Comments on: Ta Prohm, Siem Reap

By: Juriz

Juriz — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 05:39:01 +0000

My friends and I went to Siem Reap last summer. It was a very memorable trip for all of us. We started out in Bangkok, took a bus to the border to visit Cambodia.

From a documentary that we saw from the DVD collection of the small Inn that we stayed in, the reason the trees were preserved along with the temples is for humans to be reminded that there is an on-going battle between man and nature over the right to own the earth. Man had to take down a lot of trees to erect buildings, houses, temples, etc. But with the outcome of a once glorious civilization like Angkor in Cambodia, nature will soon get back on man.

By: kulasa

kulasa — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:53:57 +0000

Great photos.

The gigantic roots looks beautiful and eerie at the same time. The temple looks mystical. I had to look twice at the top photo. Compeling!

By: Edwin D.

Edwin D. — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:25:09 +0000

MM,a true great photgrapher. An eye for the arts.

By: aggy

aggy — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:33:21 +0000

greetings from chicago! thanks for sharing these wonderful pics…hope i can visit someday…have a great weekend!

By: marissewalangkaparis

marissewalangkaparis — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:24:31 +0000

Photos are awesome….

By: Lava Bien

Lava Bien — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:09:36 +0000

Yo MM!

Saw you on the video in the Travel Channel website (look under videos then Anthony Bourdain), they showed you for a brief second or two as a teaser.

can’t wait, Feb. 16th it is!

By: Marketman

Marketman — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:08:00 +0000

Rona, can you imagine washing the gold plates, they would be really heavy! But the silk beds sound a bit OTT for the monks, no? And how on earth did they figure out the parasol count? :)

By: Rona Y

Rona Y — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 11:19:30 +0000

I think we were in Siem Reap at the same time! Funny, since my mother is always on the look out for other Filipinos (most of those we saw were Filipino women married to European men…).

Regarding typhoons, I think since they pass over the Pacific Ocean, countries that are most badly affected have huge coastlines–the Philippines, Japan, the eastern part of China, etc. etc. That would explain why countries like Thailand (which has a coastline that’s mostly protected) and Cambodia have much less typhoon damage.

We were told Ta Prohm was left largely as-is, in the condition in which it was found, to give visitors a taste of the romanticism they expect from the temples–you know, that feeling as though their eyes were the first to spy the stone ruins. I was actually quite surprised when I saw how much work was being done at the temple (the completed construction of the “stage” in front of the most famous tree, for example).

By the way, Maurice Glaize’s 1944 guide to the temples notes that “5 tons of gold plates, 512 silk beds and 523 parasols” were used at Ta Prohm. Think that would have been comfortable enough for you? ;-)

By: pecorino1

pecorino1 — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:31:28 +0000

Our Cambodian guide told us that big storms do bring down some of those trees; every year a part of the temples get destroyed this way. Also, most of those gigantic trees are Kapok trees which is very bad news because they live to only a couple of hundred years at most. They will eventually topple over from old age bringing down yet another precious temple section. We were told that cutting down the trees now would also eventually result in the death of the trees and damage to the buildings.

Strange how these beautiful trees that have made these temples so mystical have also condemned them to eventual destruction.

By: Katrina

Katrina — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:55:32 +0000

“They must not have typhoons in Cambodia as trees such as this one wouldnâ€™t last a couple of hundred years”

I remember my parents telling me that one of the reasons Thailand has much better fruits than we do (with the notable exception of the mango, of course) is that they generally don’t get hit by bad typhoons, so the trees are less “stressed.” If true, then it must be the same for Cambodia, being in the same region.