Our minds are jumbled. The time for farewells has arrived and yet there is more to explore. Our thoughts are cluttered with questions, with new images yet to be synthesized and complicated concepts to be understood. We do not complain about our confusion for this is why we venture to the far corners of the earth. We collect ideas, sift and sort and, in time, see everything in a different light.
The morning light is golden and the anticipation of sunrise shook us from our beds in the early hours. The cool breeze would soon be lost and we were not the only ones afield. School children in their blue-and-white uniforms energetically pedaled bicycles past as we sat enthroned in comfort in shaded chariots (tuk-tuks) pulled by motorbikes. Devas and asuras guarded the gates to Angkor Thom as they have done for generations, still churning the sea of milk. Inside the narrow gates, families of macaques dashed about as if they too needed to deliver their progeny to some unknown site.
It takes time to see the order in the chaos of Bayon. From a distance the lichen painted sandstone seemed all in disarray. Giant blocks with fragments of figures waited like a massive jigsaw puzzle yet to be tackled and solved. With each passing moment, little-by-little, fragments fell into place. Four roads converged. Bayon is the center of Angkor Thom. The orientation does make sense. Two concentric galleries in a compact rectangle tell the history of the past. Bas-reliefs, as intricate or maybe even more so than those of Angkor Wat, record the lives of the people from a thousand years ago. A military procession, a naval battle, the flora and fauna of the time are all recorded here for those who take the time to stop and look. Faces stared back. No corner or direction could be found where the bodisattva could not see us. Fifty-four towers with four faces each, watch in the each of the cardinal directions.
Nearby elephants paraded along the walls of the Terrace of the Elephants, while sportsman etched in stone played the same game they have done for centuries. The maze of the Terrace of the Leper King hid intricate carvings too.
Time passed too rapidly and now the time has come to scatter in all directions. Our expedition has come to an end but our search for knowledge continues.
