angkor wet
in mira nair's film 'monsoon wedding' the coming of the seasonal rains is seen as a cleansing, positive, thing, heralding in a new age of love, happiness, and understanding. if i ever meet the infernal ms nair i will personally dunk her in a vat of murky, clay reddened, water and ask her to rethink her opinion on this meterological blight. monsoon rains are designed to do nothing but overly moisten innocent people going about the, some might say worthy, business of exploring and appreciating ancient cultures. is that a crime?in case it's not clear i got caught in the bastard rain today. to be fair i can't complain too much: i had blue skies all day yesterday, and the rain only hit when i was in my penultimate temple of the day. it's just that the downpour was so unreasonable... in india this kind of thing consists of five minutes of downwards insanity and then a happy calm. here, it lasted for almost two hours, at the end of which i was soaked following the complete inability of the temple i was naively sheltering in to have a roof.
actually as far as sightseeing goes it's been another good day. i went to some of the older temples, some of which are little more than rubble. despite this however you can still appreciate the previous scale of the buildings: this, coupled with the extraordinary carvings on various rocks lying around on the floor, and the enormous tree roots slithering around the foundations, combine to create an effect not so much of plain decay but glorious decrepitude.
trying desperately to head off a potential cold: i have a day left of my $40 pass and come rain, shine, or phlegm i'm going to use it.
posted by bicrom @ 11:39 am
<< Home