Mr Kushal drove me to an area which looked like a Restaurants' Row. There were about a dozen food houses of various sizes tucked inside a grove. The broad-leaf trees gave good shade. I saw many of the three wheeler drivers resting in the shade. Mr Kushal told me that we would go to an air-conditioned restaurant. He led me in.
The place was full with the tourists of various kinds with their colorful dresses. Two persons on a table were having an animated discussion on a map using some European language. They did not seem to agree on their viewpoint. Each could be right. We were seated at a table next to them. Ordering food was easy, vegetarian food was available. At the back of the table I saw about a dozen children of ages six to sixteen with an American mother. The children were making arbitrary orders and the mother was patient. I did not understand the dynamics. Mr Kushal explained to me that the children were most likely adopted by the mother through a local church school.
The staple food was rice. All plates had a heap of rice contoured in a hemispheric shape. The vegetable or meat was served on the side. I liked this cultural homogeneity. Rice was of medium grain and somewhat packed. The small heap could be more filling than the plate of rice we get in India. Scientists say that wild rice was first "domesticated" somewhere in China. There are some old neolithic rice grains lately discovered in the interior areas of Orissa. We know that rice was one of the articles that the boats carried from Kalinga.
We are now off to our afternoon tour. The sites are open daily from dawn till about 5:30 in the afternoon. Some photographers come very early to capture pictures of the majestic structures against the rising sun. The sky is always clear and creates a great setting for the pictures if one can sneak through the trees.
We reached the big temple in Bayon. The place was one of the many structures in the general complex. This temple possibly had a community of its own. One entered through a gate and walked several hundred yards to reach the structure. The temple itself was a large structure, a couple of hundred feet wide and several hundred feet long. Because of its poor condition, it is not used a Buddhist shrine.
The temple was divided into small "rooms" and each room possibly had an object in the center. From the construction, the object might be inferred as a shivalinga. I saw a narrow long path on the side like we see in the Jaganantha Temple in Puri where the cooked food is carried from the kitchen and served directly at the shrine. Serving cooked food to the deities is a peculiar Kalingan ritual which has stayed from their older connection to the tribal culture.
I was amused to see that long narrow path. It is the ritualistic belief that the cooked food must not be seen by anyone before it is offered. It is more of a discipline than a conduct. Even now they hide the cooked food while offering in the Temples. Fruits, nuts and flowers do not have such restriction. Offering the divinity what we eat is the first concept of anthropomorphic mapping of the divinity. It happened in India much before it happened in the west. In Indian thinking, the divinity eats and moves like the humans do, but remains unseen to human eyes. To create a physical manifestation as son etc is a western concept.
In moving around, I saw a huge ash tree presenting itself through the stone cracks and manifesting its grandeur as the new owner of the place. There is a theory that the tree roots helped to hold the stones from being dismantled further. Occasionally I saw weeds through temple cracks, but I had never seen a tree growing up through the small openings. It is said that the birds drop seeds and some seeds grow into trees. It the forests that we clear to create habitation. When we leave, forests take over!
It is 5 PM, we have to return. Clad with my Cambodian farmer's cap, I was a full tourist now. On the side of the store there were handicraft stores, the local ladies were selling embroidered items. I restrained myself from shopping since my luggage was already heavy with books. I enjoyed visiting the stores and tipping the children for bringing coconut to me.
I walked back with two young individuals, the boy was from Belgium and the girl was from Australia. I engaged them in thinking how foreign intrusion destroys culture and civilization. They were both musicians. We joined the Cambodian music group that was performing near the entrance. The music was more percussion with some air instruments added. The rhythm and the composition was simple. The performers said that they were raising money for the cyclone affected area at the coast.
