Right Places, Wrong Times

• Djchurch's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Siem Reap

Trip Start Jul 25, 2006 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Siem Reap, Cambodia
Thursday, July 31, 2008

A few years ago, while living in Switzerland, I jumped on a plane to Istanbul to visit a friend for a long weekend.  Istanbul is an incredible city that thrums with life and contains amazing sights such as the Hagia Sofia, Blue Mosque, and its Grand Bazaar.  All around are the remnants and memories of city that for a very long time was the centre of the Byzantine Christian world and afterwards, the Muslim one.

The key word here is "was."  Today it makes headlines for its troubles joining the ranks of the European Union, and the strained relationship between its more secular intelligentsia population and its increasingly fundamentalist religious one.  It is far from the mover and shaker of world events it once was.

After a wonderful visit, I said goodbye to my friend, and jumped on the tram out to the airport

Children of Angkor

.  As we approached the edge of the old city, the tram passed through a hole in the old city walls of old Constantinople.  This city once stood as one of the greatest fortified and wealthiest cities of the world.  Now flimsy makeshift houses lean against thousand year old stone walls, and scavengers pick around the base looking for something useful in the rubbish left there.  The days of greatness of the old empire have passed.

As we passed through, I wondered if the people of Istanbul ever look around and have regret at the passing of time and importance of their once great city.  A sense of being born in the wrong time; of being ants crawling over the corpse of historical greatness.

Obviously, life for the vast majority of Turkish people is better today.  The greatness of the past also came with the historical inequalities, cruelties, and hardship for the majority of the population who were not part of the ruling class.  Still, I sometimes wonder if those people look around and think "Our ancestors built a world empire, now we build kebab restaurants."

This is a thought I have had often as I've travelled the world.  As a history teacher, I love the opportunity to visit and experience some of the most significant historical sites in the world

Children of Angkor

.  Often times, though, the expression of past greatness is a jarring juxtaposition against a present malaise.

Another example of this is Egypt. Egyptians are deeply and rightly proud of the incredible monuments of their ancient ancestors.  Touring around the pyramids of Giza, seeing the splendour of Abul Simbal temple, and viewing the burial chamber contents of Tut's tomb, one can only marvel at the feats and wonders of this ancient culture.  But as you are constantly harassed by taxi drivers, papyrus salesmen, sheeshah pipe vendors, and beggars grabbing at you for change, you get a sense of how time passes, greatness fades, and the children of the past are left to sift through the detritus of time, seeking a present that will always pale next to an illustrious past.  As Egyptians proudly pointed out and boasted of their past glories, a small, cynical voice in my head asked "Yeah, but what have you done lately?"

It is still happening today.  Consider the fall of the British Empire.  The days of the sun never setting on the Empire are long past.  England continues, its former colonial ambitions do not.  Many better writers, historians, and social analysts than me have examined the rise of the United States, and whether it has peaked in a historical sense

Children of Angkor

.  Some say the twentieth century was America's, while the twenty first will be China's or India's.  Obviously this is speculation, but it reinforces the fact that nothing is static.  Empires crumble, time passes, and life goes on.

Angkor Wat is another example.  The Khmer Empire at its zenith controlled a huge portion of South East Asia.  Angkor Wat was the greatest of many cities and temples the Khmers left scattered around the region, many still mouldering under the jungle vegetation waiting to be properly excavated and studied.  While we see only the remnants of the ancient temples today, it is easy to forget that a living city was in place all around it.  Common homes lacked the solidity of the great temples; there is no 'foot print' of the past lives of these people.

You can meet the ancestors of these great builders.  That little girl outside Ta Prohm trying to sell you that can of Coke?  Go far enough back in her family and you will find a builder or craftsmen who worked on the faces of Bayon.  The older woman with the infant trying to sell you a tacky Angkor Wat tee-shirt?  Her grandmother of the distant past might have worshipped at the temples you now traipse over in your Tevas.

In a clear historical injustice, many of the ancestors of the true Khmer's still live where their families of hundreds of years ago called home.  When Angkor Wat became a tourist attraction, they suddenly were faced with huge restrictions on farming and traditional practices that allowed them to live and support families.  These are not the people who swooped into Siem Riep and set up the dozens of guesthouses, restaurants, and travel agencies servicing the thousands of tourists who make the journey here every year

Children of Angkor

.  Nor do they receive any share of the profits the exceptionally steep admission fee generates.  Rather they are the ones who wait outside the temples, who are allowed to still live on the land, out of sight in their bamboo stilt houses, but not allowed to farm it as they once did.  You are being asked to buy a bracelet by the daughter of an empire, and this is now her only viable option for making a living.  So give it a break for a second and think about that before haggling her down ten cents on your can of soda.

Someday it could be our children who are the inheritors of a lost legacy, and I hope future tourists will not haggle over too harshly over a few rupees, yuan or yen with my great, great, great, great granddaughter.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Children of Angkor	Children of Angkor	Children of Angkor	Children of Angkor

Slideshow Print this entry Share Siem Reap hotels

Previous Entry Next Entry