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Ta Prohm
Hidden deep in a jungle overrun by parrots, cicadas and banyan trees is a
magical 12th-century temple. Writer William Dalrymple journeys into the
heart of medieval Cambodia
I know nowhere more secretive, more lost-in-the-forest, or more
mysteriously, darkly lovely than the Khmer temple complex of Ta Prohm, a
few miles' hike into the jungle from Angkor Wat.
Angkor itself is one of the great ruins of the world; but surrounded as it is
now by grass and parkland and a moated lake, it feels magnificently grand,
like a Cambodian Blenheim or a Khmer Castle Howard; and by necessity,
given its fame, it is attended by ticket offices and little cabins selling
postcards and guidebooks and fizzy drinks. Ta Prohm, by contrast, is hidden
deep in the jungle, and is still wildly, magnificently, hopelessly overgrown - a
Sleeping Beauty of a temple complex, tangled in a thick lattice of aerial
roots and creepers.
… To
Snake-like tendrils of pepper vines fingered their way through window
frames and up door jambs. Cracked lintels covered in mosses and bright
lichens were supported by the roots of 1,000-year-old banyan trees, which
wrapped their way over broken arcades, coiling in spirals like the tail of
some slumbering guardian dragon. Roots like fused spiders' webs gripped
fallen finials and crumbling friezes of bare-breasted dancing girls in girdles
and anklets, spear-holding warriors in war chariots, and long-haired, crosslegged meditating sages. As the shadows lengthened, we wandered through
terraces and overgrown galleries, narrow corridors and dark staircases,
courtyard after courtyard, the sculptures gradually losing their definition,
crumbling into shadows of dusk.
Darkness fell, and it was by the light of a torch that we saw the eeriest sight
of all: the 40ft-high face of the temple's 12th-century founder, Jayavarman
VII, impressed into the monsoon-stained ashlar of one of the temple spires.
He looked out into the night, with his full lips and firm chin, broad nose and
prominent forehead, his eyes closed in meditation, expression impassive
but powerful, pensive and philosophical, both monk and ruler, enlightened
incarnation and megalomaniac monarch. The fireflies danced around us, the
nightbirds screeched from the ruins, and the frogs croaked. A long walk back
lay ahead; but we all knew we would never, ever forget this place.
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get [to Ta Prohm], we trekked through thick monsoon-green jungle for
an hour, as the children saw huge centipedes, squawking parrots, cicadas as
loud as car alarms, hooting geckos and, best of all, a green poisonous snake
hunting a lizard, one of the highlights of the trip for them. But it was the
temple which made the biggest impact on me.
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It was late evening by the time we finally got there, and the sun was setting.
Suddenly, out of the trees, a mountain of masonry rose in successive ranges
from the jungle - a great tumbling scree of plinths and capitals, octagonal
pillars and lotus jambs. Trees spiralled out of the barrel vaults of the
shingled temple roofs like the flying buttresses of a Gothic cathedral;
branches knotted over Sanskrit inscriptions, before curving around the bas
reliefs of lions and elephants, gods and goldlings, sprites and tree spirits.
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