Ta Prohm, a magical place, where part of tomb raider was filmed

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

I probably spent more time here than anywhere just hanging out.  honestly, i didn’t even go to ankgor watt, the big famous temple this time, other than to walk around it.  Ta Prohm here, well, there’s just this feeling you get in your bones when you see something so old and beautiful and how nature has grown around it, reclaiming it, in such beauty.

to see the tree roots and vines slowly tear down an intelligence that created such aritecture, such sculpture, such sense of space, of large public areas behind, within such giant teak trees like you see the big reds in the north west…it’s a wonder to behold.

i have so many pics from here, and i want to put most if not all of them up…i don’t care if they bore you :) but i want to show as many sides of it has i can.

it was a monastary temple, so there were people milling about…during jayavarman VII’s reign, late 12 to 13th centuries, almost 1000 years old.  It was dedicated in 1186 to the king’s mother.  there are two kinds of trees, silk-cotton (ceiba pentandra) and a strangler fig (ficus religiosa) these are the trees you will see emeshed in the stone…but make no doubt about it, it is settled in a dense forest of giant teak trees.

I’ll leave here with a cool quote about how this works “in both cases (the two kinds of trees) the plant takes hold in a crevice somewhere in teh superstructure of a building, usually where a bird had deposited the seed, and extends roots downward to the soil.  In doing this, the roots work their way between the masonary that that as they grow thicker they gradually wedge open the blocks.  Eventually the tree becomes a support for the building, but when it dies, or is felled by a storm, the loosened blocks collapse.”

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

that’s a natural found metaphor for a poem if i ever found one…somehting about the fragility of our time here on the planet…something like that :)

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Thra Phrom

Thra Phrom

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries:  Style:  Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

Ta Phrom Late 12th/13th Centuries: Style: Bayon Reign Jayavarman VII, enlarged by Indravarman II

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