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The first thing that struck me as I stepped out of the scorching Cambodian sun and into the complex of Ta Prohm was how eerie it was. The sun was mostly blocked out by towering century-old trees with a few errand rays filtered through the leafy canopy, casting a greenish pall on the few patches of dappled sunlight that cut through the gloom and shadows. Coats of creeping plants, lichen, and moss that seemed to sprout from every wall added to the sepulchral tones. Unlike the other carefully pruned and restored temples of Angkor, Ta Prohm has very much succumbed to the jungle. Ta Prohm's appearance has remain more or less unchanged from when it was rediscovered following its abandonment after the fall of the Khmer Empire in the 15th century.
Without the 80,000 people who maintained Ta Prohm back in its heyday, the jungle returned with a vengeance. Tree roots tore through walls, pavilions, and structures with strangulating formations; strong-arming the abandoned buildings in a vice-like grip. The most famous of these chimaeras is the so-called ‘Tomb Raider tree’.
It’s easy to see how this atmospheric setting was the root of Angelina Jolie’s obsession with Cambodia. More so than being a place of historical and cultural interest or a setting made famous by Hollywood, Ta Prohm is poetry in (very slow) motion - of the cyclical struggle between man and nature. It begins, as always, with humanity first destroying nature in a bid to expand and create; then nature winning in the slow game it plays so well, before finally both intertwined with each other in a precarious symbiosis.
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