31 December 2011

Roots

As we prepare for our reconnaissance mission to Blogland, I look back over an interesting year. Six months working in South East Asia was capped off with a week in Cambodia where I visited the famous and awe-inspiring Angkor temple ruins. Earlier today, I was skimming through the pictures I took there. I liked the idea of those old temples being swallowed up by the surrounding jungle only to be rediscovered many years later. 

At Angkor, archaeologists are faced with a wide range of conservation tasks that together seem unachievable. There's never enough money and besides to devote energy and resources to such tasks in a very impoverished country can seem somehow like a luxurious and rather cruel diversion. Added to which,  there's always the jungle, waiting, just beyond the ruins to consume, to cloak, to reclaim.

I had seen pictures of Angkor tree roots before I went there so I was very pleased to have the opportunity to snap my own pictures of that photogenic phenomenon - roots and trunks embracing, crushing, supporting the old ruins of a culture that had placed enormous store upon religious devotion. It was a culture that was certain of its foundations - a certainty that was present in millions of hand-carved stone blocks, the endlessly intricate carvings, the management of water and in the very audaciousness of those temple mountain designs.

But what price those certainties when the culture has faded and gone and when the jungle creeps back? The resulting interplay is both tragic and beautiful. It makes you think:-
It's past one o'clock in the morning. Time for bed because tomorrow our bag packing must be finished. Afternoon train to Manchester Airport and then a New Year's Eve flight to the other side of the planet. You might not hear from me for a while but when internet connection allows I'll make another blogpost...from Blogland...where all our dreams will come true.

4 comments:

  1. Safe journey, my friend.

    Would Mrs. Pudding like me to send some seeds on ahead so she can start our gardens? With the native servants, of course. If if is not too much trouble, could you blog some pictures of our abode and the surrounds.

    Are the rules and constitution ready to be read by the inhabitants yet?

    New Year in paradise. How lucky you are. Better than those in these States who have to slog thru more campaign and primaries beginning on January 2. How ridiculous!

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  2. Begging Mountain Thymes pardon, but if there's a new country in our future, we should be participating in formulating the rules and constitution ourselves.

    I would like to start by suggesting that a bicameral congress be prohibited and the executive order as well.

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  3. Those photos are amazing, YP and a reminder, if we need it, that nature will always take back what humans think they have conquered, given time and neglect.
    Meanwhile, best foot forward into that wonderful new world of Blogland. Safe journey and enjoy!

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  4. I've got that strange feeling I experienced as a child - of being 'left behind'.
    As a master/maestro of the English language hopefully you will have a chance to answer something that puzzles me: the difference betweeen audacity and audaciousness.
    Wishing you happy travels
    Lucy

    ReplyDelete

Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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