Hong Kong and Cambodia: From Blandness to Beauty and Horror...

After the simple loveliness of the Philippines I think I was slightly resentful about going to such a hectic place as Hong Kong, even for just a couple of days. The 99 years of British rule seem to have left no lasting on impact on Hong Kong, apart from the style of road signs and traffic markings. Everything else seems to be the embodiment of Chinese style thrusting progress.

To take in the size and scale of the island we went up the Peak Tram and looked out at the skyline. Even these modern structures however are built in strict accordance with Feng Shui principles to ensure positive life energy flow and prosperity. The HSBC bank building was built as an elevated structure (on big stilts basically) so that the Feng Shui lines of the old governor's house would not be interrupted by it. Strange then that the architect of the Bank of China tower should ignore Feng Shui rules and incorporate inauspicious triangles into it's design and resembles a screwdriver which is, by all accounts, drilling the wealth out of Hong Kong. The building is consequently disliked intensely and even feared in Hong Kong.

To satisfy our curiosity about what exactly the highest building on the island was we set off to walk to it. This in practice turned out to be very difficult. Hong Kong is not built to accommodate the pedestrian wanting to get from Point A to Point B in the quickest time possible. You are forced to take detours through one glossy luxury brand mall after another which would be dandy if you have money to burn, but merely an annoyance when you're on a traveler's budget.

While walking "through" the city a strange pattern began to emerge: wherever there was shade there was a group of women having a picnic and playing cards. I don't just mean the kind of pleasant leafy shade that a park might afford, but literally any patch of shade: under a tree, in a pedestrian subway, behind a skip, anywhere. Underneath the aforementioned HSBC Building looked like an overgrown school field trip. Not sure if this was a special occasion thing or just a regular weekend occurrence. Odd.

Anyway, for those of you that care (not me incidentally) the tallest building turned out to be the IFC 2 Building, with no public access. How dull. In the evening we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon to watch the 8pm HK skyline light show. This is funded by the Chinese Government and an Australian company was paid a few million dollars to set it all up. No small feat: 33 buildings and god knows how many LED that flash along with music. The most difficulty building to incorporate was the Bank of China tower because of the problems caused by it's predominantly glass triangular structure. See what happened when you ignore Feng Shui? This was all very cool to watch but... Perhaps a small waste of electricity???

Next day we departed for Siem Reap and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. I didn't really have many expectations for Cambodia, just temples and a people slowly recovering from the brutal years of the Khmer Rouge, but I really liked it there. A little background on Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat for you:

The Angkorian period, starting in the 9th century was Cambodia's "Golden Age". The first monarch of that time, Jayavarma II, introduced the religious cult of Devaraja or "God-King" where kings were believed to be the earthly incarnations of Shiva, Vishnu or Buddha. Can anyone say "ego-maniac"? Each king would build a temple in honour of who else but himself, and the beauty and the detail of the sandstone carvings and "bas reliefs" (storyboards) are awe inspiring.

In the 12th century King Suryavarman II constructed Angkor Wat, considered Cambodia's greatest architectural masterpiece. In fact is is the main feature of the country's flag:




This temple was dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, or Suryavarman II as he liked to be called on earth. It would later become a Buddhist monastery when his successor Jayavarman VII decided on Mahayama Buddhism as Cambodia's religion of choice.

One of the best known and most beautiful sculptures in Angkor Wat is the bas relief of the "Churning of the Ocean of Milk" depicting the Hindu myth of creation. Gods (devas) and evil spirits (asuras) pulled a giant sea serpent back and forth for 1000 years in order to create the essence of immortality. The good guys grasped the essence first of course. Incidentally, I thought that if you churned a sea of milk you would end up with a massive block of butter, not immortality. Something to think about for those odd people using sunflower spreads instead of real butter for health reasons isn't it...

How well the detail of the carvings have been preserved is astonishing. 900 years later and the tiny details are still crisp and clear.
At the start of our stroll around the temples we picked up an unbidden and unofficial guide. He gave some interesting extra information about the temples but his most memorable story was of a more modern and sobering nature. He asked us to come over to a palm tree and feel the sharp and serrated edges of the branches. These, he said, we used by Khmer Rouge soldiers to cut people's throats. It would take on average 3 days to die from the wounds.

The temple of Ta Prohm was next. Built by Jayavarman II as a Buddhist monastery but first Hindu purists got at it and destroyed some of the carvings, and after that a far more formidable force overtook it: Mother Nature. There were only a couple of other people at the temple and so the atmospheric jungle-ravaged peace wasn't ruined. This is surprising as a lot of scenes for Tomb Raider were filmed here and I expected hordes of pasty faced computer game geeks to be here expressing their reverence and devotion to Lara Croft.

Banteay Srei is a 10th century temple built on teeny tiny proportions for petite Hindus. The rose colour of the stone and the detail of the carvings make it just gorgeous. However the dolls house scale makes it feel crowded if only 10 other people are there, yet alone a coach party of snap-happy Korean tourists.

The walled city of Angkor Thom was home to perhaps a million people. The main feature of the city is the Bayon temple: 54 towers, each tower topped with 4 enormous carved faces, most likely the image of Jayavarman VII. No self esteem issues with him...

The name Siem Reap means "Siem" as in Siam, the ancient word for Thailand and "Reap" meaning defeat. As you can gather there is no love lost between the Cambodians and the Thais. Only 2 years ago the Thai actress Suwanan Kongying made a comment to the effect that the Cambodians had stolen Angkor Wat from the Thais. The Cambodian people had a display of temper about this and burned down the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh in protest.

We traveled on to the capital Phnom Penh, where the terrible impact of the years of the Khmer Rouge became more evident. I don't think I am sufficiently informed myself about background and origins of the regime, and I don't want to turn this into too much of a worthy history lesson, so perhaps you can look here if you want a bit more information. What I do know is that it very quickly turned into a power-crazed and paranoid reign of terror.

We visited the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, previously known and feared as the S-21 Prison. Approximately 20,000 people went into S-21, only a dozen or so made it out alive.

Imprisoning, torturing and murdering their own soldiers and people they were meant o be protecting and liberating is one level of madness, but doing the same to little children is a level of barbarity I simply cannot comprehend.

Despite the fact that the Khmer Rouge was only deposed by the Vietnamese in 1979, and insurgency and attacks continued on into 1999, the people of Cambodia are resilient, cheerful and proud of their country. I admire them greatly.