Angkor Diaries, January 1993
Interview with Mr. Pich Keo, archaeologist and curator (part 2).
Q. When you arrived in Angkor on the 15th of January, 1979, what was it like?
A. ‘I can’t tell you because I love so much Angkor Wat. Before, Angkor Wat, and every [other] temple in Angkor was clean. But when I came to Angkor for the first time, everywhere there was forest – Angkor was invaded by the jungle. Just after Liberation. I went to Angkor directly, in January. The moat which was around the temple had no water and the Khmer Rouge had placed mines everywhere.’
[note the mines in the foreground; they were all over the complex in 1993]
Mr Pich Keo: ‘Inside the Temple, everywhere we saw jungle. A lot of images of the Buddha were broken. The second gallery was mined by the Khmer Rouge. The principal entrance of the Bayon temple was destroyed by them – they cut a big tree and tree fell on the gate. You can see an apsara with a bullet hole. Many blocks of stone were taken away by the Khmer Rouge to make roads and collective granaries.’
