At the end of our one-day tour of Bangkok, we took a flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. The next three days were one wat after another. We learned a lot about architecture of the Khmer Empire that flourished from the 8th to 15th century.
Row of god statues on the left flank of the entrance bridge of Angkor Thom.Row of demon statues on the left flank of the entrance bridge of Angkor Thom.
In Khmer architecture, the science and religion of water were closely inter-twined. On the one hand, the size and proportion of the surrounding artificial waterways played a scientific role in the durability of these temples (called “wats”). On the other hand, the theology described the bridges over these waterways as bridges from the secular universe to the sacred temple residing in heaven. Sacred geometry comes into play, with the spatial dimensions paralleling the proportions of the four ages (yuga) of the Hindu canon. The bridge is flanked by rows of gods on the left and demons on the right. You can just see one of the five entry towers at the end of the bridge.
One day went to Kulen Mountain and climbed the steps to see the reclining Buddha and have our fortune told by a monk who consulted the Life of Buddha for our readings. Phnom Kulen has been a candidate to be a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1992. I was interested to read recent controversy about that.
That evening we went to a dinner show of Cambodian traditional dance. The light was low, but here’s a taste of what it was like:
We’ve just returned from a long trip to Cambodia and Thailand. It was fast-paced, interesting experience.
Here are the top 5 reasons that I’m happy to be back:
It’s no longer necessary to convert from baht to dollars in my head (divide by 3, then by 10, then add a little back). And the bills and coins are familiar and easily recognizable.
I can read the signs here.
I am so over those clothes I was able to pack in my carry-on luggage.
I can brush my teeth with water straight from the tap! and last, but not least,
No leeches here in Montana!
My next few posts will be about our trip, but not to worry: I’ll be posting about lettering I saw there as well as the sights. In some ways, not being able to read the language made it even more interesting to look at the letter forms there. I asked about the different styles of lettering, but I wasn’t able to get a definitive answer about what I was seeing. So I’ll be posting my own speculations with photos of the lettering styles.
When we left Bangkok at 6 am on Tuesday, it was 90°F and about 100% humidity. When we arrived in Bozeman at 1 pm, it was 0°F. What a difference 10 time zones and 32 degrees of latitude makes!
Breakfast at Ariyosam Villa in Bangkok.
We arrived only a month and a day after their beloved king had died. At the royal palace, long lines of mourners waited to pay their respects to the king. Toward the end of our visit, firecrackers reminded us that the crown prince had become the new king that afternoon.
We spent the first night and day in Bangkok, staying at Ariyosam Villa, an oasis of a hotel in the center of Bangkok. Breakfast was served on the patio by the pools, and it was both beautiful and delicious. Passionfruit (top left), pineapple, and papaya to start. All of the fruit — we could eat anything without the skin — was delicious.
A stupa at Wat Pho.The entrance to Wat Pho.
We began a full-day tour of Bangkok at Wat Pho, a huge temple complex in the middle of Bangkok, next to the palace. Shown at right is the entrance to the main building.
The architecture of both Wat Pho and the Royal Palace was interesting and unfamiliar to me. Everything was embellished and gilded, and the grounds contain monks’ living quarters as well as a number of chedis, or stupas — Buddhist shrines.
We got Thai massages at the Wat Pho Thai Traditional Medical and Massage School, right on the grounds of the complext. That 30-minute massage was the best massage I got the entire trip. Heavenly! The 18th-century inscriptions on the walls nearby were commissioned by King Rama III to preserve and make public both religious and secular knowledge. The 1,431 stone inscriptions were named a UNESCO Memory of the World site in 2011.
A section of the Epigraphic Archives of Wat Pho.Statues at the Marco Polo Gate to Wat Pho.
These statues were a surprise. I was told that they were Chinese statues, and other pairs did look Chinese. Later, I read that they were included as ballast on the Chinese ships. But these evidently captured what Europeans looked like to the Chinese. They look to me like they belong at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
We finished up the day with a canal trip on a longtail boat. The canals were quite crowded (as was all of Bangkok — over 6 million people!).
As we waited for the drawbridge, I snapped this photo of our boat’s name, ting to imagine which elements were essential to the letters and which were styling. I think of this style as “blackletter” Thai.
Today I had just 16 minutes available to work in my studio. This was it.
I could tell you about my day – the flood in the basement from the floor above, the anxiety over forgotten pre-travel chores, calls to doctors and pharmacists about vaccine/drug interactions, the manic last-minute changes to plans, etc. But I won’t do that because it will stress me out all over again.
And yet.
I had 16 minutes in my studio, and that was a very good thing.
flatten pen angle at top and bottom of straight strokes
some additional waisting via pressure
smooth inner counter at joins
consistent figure between bowls of a and e
Thoughts:
It doesn’t flow well; it’s not yet in my kinetic knowledge. The sleeve of my jacket keeps impeding the smoothness of the long vertical strikes. The pen angle keeps creeping up. The s needs work (not unique to this hand!). I need to either tighten the word spacing or loosen the letter spacing. There is more. But this is enough to be going on with.
I’ve been preparing for an art fair on Saturday, my first in several decades. I’ve had a good time making some collage note cards. Sometime the most appealing color schemes present themselves. This is one of them. The blue is richer than it appears in the photo, at least on my computer screen.
This weekend I was *so* lucky to attend three days of workshops taught by Suzanne Moore. The first day was a gilding workshop hosted by the Missoula Calligraphy Guild, and the next two days was the Big Sky Scribes fall workshop. So fun! So inspiring! This image shows the word “bewilderment” written with a variety of tools which are also shown at the top of the image.
Stay tuned to see what happened to these two pages in future posts.
