Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [61]
THE END
I stumble blithely through the gate of Angkor Wat without paying the twenty-dollar admission fee (natch), drawing to a stop in front of one of the most stunning monuments on Earth, a vision too big, too grand, too complex, too elaborate, too multifaceted, and too overwhelming to sum up in mere words, although, I must admit, big, grand, complex, elaborate, multifaceted, and overwhelming do come pretty close.
What it's not, though, is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. That punk Rith, the rice seller, he was dead wrong. I knew there was something odd going on there. Immediately after I spoke to him, I went out of my way to check several lists, including the Seven Ancient Wonders list, the Seven Modern Wonders list, and even, for the sake of completeness, the Seven Underwater Wonders list, and Angkor Wat is not on any of them. A calamitous oversight in my view, since, thanks to continual restoration work, Angkor Wat has remained pretty much intact, which is more than can be said for some of the other temples around here.
There's one up the road, for instance, called the Bayon, that dates back to the twelfth century and, from a distance, looks as though it was left out in the sun too long and melted. Pathways sag. Archways crumble. Musty, sharply rising staircases, treacherous if you're wearing heels, lie in wait to help less-focused tourists twist their ankles. They're held together nowadays by little more than good intentions and air, their stone blocks, carved with beautiful symbolic dancing figures, strewn discarded across the grass like Lego. It's highly precarious. One misstep, and you could bring the whole thing crashing down around you.
Within minutes, a pelting rain sets in, chasing five thousand tourists back to their buses, cheap guidebooks spread over their heads, at the same time sending a dozen or more guidebook sellers scurrying for cover beneath the trees in the parking lot.
“I wasn't expecting it to be as crowded as this,” Jay sighs, upset.
Good, clear shots are hard to come by. Kevin, a lean runner type with etched bones and a deep, knowing eye, scoots from plinth to column to window frame to crumbling doorway, grabbing what he can, mostly in vain. No matter where he points his camera, anything from a student with a backpack to a whole herd of South Korean holidaymakers, hundreds strong, gets in the way, wandering idly across the background, streaming up broken steps, along corridors, through courtyards, posing for pictures and jabbering excitedly.
Click. South Korean coach-party group photo on causeway with temple in background.
Click. French coach-party group photo with bas-relief in background.
Click. French coach-party group photo with South Korean coach-party in background.
The rain is coming down in sheets now. Scampering for shelter, I hide inside the broad stone casing of what used to be a window, and watch as, all around me, storm clouds weep gently upon the temple ruins, in a warm, timeless drizzle that somehow, and quite uncannily, bridges the centuries.
Without realizing it, I find myself standing beside a small girl panhandling for change like so many others. She can't be much older than eleven or twelve, with long, slightly scrappy dark hair falling across the shoulders of her cute floral dress. A dainty creature ignored by tourists, her large, dejected brown eyes eventually lock into mine, pleading with me to give her something.
“Me?” When this happens I'm so horrified that I turn away immediately. Though it's not the glum intensity of her eyes that troubles me so much, it's her nose.
More specifically, she doesn't have one.
I swear. There's nothing there. A blank space.
And now I'm picturing this sweet, innocent creature running through a forest glade one day, down a footpath,