Buddha (“Please don’t write on the Buddha”, said a polite sign that had been comprehensively ignored), I asked him: is it possible to see any of the new stuff that the laser technology has revealed?
Chan said he didn’t know but would ask in one of the villages – and this was how we ended up on the backs of mopeds, zipping and slithering through the jungle on muddy tracks, bumping over tree roots and ducking under branches. Occasionally we would cross a clearing of cashew nut trees and so vivid were the colours in the sudden sunlight that it felt like being dipped in a tin of green paint.
These tracks and clearings took us to structures built 1,200 years ago when Phnom Kulen was known as Mahendraparvata, the first capital of Cambodia’s Angkor civilisation. Chan, who has shown thousands of tourists around Angkor Wat and the other temples of the Angkor Archaeological Park, had never been to these sites before and was left near-speechless. “I think this is what Angkor Wat must have been like in my grandfather’s time,” he murmured.
Continues -
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/cambodia/12105661/Beyond-Angkor-Inside-the-lost-world-of-Phnom-Kulen.html
When I got to Phnom Kulen with my guide, Chanthorn Kong (“Chan”), and he had shown me the sacred river (with the serene faces of Hindu deities gazing up through water turned golden by sunlight) and the Reclining Buddha (“Please don’t write on the Buddha”, said a polite sign that had been comprehensively ignored), I asked him: is it possible to see any of the new stuff that the laser technology has revealed?
Chan said he didn’t know but would ask in one of the villages – and this was how we ended up on the backs of mopeds, zipping and slithering through the jungle on muddy tracks, bumping over tree roots and ducking under branches. Occasionally we would cross a clearing of cashew nut trees and so vivid were the colours in the sudden sunlight that it felt like being dipped in a tin of green paint.
These tracks and clearings took us to structures built 1,200 years ago when Phnom Kulen was known as Mahendraparvata, the first capital of Cambodia’s Angkor civilisation. Chan, who has shown thousands of tourists around Angkor Wat and the other temples of the Angkor Archaeological Park, had never been to these sites before and was left near-speechless. “I think this is what Angkor Wat must have been like in my grandfather’s time,” he murmured.
Continues -
www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/cambodia/12105661/Beyond-Angkor-Inside-the-lost-world-of-Phnom-Kulen.html
