life goes on

Even though I have seen and read about the ornamentation and the bas-reliefs carved onto the walls and columns at these Cambodian temples, I wasn't prepared for the extent or the complexity of the sight. They are quite astonishing and don’t just cover a small area, they are on all four sides of the outer walls, from one end to the other, from top to bottom, inside and outside, well preserved and greatly detailed. It is remarkable to think that they have not worn out or faded or been chipped away over the ages.
At other temples the focus of the reliefs is on the kings and their glory and their wars as well as their spiritual and religious beliefs. However, as successive kings changed from Hindu to Buddhist and back to Hindu they spent time defacing each other's hard work. It may have been that the artists and designers of Bayon took a different approach hoping their work would survive the ages or at least the next king. In the Bayon reliefs there are no monkey generals or snake gods churning milk to create life, what you see is the agriculture, commerce, cooking, dancing, hunting, fishing, traditional boxing, flower arranging and all aspects of daily life and culture at the time. The reliefs give a good feel for what the society was really like for the average person in the 12th century along with the flora and fauna at the time. People going about their daily activities picking fruit, flowers, fights, rice and lice while moving about in ox carts....and actually as I began to think about it.. once we got out of the city little seems to have changed from then to the present day countryside life in Cambodia.