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24.10.10 Exotic Phnom Penh I see now why Phnom Penh is considered to be the epitome of all that is exotic and distant. It, in many ways, embodies distance and disparity brought on by colonisation; a sudden referral to another culture, another geographical reality thousands of miles away. And in Phnom Penh today the divide between the colonisers and the colonised is strongly expressed. Foreigners are prepared to pay ten times the cost for the same services offered elsewhere to locals. Chic boutiques in rococo buildings sit a few pases away from the crumbling pavement which carries the street life of ordinary inhabitants. I do not mean to highlight the, ever discussed, divide between rich and poor, and not even the unintegrable condition of 'us' and 'them' (so apparent in India for example). I am merely testing the thought that, perhaps, it is the very existence of colonial influence, the retention of their peculiar habits by westerners, and the co-existence of these stark differences that make Phnom Penh the embodiment of the exotic. The sense of reality being far away at once, in relation to the recognisable 'different'. The 'different' is contextualised by the constant reminder of a colonial other. 24.10.10 When I was young I spent a long time looking up at two Indonesian statuettes my grandparents had standing on the dresser in our living room. I have never held them, but I memorised the folds in their dress, serene smiles and swaying poses. Who would have thought that I would encounter those same gestures again here, with the heavy smell of jasmine, in the sway of a Buddha's hips and a Vishnu's smile, in the National Museum of Cambodia. 24.10.10 moving sculpture The Angkorian sculptors mastered movement in their statues. As you look at them; they are both in motion and very still. The many arms of a Lokeshvara are as solid as the stone from which they are carved, but are also showing the position of arms moments before in time. Showing both present and elapsed time; a statue in motion. But these statues are incredibly smooth, tranquil. They are both moving, constantly transforming, and they are still. 01.11.10 asia in the morning this is the time to travel, 6am and it is already light, 7am and steam is rising from the giant pots of street cafes. Morning light is bright white and the temperature approaches Cambodian jacket weather. I travelled up river from Battambang to Siem Reap, where the grassy slope meets the sediment-heavy water, where villages float or line the banks on stilts, where the water glows green underfoot between one room and another and monks take boats to cross from one side to another, 03.11.10 ruin re-inhabited Sometimes the very presence of other people makes it impossible to think. Humanity is capable of creating such high art forms, that they seam capable of waking civilisations from the fitful recurring nightmare currently being dreamt by an unconscious world. This art is so powerful that it surpasses any possible description in words. It creates a sense that you are in the presence of an interlinking consciousness of life. Interlinking, because it was a product of a whole civilisation, which has now passed out of existence. I am interested in the idea of an re-inhabited ruin. A use re-instated, or a new one found, which creates the sense that time has somehow carried on from the past, and into the future, except with a brief lapse, a pause, which just happened to last centuries. The ancient Khmers created structures of such unimaginable beauty. So vast is the territory occupied by their former capitals, so sublime is the natural environment which surrounds them: the jungle, the Tonle Sap lake, rixe fields the flood plains. We can only believe that this all really is, that we are really here, with enormous difficulty. But at the same time, the modern civilisation appears tragically transient in comparison, not real in comparison to the real of Angkor. 04.11.10 ruined temples Going to Angkor; is not to go and visit temples, but to visit ruins. When you begin looking deeper into the areas where you thought there was nothing but stone, you realise, that here – every surface was once decorated, every step carved with the most elaborate pattern, over hours of meticulous artistry, by thousands of hands. In a way, we should be glad that most of it has now been rubbed away; leaving the bare bones of what used to be; the basic form and the bas relief, because its original beauty would surely have been maddening to the western mind. 05.11.10 Koh Ker At Kohker the forrest has conquered the city. Trees have marched into the innermost chamber of every temple, and stand about in the central squares within its walls. The temples consist of a mixture of sandstone and brick; porous stone for structure and denser stone for pillars, cornices and decoration, some whole structures were made of brick, but stood within the confines of larger stone complexes. This is why we see different levels of deterioration, and a mess of collapsed stones and bricks all about us on the ground.

One wall of each tower forming a trinity temple ha collapsed, leaving a cross-section through the all the structures at once. I am not sure if the extra cost of the trip to Kohker is worth it, except to show how lucky we are to live in a ime when we are still able to experience the rest of the Angkor temples in the state they are in now. It is also one of the few remaining places where you can feel as though you are discovering the temples for the first time. Outside every temple there is a plan with a delineation of what has bene de-mined in the surrounding area. The forrest is heavy with mines, the surrounding villages are dirt-poor.