I am currently on adventures in Southeast Asia, and of course this leads to some wonderful opportunities to Task. I spent three days exploring jungle ruins in Cambodia, and it was an absolutely amazing experience. I encourage anyone who is able to visit Siem Reap province and explore Angkor Wat and the surrounding ruins. They were built by the Khmer Empire around the turn of the last millennium, but after the civilization collapsed in the 13th century, were completely abandoned. Many of the statues have been looted* over the years, but the biggest temples are largely intact, and many have been at least somewhat restored.

*(And many of those statues have been recovered... but by the extremely corrupt Cambodian government. Forthcoming praxis on my exploration of the compound where they store the looted statuary, and my thoroughly illegal photography therein.)

Two of the ruins we visited did in fact have labyrinths! I don't mean the Greek little bit of curvey line, I mean a serious giant walled maze. Of course, I played in them quite extensively.

The first of the two was called Bayon, a temple covered with many massive stone faces. Bayon, like many temples of its era, is built in three concentric rings. The outermost ring is for study, and is covered with carvings depicting history and the practice of life in those days. The second ring is for meditation and prayer. The innermost ring is reserved solely for the royal family and the highest priests. As it happens, at Bayon, that second ring is a labyrinth. The rings (as in many temples) are stepped vertically, so the labyrinth surrounds and is underneath the innermost ring, and is itself on a raised plateau above the ground-level outer ring.

We arrived at Bayon during a mild bout of rain, and began exploring. I ducked into the labyrinth for a moment to take some pictures, but when I turned around, my family and friends had vanished! I ran the way they had gone, but there was no sign of them. So I did the logical thing, and began to wander the labyrinth. In many places, there was a long thin gap in the roof of corridors, to open them to the sky. I chimneyed up one, between a pillar and the wall, and got a solid look at the inner sanctum's massive faces. It was neat! No obvious way further up from there, though, so I went back to wander further.

At the heart of the labyrinth, I found an Abyss. A doorway where light just... stopped. I took a step into it, and found the stone stepped up, like a stair. I went to that first step, and felt around for a second. I didn't find another step, even when I tried for a step down. There was just... nothing. It was a very House of Leaves moment. Also, clearly a hole in reality, but I wouldn't have the first clue about how to patch a hole like that.

After that I made my way to the inner sanctum, where I proceeded to climb all over the rain-slick and moss-covered walls. I had a delightful time looking down and laughing at the very confused Japanese tourists (and my friend Jen, who sat taking pictures of me climbing rather than climb herself), and generally running amok. Satisfied, I went back into the labyrinth and made a full circuit of Bayon, this time emerging into the outer courtyards. I found an area where rubble was piled high enough that I could climb to the outer wall. I proceeded to Prince of Persia the SHIT out of Bayon, running along the outer wall and jumping from pillar to pillar. It was AWESOME.

The next day we went to Ta Prohm, another even older temple. Unlike the other temples in the area, Ta Prohm has been left as it was discovered... reclaimed by the jungle. When people say "jungle ruins," this is the place you think of, from all the pictures. Tomb Raider was filmed here! Yes, it's the place with the giant trees running all through it. Roots have smashed through walls and ceilings, in gigantic and glorious displays. It is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful, and a constant delight to explore and discover.

Ta Prohm was originally built as one massive labyrinth, one now made even more confusing by the fact that two thirds of the doors and corridors are blocked off with piles of rubble and millennia-old brick. Of course, this is only a problem if you bother to pay attention to the DO NOT CLIMB signs. And after finding my way to secluded areas free of Japanese tourists, I was quite happy to. There were a few Cambodian government officials wandering around to make sure people didn't climb, though, and I had one or two close run-ins. Let me tell you, scampering up a pile of ancient bricks and diving behind a wall to hide from a guard on patrol isn't as much fun as the movies and vidjamagames make it out to be... it's at LEAST five or six times as much fun.

Here and there at Ta Prohm were towers, with small sanctums in the base of each one, which had once been sites of prayer and meditation. In one of them, I found a shattered Buddha propped up on a pile of rubble, with a bunch of recently-burned incense in front of it, still fresh in the air. The temple is still in use.

I also found another Abyss room, just like the one at Bayon. I tried to take a picture of this one, and in the picture a doorway can be made out a little ways in, but that just opens onto further darkness. Sketchy business.

Eventually my parents caught up to me, and I began to THOROUGHLY mess with them. I had by this point figured out a good bit of the layout, so I was able to use it to my advantage. Run through a doorway ahead of them, then pop out a window overhead seconds later, then run up from behind them, then come out a crack in the wall way up ahead. They were thoroughly spooked and amused. (It was at this point that my mother took pictures of me clambering about.)

I must say, getting to enjoy and explore these temples was a real treat. There was an immense sense of history to it, that children had been doing just as I did over these same rocks for a thousand years, and that priests and monks made them their homes for centuries before that.

+Sunshine