About the photo
I collected this photographic print yesterday. This photograph was taken in Cambodia, Siam Reap, the Ta Prohm Temple. The foliage and the tones of the greenery makes this one of my favourite photos taken from Cambodia. The shades of green stretches from the expanding branches of fig trees to other trees and down to the mosses growing on the temple architectures.
The Ta Prohm Temple was build by King Jayavarman VII. He had send his son Tamalinda to Sri Lanka to study Theravada Buddhism and Pali. Tamalinda received ordination and was a senior monk upon coming back to Cambodia to contribute back to the flourishing of Buddhist practices and teachings.
A quirky pop culture reference to this Temple would be that it was one of the filming sites of Lara croft with Angelina Jolie as the lead actress.
Trips to Cambodia
This photograph was taken on a pilgrim trip to Cambodia in 2018 with friends and monks from Sri Lanka and Singapore. This is the second time I visited Cambodia. The first time was for an Asean civil society regional meeting when Cambodia was chair. During then, I had not visited Angkor Wat or any parts of the heritage park. Both the times I went to Cambodia, they were not all entirely holiday trips.
The first time, I did visited the S21 also known as the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the second time we visited one of the sites of the Killing fields. The second time when I went to Cambodia, as we had gone with monks, the monks and sisters had organised a ritual session of chantings together with Cambodia monks, lasting a few hours at the commemoration space. Its hard to forget.
Cambodia remains one of the Asean country that does not have the death penalty, perhaps in part due to its difficult history with genocide.
ong xiao yun 