The Western Baray is one of those exceptional places, as Cambodia has, where everyday life and the great Angkor history are aligned.
Excavated in the 11th century, this immense artificial reservoir, the largest in the country, has become over time a place of leisure and conviviality. Direction Western Baray, a 20-minute drive from the city centre of Siem Reap.
A place still unknown
While the Western Baray is mostly frequented by Khmer families, few tourists or even expatriates have bothered to go for a few hours. Nevertheless, the place is not lacking in assets, including its peasant temples, its hammocks where to stretch and drink a fresh sugarcane juice and its possibilities for refreshing swimming.
Journey away from the beaten paths
Several routes can be taken to get there, from the former airport or the National 6. This latter access offers a tasty entry into the matter, with its small road bordered by trees and shiny green rice groves. After a few minutes, a climb begins, revealing, once it reaches its summit, a breathtaking landscape. In a perfect rectangle, an immense amount of water appears, while the cries of the children playing down there are mixed with those of the walking sellers, and the smells of barbecues come to the nostrils.
A few clothes and souvenirs stands were set up next door, hoping to attract the attention of tourists. A visit to the Baray is indeed included in the services of many Chinese travel agencies, but the exit is only a few dozen minutes at most.
Few are the fearless tourists who dare to venture downstairs, where the bungalows and small beaches are located. Fleeing the turmoil, it is time to go down and win a hamac, which will cost the sum of 2 dollars for an unlimited time. A very small expense to be able to admire the landscape and, above all, the colourful daily life that takes place there.
Children bathing and grabbing huge air-conditioned rooms, families exchanging a few words with the goguette barang and food and drink merchants side by side. Comfortably installed in its hamac, the visitor will also be able to dream of the greatness of ancient times.
Pharaonic construction site
It is hard to imagine that this enormous, eight-kilometre-on-two basins, which alone can contain 123 million cubic metres of water, has been dug by human hands. When construction began during the reign of Suryavarman I, the neighbourhoods of Angkor already had two reservoirs of this type, significantly smaller. The intense water needs of this ‘hydraulic city’, as Bernard-Philippe Groslier called it, require the establishment of this pharaonic construction site.
Oriented east-west, the reservoir is surrounded by dams 5 to 8 metres high and 50 metres wide. Its main function has long been discussed: was it the war port of the city of Angkor, asks Jean Commaille in a 1912 book? Or an enormous meadow to feed the population? Was it only a symbolic and religious function, a mirror of the mythical primordial ocean? What is certain is that the Baray, by channelling the Siem Reap River and withholding monsoon precipitation, allowed to control the water supply, providing regular access to this precious resource, including during the dry season.
In 1935, a more unusual use was made of the large reservoir, which served as the base for the two hydroplanes carrying archaeologist Victor Goloubew in his aerial observations of the Angkor site.
Under the protection of Vishnu
As often in Angkor civilisation, the utilitarian function of a place or monument went hand in hand with a strong religious symbolism. In the centre of the lake, a small island, the Mebon, houses a temple dedicated to Vishnu. In his sanctuary, a bronze represented the divinity lying down, the head resting on one of his four hands, a jet of water coming out of his umbilical. It is probably the same work that the Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan contemplated, who visited the place at the end of the 13th century and whose account constitutes one of the most valuable testimonies concerning this period.
Disappearing for several centuries, the statue reappeared in 1936 in the form of a dream to a villager who hurried to go and tell it to Maurice Glaize, then conservative of the site of Angkor. It was probably not on the faith of a dream that excavations were immediately undertaken: according to a more prosaic version, the villager in question, looking for some precious material, would have unleashed a giant hand and, not knowing what to do with such a finding, would prefer to refer it to the authorities. In any case, these excavations have resulted in the most imposing Khmer bronze statue known to date, which, although incomplete, is one of the masterpieces of the Phnom Penh National Museum.
Buried by the waves
Currently the Mebon is the subject of major restoration work, unfortunately it cannot be visited, except the dams that surround it. Nevertheless, nothing prevents you from renting a boat, which will allow you to move away from the shores to contemplate the surrounding nature as well as the few fishermen still active.
Hiking on a hamac, boating and swimming are not the only possible occupations: a walk around the lake will allow you to discover some small temples that, if they are far from equal to the splendour of those located in the Angkor Park, have the charm of rare and secret objects.
The return can be made by another route, along the Baray river eastward in the direction of the airport. The pagoda of Svay Romeat, with its frescoes depicting a Dantesque hell and its row of statues bordering its gate, can be the object of a short visit before regaining the tumult of the city.
Practical advice
This extraordinary reservoir is, of course, dependent on the rivers and precipitation that feed it. It is common, during the rainy season, that the beaches and even some bungalows are flooded. During drought months, some activities such as swimming or sailing will be impossible. The public attending the Baray, or Teuk Thla, being mainly Khmer, it is more than recommended to comply with the existing codes of conduct.
If it is not necessary to swim in jeans and T-shirts as many locations do, a minimum decency will still have to be a bet. An anti-mosquito spray will also complement the besace alongside the books, playing cards and sunscreen. Finally, as the weekends are the occasion for large family gatherings, visitors seeking tranquility will have to take advantage of weekdays to visit this highly symbolic place of Khmer culture.
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