Ancient temple cities of Cambodia

The gates of the walled city of Angkor Thom are flanked by a row of gods and a row of demons. It signifies the event called 'Churning of the Sea of Milk', where gods and demons worked together under the guidance of Lord Vishnu to produce the elixir of immortality.

East entrance of Angkor Wat

Outer compounds of Angkor Wat

Many temples were destroyed or looted and restoration work is ongoing, undertaken by the Cambodian and foreign governments.

Dancing apsaras or fairies engraved on temple walls

Boy monks inside Angkor Wat

Ruins of the eastern entrance to Angkor Wat

The moat surrounding Angkor Wat

Banteay Srei or the Citadel of Women is a symbol of beauty, seen in its red sandstone structure and intricate carvings

Banteay Srei is among the smallest and most delicate of the Siem Reap temples

Remains of a temple gate in the forests; many temples have been reclaimed by the jungles

The famous face towers of Bayon temple, it is unknown to who the faces belong

Bas reliefs at the Terrace of the Leper King, the tale goes that a powerful king fought a giant snake and contracted leprosy. The statue of the leper king is no longer here.

Shiv linga is a phallic symbol, one of birth and ultimately, prosperity

The riverbed of Kbal Spean is said to be carved with a thousand lingas (male symbol) and a few yonis (female symbol). During the dry season when the waters retreat, the linga carvings are visible and so are the carvings of Lord Vishnu and his garuda.

Phnom Bakheng temple has spectacular views of the area and of sunset

Pre Rup temple is a beautiful, quiet place for a lookout

Carving of a devi or female deity

Preah Khan temple has beautiful wall carvings and tiny rooms. The walls are almost falling apart and look quite unsafe. The rooms that house the gods and deities are small, as they were not meant for worship, but for the gods to have a beautiful and secluded abode from where they could practice their powers and benevolence.

Preah Khan temple has many trees growing over its walls. The trees grow from crevices and get their moisture from the stones. The tree roots spread out and work their way between stones, providing a support structure for the weak walls. When the trees die, the walls lose their support and disintegrate.

Bakong temple was the State temple of the ancient city of Hariharalaya, which no longer exists. The Hariharalaya sect worships both the Hindu Lords Shiva and Vishnu, and integrates the beliefs and customs of the Shaivik and Vaishnav sects.

Nandi bull at the entrance to Preah Ko temple. Nandi was the vehicle of Lord Shiva.

Sandstone walls of Preah Ko, the earliest of the Hariharalaya temples, in the region now known as Ruluos.

Beng Milea, an isolated temple reclaimed by dense forests

Ancient stones and living trees in perfect harmony

Ruins of Beng Milea. The piles of stone as you walk by are massive and overwhelming, and the occasional carvings of deities and fairies take you into a glorious age gone by.

When all is lost and there are tales of the forgotten past, the forest still breathes

Ta Phrom, within the city of Angkor Thom, was selected by archaeologists as the temple to be left in its natural state, overgrown by trees, to show how most temples of the Angkor region had looked upon their discovery in the 19th century.

Ta Phrom temple

Royal Palace in Phnom Penh is vivid in grey and golden

Summer flowers at the Royal Palace

Model of Angkor Wat at the Royal Palace

Sculptures at the Royal Palace

The dark side of Cambodia

What struck me as amazing about Cambodia was the stark difference between two of its historical events - the golden Angkor era and the bloody Khmer Rouge regime. The temples of Angkor and other areas speak of the wealth and prosperity Cambodia had once enjoyed. The architecture and carvings are complex and magnificent, the cultural heritage glorious. Several hundred years later, the Khmer Rouge came into power and laid a nation to ruin.

About a fifth of its people are said to have died, in the terrible effort to build a society devoid of trade, culture, education and freedom. Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge, was greatly influenced by the tribes of the north-eastern jungles and their way of life. Their subsistence came from the forests and from agriculture, and he envisioned such a future for the whole country. People were driven from the cities to live and work in rural areas, while educated and intellectual people were imprisoned and tortured until death.

Khmer Rouge
Tuol Sleng prison (codenamed S-21) in Phnom Penh was the most feared of all prisons. 12,000 people were held captive, tortured into confessing false crimes and implicating others as spies. Only a handful are known to have survived S-21, mostly saved if they had a particular skill. It is now a museum which holds memoirs of the people who stayed and died there.

Barbed wires stopped people from jumping to their deaths

Inmates of S-21, young and old alike

A famous painting that symbolizes the Khmer Rouge

Torture instruments

The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek are not far from Phnom Penh. After inmates of S-21 had been tortured, they were sent to be executed at Choeung Ek. A loudspeaker blasted music every night to muffle the screams of the dying. Even today, the rains sometimes wash up bone fragments of the buried.

The Bones Monument, which holds skulls and bones of the Khmer Rouge victims

Choeung Ek was earlier a Chinese graveyard

The loneliness and silence of Choeung Ek accentuate the horrors of the blood regime

Prayers of the living

The immigrants
Over three decades have gone by since the Khmer Rouge fell, and a nation which was once the most powerful kingdom in the region, is in the grips of poverty. Though the government seems to be doing some work to improve social services, there is a long way to go. A large number of its population comprises Vietnamese immigrants, who came over during the long years of war between the two nations and the US invasion of Vietnam. Many are also Cambodian re-settlers from Vietnam who came back to their country during the bombings. Without an identity, many of these people lack decent facilities and are deeply mistrusted and marginalized by local communities.

An abandoned Vietnamese fishing settlement

Children in a Vietnamese village

House for drying tobacco

Religion and culture
Buddhism is the predominant religion here. For some poor families, becoming a monk provides a good way of getting an education. Monks may go on to take up other occupations or remain as monks. I had a memorable visit to a school run by an ex-monk behind the Lolei temple in Roluos, Siem Reap province. Young monks and village children are taught there, and tourists often go to volunteer as teachers. Old women sometimes become nuns after the deaths of their husbands.

A local guide told me that 80% of the revenues from ticket sales to Angkor Archaeological Park go to a private family, while the rest are given to the temples for maintenance and paying workers' salaries. I do not know how correct this is, but does not sound entirely unbelievable. And it does not seem right that any group of people should benefit from national monuments and a UNESCO world heritage site, which are visited by thousands of tourists every year.

Phnom Penh, the capital city, left me in some disbelief and laughter. In few other places have I seen such a mix of rich and poor, old and new. While aggressive motorcycle and tuk-tuk drivers call out to you desperate for fares, fancy and expensive cars are a fairly common sight! Pretty colonial houses and towering skyscrapers are never far from each other. There are cute French and Khmer cafes with delicious cuisines, alarmingly polluted streets and cheap crowded markets, malls and loudspeakers blasting pop songs and Gangnam style.

Cambodian children are very tourist-friendly, always waving with a smile and a "Hello". Not to mention very cute!

These kids were selling water and chips at Beng Milea temple, but at the sight of a camera they forgot all about that!