1 00:00:11,144 --> 00:00:13,874 For hundreds of years, they lay in darKness. 2 00:00:14,547 --> 00:00:20,144 Their creators had been destroyed, but their spirit could not be killed. 3 00:00:21,588 --> 00:00:23,249 Gods had built them, some said. 4 00:00:23,957 --> 00:00:26,448 Others insisted... they had built themselves. 5 00:00:27,394 --> 00:00:32,457 Yet most believed that powerful spirits protected the vast stone city 6 00:00:32,599 --> 00:00:34,624 deep in the Cambodian jungle. 7 00:00:35,035 --> 00:00:38,937 And woe would come to whomever disturbed its slumber. 8 00:00:40,940 --> 00:00:44,569 Centuries apart, two men would fall under Angkor's spell. 9 00:00:46,279 --> 00:00:47,473 One was a naturalist, 10 00:00:47,614 --> 00:00:51,914 lured by tales of exotic creatures and a fabulous lost city. 11 00:00:52,185 --> 00:00:54,949 The other was a diplomat, sent to demand tribute 12 00:00:55,255 --> 00:00:59,157 from a civilization far richer than he'd ever imagined. 13 00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:03,593 Their epic tales would inflame the world's curiosity, 14 00:01:03,830 --> 00:01:08,062 and light a fire in the darKness of Cambodia's lost world. 15 00:01:51,444 --> 00:01:54,004 The mystery of Angkor is what is not Known. 16 00:01:54,581 --> 00:01:57,072 We don't Know much about the people. 17 00:02:00,987 --> 00:02:04,047 Think about it with people, when it was filled with worshippers, 18 00:02:04,190 --> 00:02:07,250 the community were out in the fields growing rice. 19 00:02:07,660 --> 00:02:10,652 What was it like when it was active and alive? 20 00:02:13,533 --> 00:02:14,397 It's absolutely extraordinary, 21 00:02:14,534 --> 00:02:17,162 the mystery is basically what is this thing? 22 00:02:17,370 --> 00:02:20,134 Why is it so big? Why is it glittering in the sun like this? 23 00:02:20,273 --> 00:02:21,001 What's it for? 24 00:02:24,043 --> 00:02:28,104 It's mysterious, you feel that something went on here 25 00:02:28,615 --> 00:02:30,446 that's not going on there today, 26 00:02:30,817 --> 00:02:34,082 but something went on there that's different 27 00:02:34,220 --> 00:02:36,381 from much of the rest of the world. 28 00:02:38,892 --> 00:02:42,794 In Southeast Asia, an abandoned city sprawls magnificently 29 00:02:42,929 --> 00:02:44,191 across the heart of Cambodia. 30 00:02:46,933 --> 00:02:48,230 Its hundreds of monuments 31 00:02:48,501 --> 00:02:50,765 contain more stone than the Egyptian pyramids, 32 00:02:51,204 --> 00:02:53,672 and cover more ground than modern paris. 33 00:02:57,343 --> 00:02:58,742 This is Angkor, 34 00:02:59,312 --> 00:03:03,112 the capital of an empire that once controlled most of Southeast Asia. 35 00:03:05,985 --> 00:03:07,247 They were called the Khmere. 36 00:03:08,655 --> 00:03:11,249 And more than five hundred years ago, they vanished 37 00:03:15,028 --> 00:03:19,362 To the outside world, the city existed only in obscure travelers' tales. 38 00:03:21,434 --> 00:03:24,597 Until a Frenchman in the 19th century brought Angkor to light. 39 00:03:26,105 --> 00:03:27,094 He was a naturalist, 40 00:03:27,407 --> 00:03:30,205 searching for unKnown species of plants and animals. 41 00:03:33,246 --> 00:03:37,683 Almost by accident he uncovered one of man's greatest creations. 42 00:03:42,355 --> 00:03:45,222 In the 1850's Frenchman Henri Mouhot might have been well 43 00:03:45,758 --> 00:03:49,660 on his way to becoming the world's first wildlife photographer. 44 00:03:52,665 --> 00:03:54,326 A naturalist and a portrait painter, 45 00:03:54,901 --> 00:03:58,268 Mouhot dabbled in the new, devilish art of photography. 46 00:04:09,315 --> 00:04:10,942 Mouhot was a born roamer 47 00:04:11,484 --> 00:04:15,045 by age 30 he'd crisscrossed Europe and Russia. 48 00:04:15,788 --> 00:04:18,552 But it was the tales of those who ventured further abroad 49 00:04:18,958 --> 00:04:21,153 that would lure him to the jungles of Cambodia. 50 00:04:22,962 --> 00:04:25,123 A book had just been published in 1857 51 00:04:25,265 --> 00:04:28,132 about the area of Southeast Asia. 52 00:04:28,635 --> 00:04:30,432 In a sense it was the focus that drew him. 53 00:04:31,671 --> 00:04:35,698 The first Europeans to explore Africa and Asia 54 00:04:35,842 --> 00:04:39,300 were usually marginal people in their own societies. 55 00:04:39,579 --> 00:04:40,978 They didn't quite fit in. 56 00:04:41,381 --> 00:04:44,145 And so they went to these other places and explored them. 57 00:04:44,284 --> 00:04:48,414 But in the process of exploring them, they opened up new areas, 58 00:04:48,554 --> 00:04:52,354 wrote about them, and provided the raw information 59 00:04:52,492 --> 00:04:57,896 that the European countries needed to exploit these areas as colonies. 60 00:05:00,700 --> 00:05:02,600 In 19th century Europe, 61 00:05:02,735 --> 00:05:05,727 models for undaunted courage were heroic explorers, 62 00:05:06,039 --> 00:05:07,472 like Henry Morton Stanley. 63 00:05:08,641 --> 00:05:10,541 While searching for the source of e Nile, 64 00:05:10,877 --> 00:05:12,811 Stanley watched most of his companions 65 00:05:12,945 --> 00:05:16,073 die of fever and warfare with hostile peoples. 66 00:05:16,916 --> 00:05:20,317 Stanley lost 60 pounds and his hair turned white. 67 00:05:21,454 --> 00:05:24,685 "We have wept so often we can weep no more," he wrote. 68 00:05:25,491 --> 00:05:27,220 But there was one more blow ahead. 69 00:05:27,860 --> 00:05:30,954 In his absence his fiance had married another man. 70 00:05:33,733 --> 00:05:37,635 For late 19th century explorers, it was all in a day's work 71 00:05:38,338 --> 00:05:41,637 What they lost at home they hoped to doubly gain abroad... 72 00:05:42,408 --> 00:05:45,844 as the front line troops of a new surge of colonialism. 73 00:05:47,046 --> 00:05:49,844 The revolution in manufacturing that would transform Europe 74 00:05:50,149 --> 00:05:52,982 was fueled in part by adventurism abroad. 75 00:05:54,020 --> 00:05:56,011 Great Britain, France, and Germany 76 00:05:56,389 --> 00:05:59,051 had developed huge appetites for raw materials 77 00:05:59,192 --> 00:06:00,318 and markets for their products. 78 00:06:04,430 --> 00:06:07,957 This set off a land grab for Asia and Africa, where minerals, 79 00:06:08,101 --> 00:06:11,764 farmland, even labor could be taken by force of arms. 80 00:06:14,574 --> 00:06:17,008 They also wanted to bring European culture 81 00:06:17,143 --> 00:06:19,771 to the peoples of these regions. 82 00:06:20,480 --> 00:06:22,744 It was a sort of cultural imperialism. 83 00:06:23,116 --> 00:06:24,640 They wanted to, in a sense, 84 00:06:24,784 --> 00:06:30,086 bring what they considered the best culture in the world 85 00:06:30,223 --> 00:06:35,126 to people who they thought had inferior cultures. 86 00:06:39,432 --> 00:06:41,662 These allegedly 'inferior' cultures 87 00:06:41,934 --> 00:06:43,799 weren't always happy to see the Europeans. 88 00:06:45,104 --> 00:06:46,036 Along with hostile armies, 89 00:06:46,172 --> 00:06:49,608 explorers had to battle disease, madness, and starvation. 90 00:06:52,178 --> 00:06:53,805 Some were military men 91 00:06:53,946 --> 00:06:56,210 who brought much needed professionalism to the trade. 92 00:06:58,351 --> 00:07:01,218 Others were doomed amateurs brimming with enthusiasm... 93 00:07:03,122 --> 00:07:06,114 Henri Mouhot would take his place among these. 94 00:07:10,196 --> 00:07:11,788 Mouhot decided to devote his life 95 00:07:11,931 --> 00:07:14,399 to studying new species of flora and fauna. 96 00:07:16,502 --> 00:07:19,300 It seemed likely he'd combine his passions, 97 00:07:19,439 --> 00:07:22,636 and become history's first photographer of wildlife. 98 00:07:25,077 --> 00:07:26,101 But fate stepped in. 99 00:07:29,515 --> 00:07:32,484 He met and married an Englishwoman, Anna park 100 00:07:34,654 --> 00:07:38,021 She was a relative of one of the great explorers of West Africa, 101 00:07:38,424 --> 00:07:39,152 Mungo park 102 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:44,527 perhaps Anna pressed Henri to match Mungo's feats of daring 103 00:07:46,566 --> 00:07:49,535 or maybe Henri wasn't suited for domestic life. 104 00:07:50,536 --> 00:07:52,561 For less than two years after they were wed, 105 00:07:53,239 --> 00:07:55,400 Mouhot set out for Southeast Asia. 106 00:07:58,110 --> 00:08:00,476 Mouhot intended to keep a diary of his adventure 107 00:08:00,613 --> 00:08:02,478 while documenting the natural world. 108 00:08:05,485 --> 00:08:09,649 But on his quest for facts, he'd encounter a profound mystery... 109 00:08:10,323 --> 00:08:12,120 an abandoned city in the jungle... 110 00:08:12,558 --> 00:08:15,356 a rival among the greatest creations of man. 111 00:08:22,635 --> 00:08:27,334 On the 27th April, 1858 I embarked at London, 112 00:08:27,773 --> 00:08:29,832 in a ship of very modest pretensions... 113 00:08:31,677 --> 00:08:33,872 Mouhot books passage on a small boat. 114 00:08:34,480 --> 00:08:37,472 The very first part of this trip was bad. 115 00:08:37,917 --> 00:08:40,818 The boat was small, the captain was drunk all the time 116 00:08:40,953 --> 00:08:46,448 and he writes of his perils on the ship and the passengers being sick 117 00:08:47,627 --> 00:08:49,561 Mouhot is really interesting to me 118 00:08:49,996 --> 00:08:55,730 because he went there without a clearly defined program. 119 00:08:56,202 --> 00:08:58,693 He was also went there on his own funding. 120 00:08:59,205 --> 00:09:03,198 In a sense he took a real chance but there was just this wanderlust. 121 00:09:03,342 --> 00:09:06,641 This, this chance to open up a new area 122 00:09:06,779 --> 00:09:10,112 to the rest of the world and he in a sense seized the moment. 123 00:09:13,419 --> 00:09:15,649 After pausing in Singapore and paKnam, 124 00:09:15,788 --> 00:09:18,416 Mouhot recovered his land legs in Bangkok, 125 00:09:18,858 --> 00:09:21,452 famous in Europe as 'the Venice of the East.' 126 00:09:23,696 --> 00:09:25,027 At Bangkok's Royal palace, 127 00:09:25,364 --> 00:09:29,027 the Frenchman dined with Siam's monk turned monarch, King Mongkut. 128 00:09:33,673 --> 00:09:36,335 The cultured king grilled Mouhot for news of Europe. 129 00:09:37,209 --> 00:09:39,302 He'd become an expert in foreign affairs, 130 00:09:39,445 --> 00:09:41,003 in order to defend his nation. 131 00:09:43,683 --> 00:09:46,618 While countries around Siam fell to European powers, 132 00:09:46,986 --> 00:09:49,546 Mongkut would sign trade treaties with many of them, 133 00:09:49,689 --> 00:09:51,748 Knowing that this would discourage any one 134 00:09:52,124 --> 00:09:53,352 from invading his kingdom. 135 00:09:55,428 --> 00:09:59,455 To teach English to his children, he'd hire the tutor Anna Leonowens. 136 00:10:00,733 --> 00:10:03,793 Her memoirs would inspire the musical The King and I. 137 00:10:04,804 --> 00:10:06,772 Its clownish portrait of Mongkut 138 00:10:06,906 --> 00:10:10,069 would become the modern world's sole impression of a ruler 139 00:10:10,209 --> 00:10:13,576 who almost single handedly saved Siam from colonization. 140 00:10:16,749 --> 00:10:19,912 Mongkut's gifts were all but lost on Mouhot as well. 141 00:10:21,153 --> 00:10:22,552 Barely acquainted with Asia, 142 00:10:22,888 --> 00:10:25,618 he was distracted by its 'peculiar' customs. 143 00:10:28,260 --> 00:10:31,161 Every inferior crouches before a higher in rank 144 00:10:31,797 --> 00:10:35,198 He receives his orders with abject submission and respect. 145 00:10:36,068 --> 00:10:39,504 The whole of society is in a state of prostration... 146 00:10:47,713 --> 00:10:49,772 Despite such attacks on his sensibilities, 147 00:10:50,316 --> 00:10:53,183 Mouhot relished his journeys by boat and even elephant 148 00:10:53,319 --> 00:10:55,378 through uncharted regions of Siam, 149 00:10:55,521 --> 00:10:57,853 and in time, to the frontier of Cambodia. 150 00:11:02,895 --> 00:11:05,090 He was warmly received by lesser kings, 151 00:11:05,531 --> 00:11:09,331 and met with enthusiastic curiosity by all those unaccustomed 152 00:11:09,468 --> 00:11:12,904 to having a farang, or white man, parade into their midst. 153 00:11:16,642 --> 00:11:19,270 Mouhot wasted little time on making friends; 154 00:11:20,179 --> 00:11:21,669 his goal was Science. 155 00:11:23,082 --> 00:11:24,709 My principal object... 156 00:11:24,850 --> 00:11:28,581 is to benefit those who in the quiet of their homes 157 00:11:28,721 --> 00:11:31,246 delight to follow the poor traveler 158 00:11:31,657 --> 00:11:35,286 who with the sole object of being useful to his fellow man... 159 00:11:35,761 --> 00:11:41,222 crosses the ocean and sacrifices family, comfort, health, 160 00:11:43,135 --> 00:11:45,399 and all too often their life itself. 161 00:11:47,173 --> 00:11:48,936 Nature has her lovers, 162 00:11:49,275 --> 00:11:53,177 and those alone who have tasted them Know the joy she gives. 163 00:12:02,755 --> 00:12:06,282 In the 19th century, the science of natural history was in its infancy; 164 00:12:06,859 --> 00:12:09,623 studying exotic species meant shooting them, 165 00:12:09,995 --> 00:12:12,122 or dunking them alive in jars of spirits. 166 00:12:14,500 --> 00:12:18,698 Mouhot's zoological treasure included seven types of mammals, 167 00:12:19,138 --> 00:12:24,576 ten reptiles, eight freshwater fish, fifteen land shells, and a spider. 168 00:12:25,511 --> 00:12:27,274 The spider still bears his name. 169 00:12:31,751 --> 00:12:33,912 While Asia's animals enchanted Mouhot, 170 00:12:34,420 --> 00:12:35,819 its people bewildered him. 171 00:12:38,557 --> 00:12:41,993 Their languages were gibberish to his ears 172 00:12:43,295 --> 00:12:45,525 their religion had many spirits, not one. 173 00:12:48,601 --> 00:12:51,126 The people played music in alien keys, 174 00:12:51,270 --> 00:12:54,467 and filled their dances with nightmarish creatures. 175 00:12:56,175 --> 00:12:59,667 Yet the cultural divide that separated Mouhot from his hosts 176 00:13:00,079 --> 00:13:03,276 was about to be crossed... by the most unlikely of people. 177 00:13:16,228 --> 00:13:18,628 When Mouhot traveled throughout southeast Asia, 178 00:13:18,864 --> 00:13:21,856 he employed several helpers who went with him. 179 00:13:24,970 --> 00:13:29,373 Mouhot became attached to one particular manservant called phrai. 180 00:13:30,342 --> 00:13:32,936 He even helped him with some of his collecting. 181 00:13:40,786 --> 00:13:44,779 He was a guide, he was an interpreter, he said up the camp. 182 00:13:45,491 --> 00:13:48,426 Phrai started out as a servant of Mouhot, 183 00:13:48,761 --> 00:13:52,219 but became his comrade and his constant companion. 184 00:13:52,798 --> 00:13:58,202 In fact we owe to phrai our Knowledge of the expeditions of Mouhot. 185 00:14:00,739 --> 00:14:01,831 On his expeditions 186 00:14:01,974 --> 00:14:04,909 Mouhot kept meticulous records of plants and animals, 187 00:14:05,277 --> 00:14:08,804 and made charts of rivers and mountains unheard of in Europe. 188 00:14:10,049 --> 00:14:11,914 He catalogued the peoples he encountered, 189 00:14:12,184 --> 00:14:14,345 noting differences in their looks and customs. 190 00:14:15,588 --> 00:14:17,988 He turned himself into a one man research team. 191 00:14:20,526 --> 00:14:24,826 And, in the tradition of great explorers before him, he suffered... 192 00:14:25,965 --> 00:14:27,899 Insects are in great numbers 193 00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:31,966 several of my books and maps have been almost devoured in one night 194 00:14:36,041 --> 00:14:38,066 We suffered terribly from mosquitoes, 195 00:14:42,081 --> 00:14:44,572 and had to keep up the incessant fanning 196 00:14:44,884 --> 00:14:47,751 to drive off these pestilent little vampires. 197 00:14:49,154 --> 00:14:51,122 There is a small species of leech... 198 00:14:51,624 --> 00:14:55,082 you have to be constantly pulling them off you by the dozens... 199 00:14:55,594 --> 00:14:58,188 but you are sure to return home covered in blood. 200 00:14:59,832 --> 00:15:01,424 Scorpions, centipedes, 201 00:15:01,734 --> 00:15:05,465 and above all, serpents, were the enemies we most dreaded... 202 00:15:09,108 --> 00:15:12,566 But remarkably, while phrai and the native bearers were frequently ill, 203 00:15:13,178 --> 00:15:15,112 Mouhot's health couldn't have been better. 204 00:15:17,216 --> 00:15:18,843 I drank nothing but tea, 205 00:15:19,084 --> 00:15:23,020 hoping by abstinence from cold water from all wine and spirits, 206 00:15:23,155 --> 00:15:24,213 to escape fever. 207 00:15:25,090 --> 00:15:27,388 In spite of the heat, the fatigue, 208 00:15:27,693 --> 00:15:30,423 and the privations inseparable from such a journey, 209 00:15:31,030 --> 00:15:34,591 I arrived among the Cambodians in perfectly good health... 210 00:15:37,169 --> 00:15:39,467 The people flocked to see my collection, 211 00:15:40,005 --> 00:15:44,066 and could not imagine what I should do with so many animals and insects... 212 00:15:46,178 --> 00:15:48,703 I offered the children my cigar ends to smoke, 213 00:15:49,214 --> 00:15:52,581 in return for which they would run after butterflies 214 00:15:52,718 --> 00:15:54,310 and bring them to me uninjured. 215 00:16:00,592 --> 00:16:01,718 Once more in boats, 216 00:16:02,027 --> 00:16:04,393 the Frenchman and his companions journeyed north. 217 00:16:04,997 --> 00:16:08,160 Their destination the rumored lost city of Angkor, 218 00:16:08,667 --> 00:16:12,433 which interested Mouhot less than the rare birds he hoped to collect there. 219 00:16:18,777 --> 00:16:21,940 On the way they paused at a lonely wilderness outpost 220 00:16:22,381 --> 00:16:25,043 a Catholic mission run by a French priest. 221 00:16:29,221 --> 00:16:31,121 Years of isolation, and dysentery, 222 00:16:31,623 --> 00:16:33,955 had soured the priest's view of the tropics, 223 00:16:34,093 --> 00:16:37,995 and made him gloomy about Mouhot's final push to the lost city. 224 00:16:41,100 --> 00:16:42,624 Do you Know where you're going? 225 00:16:44,570 --> 00:16:48,267 The rains have begun and you are going to almost certain death, 226 00:16:48,807 --> 00:16:50,434 or will at least catch a fever, 227 00:16:50,743 --> 00:16:53,678 which will be followed by years of languor and suffering. 228 00:16:54,613 --> 00:16:56,911 May God be with the poor traveler! 229 00:17:00,919 --> 00:17:04,719 Mohout said he'd abide by God's will but was going nonetheless. 230 00:17:07,726 --> 00:17:09,626 After another leg of his river journey 231 00:17:10,062 --> 00:17:12,724 he reached a landmark he Knew only from legend 232 00:17:13,332 --> 00:17:14,697 the Ton LeSap Lake, 233 00:17:15,401 --> 00:17:19,462 and marveled as the shorelines grew apart by some five miles. 234 00:17:23,308 --> 00:17:25,105 By now it'd been more than a year 235 00:17:25,477 --> 00:17:28,139 since Mouhot had dined in Bangkok's Royal palace. 236 00:17:31,183 --> 00:17:33,447 Rough travel had left him ill prepared 237 00:17:33,819 --> 00:17:34,979 for what he was about to see, 238 00:17:36,155 --> 00:17:38,623 a vision few Europeans had shared. 239 00:17:42,895 --> 00:17:47,457 The lost city of Angkor was not a rumor, but overwhelmingly real. 240 00:17:51,437 --> 00:17:56,397 There are ruins of such grandeur, remains of structures 241 00:17:56,608 --> 00:18:00,339 which must have been raised at such an immense cost of labor, 242 00:18:01,013 --> 00:18:04,972 that at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, 243 00:18:05,551 --> 00:18:09,681 and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, 244 00:18:11,056 --> 00:18:16,084 so civilized, so enlightened, the authors of these gigantic works! 245 00:18:25,070 --> 00:18:26,594 He came looking for insects, 246 00:18:28,373 --> 00:18:31,137 came looking for flora, fauna, new species. 247 00:18:32,411 --> 00:18:36,211 He didn't come looking for Angkor but he found it 248 00:18:36,348 --> 00:18:41,650 and I think if any of us who may have stumbled on Angkor as he did 249 00:18:41,787 --> 00:18:43,118 would have been excited. 250 00:18:43,422 --> 00:18:46,186 But whether we could have recorded it in such detail 251 00:18:46,458 --> 00:18:49,950 with such precision as Henri Mouhot did is unlikely. 252 00:18:53,565 --> 00:18:57,695 One of these temples a rival to that of Solomon, 253 00:18:58,003 --> 00:19:00,938 and erected by some ancient Michaelangelo 254 00:19:01,340 --> 00:19:06,004 might take an honorable place beside our most beautiful buildings. 255 00:19:08,180 --> 00:19:13,083 It's grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome! 256 00:19:15,754 --> 00:19:18,086 The natives enlightened the stunned Mouhot 257 00:19:18,624 --> 00:19:23,254 it's the work of angels, they said, or giants. 258 00:19:25,430 --> 00:19:30,197 It was built by a magician king. It built itself. 259 00:19:39,178 --> 00:19:40,941 Mouhot was not an archeologist, 260 00:19:41,313 --> 00:19:45,716 nor an art historian, nor could he read the Sanskrit engravings 261 00:19:45,851 --> 00:19:47,341 that adorned the monuments of Angkor. 262 00:19:51,190 --> 00:19:52,885 Yet he was an illustrator. 263 00:19:53,792 --> 00:19:55,157 With his customary zeal 264 00:19:55,294 --> 00:19:57,285 he set out to sketch the most magnificent 265 00:19:57,429 --> 00:19:59,897 of the lost city's some 1,000 temples, 266 00:20:00,365 --> 00:20:02,230 and describe them inch by inch. 267 00:20:03,402 --> 00:20:06,303 The west side the gallery is supported 268 00:20:06,438 --> 00:20:08,497 by two rows of square columns, 269 00:20:10,409 --> 00:20:13,572 on the east, blank windows have been let into the wall, 270 00:20:13,946 --> 00:20:18,406 with balconies of twisted columns fourteen centimeters in diameter... 271 00:20:20,886 --> 00:20:24,879 In the center of the causeway are two elegant pavilions, 272 00:20:25,224 --> 00:20:28,455 one on each side, having at each extremity a portico 273 00:20:28,594 --> 00:20:32,860 thirty three meters sixty six entimeters in length... 274 00:20:35,534 --> 00:20:37,297 Mouhot was a very keen observer. 275 00:20:37,903 --> 00:20:39,837 He was a collector of information. 276 00:20:40,305 --> 00:20:44,674 He had this natural history background to describe things 277 00:20:44,810 --> 00:20:45,640 in a very careful way. 278 00:20:45,944 --> 00:20:48,970 So when he found the monuments at Angkor, 279 00:20:49,381 --> 00:20:50,973 he went ahead and approached them 280 00:20:51,116 --> 00:20:54,108 in the same way he would approach his zoological specimens, 281 00:20:54,253 --> 00:20:55,311 with careful description. 282 00:20:57,189 --> 00:20:59,282 The vaulted ceilings of the galleries 283 00:20:59,424 --> 00:21:01,756 are raised six meters from the ground; 284 00:21:02,394 --> 00:21:07,024 those of the second roof are four meters thirty centimeters high... 285 00:21:10,569 --> 00:21:13,697 The bas reliefs represent combat and procession... 286 00:21:15,807 --> 00:21:18,275 Fabulous animals are busy devouring some; 287 00:21:19,044 --> 00:21:22,104 others are in irons and have had their eyes put out. 288 00:21:25,117 --> 00:21:29,144 He could tell that it was the results of an ancient civilization 289 00:21:29,288 --> 00:21:33,384 that had flourished in this area He could also tell by the inscriptions 290 00:21:33,525 --> 00:21:35,959 on many of the, many of the monuments 291 00:21:36,094 --> 00:21:38,255 they were mostly in Sanskrit and old Khmere. 292 00:21:38,397 --> 00:21:40,922 He could tell by these inscriptions, even though he couldn't read them, 293 00:21:41,199 --> 00:21:42,632 that these were a very learned people 294 00:21:42,768 --> 00:21:47,705 who had built all this and yet they were gone without a trace. 295 00:21:49,274 --> 00:21:51,242 Sad frailty of human things! 296 00:21:52,177 --> 00:21:55,510 How many centuries and thousands of generations 297 00:21:55,647 --> 00:22:00,550 have passed away, of which history will never tell us anything. 298 00:22:01,586 --> 00:22:06,353 What treasures of art will remain forever buried beneath these ruins. 299 00:22:07,192 --> 00:22:09,217 How many distinguished artists, 300 00:22:09,361 --> 00:22:13,354 kings, and warriors are now forgotten. 301 00:22:15,834 --> 00:22:17,461 Mouhot was deeply frustrated 302 00:22:17,602 --> 00:22:20,230 by the mystery of who had created the city of Angkor. 303 00:22:21,073 --> 00:22:23,974 He noted the similarity between the faces in the carvings 304 00:22:24,343 --> 00:22:26,607 and the people living in the surrounding forests. 305 00:22:27,946 --> 00:22:29,846 But he couldn't bring himself to believe 306 00:22:29,981 --> 00:22:34,281 that these Cambodians were descended from Angkor's peerless artists. 307 00:22:48,734 --> 00:22:51,965 In fact, the artistry of Cambodia had never died. 308 00:22:54,039 --> 00:22:56,769 Though it never again reached the heights of Angkor, 309 00:22:56,908 --> 00:22:59,274 Khmere art flourished throughout Southeast Asia. 310 00:23:03,115 --> 00:23:05,447 Demand for replicas if its most famous works 311 00:23:05,584 --> 00:23:06,983 grows with Angkor's fame. 312 00:23:15,127 --> 00:23:19,188 Oblivious of Cambodia's past, Mouhot saw France in its future. 313 00:23:20,665 --> 00:23:22,030 Only a full scale takeover, 314 00:23:22,167 --> 00:23:26,297 he concluded, could correct the nation's 'deplorable' condition. 315 00:23:26,972 --> 00:23:28,166 The sooner the better. 316 00:23:30,542 --> 00:23:35,912 European conquest wise and protecting laws, and experience 317 00:23:36,047 --> 00:23:39,278 would alone effect the regeneration of this state. 318 00:23:39,751 --> 00:23:42,083 I wish France to possess this land, 319 00:23:42,654 --> 00:23:45,851 which would add a magnificent jewel to her crown! 320 00:23:47,826 --> 00:23:49,259 Though Mouhot wouldn't live to see it, 321 00:23:49,628 --> 00:23:52,290 France did intervene soon after his expedition, 322 00:23:52,631 --> 00:23:55,429 making Cambodia a protectorate in 1864. 323 00:23:58,570 --> 00:24:00,128 It would last nearly a century. 324 00:24:03,108 --> 00:24:04,871 Mouhot's diary wasn't the cause. 325 00:24:05,610 --> 00:24:09,603 But like explorer's tales before, it fueled interest and imitation. 326 00:24:12,150 --> 00:24:13,344 King Mongkut's tutor, 327 00:24:13,652 --> 00:24:17,213 Anna Leonowens, was so moved by Mouhot's description of Angkor 328 00:24:17,689 --> 00:24:20,089 she'd later copy it for her own book 329 00:24:24,262 --> 00:24:27,322 Angkor was never a lost city in Asians' eyes. 330 00:24:27,699 --> 00:24:30,725 They Knew about it and from the 16th century onwards, 331 00:24:30,869 --> 00:24:32,894 Jesuit priests wrote it in their diaries. 332 00:24:33,271 --> 00:24:35,739 It's just that their diaries were so confidential 333 00:24:35,874 --> 00:24:37,432 it didn't reach a wide public. 334 00:24:37,943 --> 00:24:40,468 Mouhot was the first person to popularize Angkor. 335 00:24:40,912 --> 00:24:43,904 And it was his sketches, his descriptions 336 00:24:44,049 --> 00:24:48,179 that really is why he was credited with the discovery of Angkor. 337 00:25:00,565 --> 00:25:04,729 With a saber in one hand, phrai pursues the fishes in the stream. 338 00:25:05,670 --> 00:25:08,867 He and his shadow reflected on the rocks and water 339 00:25:09,307 --> 00:25:12,538 might easily be mistaken by the natives for demons. 340 00:25:15,013 --> 00:25:19,609 It is pleasant to the man devoted to our good and beautiful mother Nature 341 00:25:19,951 --> 00:25:22,579 to think that his work, his fatigues, 342 00:25:22,888 --> 00:25:25,982 his troubles and dangers, are useful to others. 343 00:25:30,295 --> 00:25:32,889 I doubt not others will follow in my steps, 344 00:25:33,398 --> 00:25:36,492 and gather an abundant harvest where I have 345 00:25:36,635 --> 00:25:37,533 but cleared the ground. 346 00:25:41,873 --> 00:25:44,933 Mouhot had been traveling for the better part of three years. 347 00:25:46,344 --> 00:25:49,313 The amateur enthusiast had become an expert naturalist, 348 00:25:49,648 --> 00:25:52,708 a skilled outdoorsman, a hardened explorer. 349 00:25:54,553 --> 00:25:57,021 He treated phrai and his other servants as his family, 350 00:25:57,455 --> 00:25:59,548 whom he alternately nursed and scolded, 351 00:25:59,891 --> 00:26:01,756 and with whom he shed tears at parting. 352 00:26:09,768 --> 00:26:12,760 Yet even as his letters home turned wistful and sentimental, 353 00:26:13,371 --> 00:26:15,862 and his journey stretched from two years to three, 354 00:26:16,508 --> 00:26:17,839 he couldn't seem to turn back 355 00:26:18,977 --> 00:26:21,411 only on the trail was he at peace. 356 00:26:24,583 --> 00:26:28,246 Do not be anxious when you think of your poor friend the traveler, 357 00:26:28,653 --> 00:26:30,951 for you Know that up to the present time 358 00:26:31,323 --> 00:26:32,984 everything has prospered with him. 359 00:26:33,692 --> 00:26:36,855 And truly I experience a degree of contentment, strength of soul, 360 00:26:37,295 --> 00:26:40,594 and internal peace, which I have never Known before. 361 00:26:45,236 --> 00:26:48,399 But the French priest's dire warning finally came true. 362 00:26:50,175 --> 00:26:52,405 The weather and mosquitoes were the worst yet. 363 00:26:54,245 --> 00:26:55,576 First phrai fell sick 364 00:26:56,948 --> 00:27:01,282 For five days we were compelled to remain in the forest; 365 00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:07,019 it rained a great part of the day, the torrents overflowed. 366 00:27:07,659 --> 00:27:11,618 I never in my life passed such wretched nights. 367 00:27:12,530 --> 00:27:16,398 My poor phrai was seized with a dreadful fever, 368 00:27:17,068 --> 00:27:20,299 and I myself felt very ill. 369 00:27:22,173 --> 00:27:24,539 October 29, 1861. 370 00:27:25,577 --> 00:27:26,669 Overcome by fever 371 00:27:27,178 --> 00:27:31,615 the 35 year old Mouhot scratched out his last journal entry. 372 00:27:32,550 --> 00:27:34,950 Have pity on me, oh my God! 373 00:27:41,326 --> 00:27:44,489 Phrai recovered and made sure his master received a proper burial. 374 00:27:46,297 --> 00:27:49,027 Then he brought Mouhot's possessions out of the forest, 375 00:27:49,367 --> 00:27:50,732 and put them on boats for Europe. 376 00:27:52,237 --> 00:27:53,829 Most of the zoological samples 377 00:27:53,972 --> 00:27:56,202 the naturalist had collected during his journeys 378 00:27:56,541 --> 00:27:58,168 had already been lost at sea. 379 00:27:58,943 --> 00:28:01,434 But his journal made it safely back to England. 380 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:12,915 Henri's widow Anna persuaded the Royal Geographical Society 381 00:28:13,058 --> 00:28:14,685 to publish Mouhot's diary. 382 00:28:15,527 --> 00:28:17,085 The first edition did not sell; 383 00:28:17,762 --> 00:28:19,627 there were no profits to share with Anna. 384 00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,725 Yet, owing chiefly to its description of Angkor, 385 00:28:25,270 --> 00:28:27,966 Mouhot's work remained in print for a full century. 386 00:28:30,742 --> 00:28:34,234 Generations of travelers and explorers have encountered 387 00:28:34,379 --> 00:28:37,314 the treasures of Khmere culture with Mouhot's journal in hand. 388 00:28:40,285 --> 00:28:43,550 And perhaps some took heart in one of Henri's last letters home, 389 00:28:44,422 --> 00:28:48,518 a fitting epitaph for Mouhot, and his generation of explorers: 390 00:28:50,528 --> 00:28:52,189 Courage, then, and hope! 391 00:28:52,997 --> 00:28:56,865 Our perseverance and efforts will be recompensed. 392 00:28:57,502 --> 00:29:02,838 Adieu, adieu, Au revoir. Do not forget me. 393 00:29:11,616 --> 00:29:15,575 Shortly after Henri Mouhot alerted the world to the wonders of Angkor, 394 00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,286 the work of recovering its treasures began. 395 00:29:22,060 --> 00:29:23,721 Mouhot's meticulous descriptions 396 00:29:23,862 --> 00:29:26,160 had inspired Europe to take a closer look 397 00:29:28,333 --> 00:29:30,358 But the questions had only just begun. 398 00:29:32,937 --> 00:29:36,634 Who were Angkor's builders, the empire called the Khmere? 399 00:29:37,842 --> 00:29:39,036 What were their lives like? 400 00:29:39,878 --> 00:29:42,472 Archeologists had no written record to go on 401 00:29:43,481 --> 00:29:45,449 If the Khmere had chronicled their story, 402 00:29:45,850 --> 00:29:48,580 they probably did so on palm leaves and paper. 403 00:29:50,421 --> 00:29:53,857 Time had turned the perishable history to dust. 404 00:29:58,096 --> 00:29:59,893 With nothing Known about their builders, 405 00:30:00,331 --> 00:30:04,461 Angkor's monuments seemed destined to hold their tongues forever. 406 00:30:09,541 --> 00:30:13,102 Then in 1902 a remarkable document came to light 407 00:30:13,478 --> 00:30:17,175 and a most unlikely voice reverberated across eight centuries. 408 00:30:19,417 --> 00:30:21,510 The fantastic civilization of the Khmere, 409 00:30:21,653 --> 00:30:25,919 thought to be forever beyond reach, came to life in all its grandeur. 410 00:30:27,926 --> 00:30:29,723 In about 10,000 words 411 00:30:29,961 --> 00:30:33,692 this report captured the heart of the lost kingdom of Angkor. 412 00:30:37,635 --> 00:30:40,160 Its author was a diplomat sent to Cambodia 413 00:30:40,305 --> 00:30:42,500 by China's fearsome Mongol Dynasty. 414 00:30:48,947 --> 00:30:51,882 The Mongols are famous for their deadly mounted warriors, 415 00:30:52,217 --> 00:30:54,913 and for tactics that routed European armies. 416 00:30:57,255 --> 00:30:58,745 At the end of the 13th century, 417 00:30:58,890 --> 00:31:01,586 however, they took aim at Southeast Asia. 418 00:31:03,261 --> 00:31:07,425 In 1286 the Mongols struck deep into what's now Vietnam. 419 00:31:08,299 --> 00:31:11,632 A year later the capital of Burma fell to the hordes. 420 00:31:12,837 --> 00:31:15,135 Yet the infamous horsemen didn't like fighting 421 00:31:15,473 --> 00:31:16,963 in the alien jungle terrain 422 00:31:17,508 --> 00:31:20,409 perhaps this alone saved Angkor from being next. 423 00:31:25,650 --> 00:31:29,780 Instead, Mongol Emperor Timur Khan gave orders for diplomats 424 00:31:29,921 --> 00:31:33,049 to go to Angkor and collect tribute from the Cambodian king. 425 00:31:34,926 --> 00:31:37,918 This would appease the Khan while allowing the envoys 426 00:31:38,062 --> 00:31:40,622 to size up Angkor for possible future attack 427 00:31:44,369 --> 00:31:46,701 one of these diplomats was Zhou Dagoun. 428 00:31:50,308 --> 00:31:52,936 Zhou Dagoun in his writing, never said why he was there. 429 00:31:53,878 --> 00:31:55,038 He was part of an embassy 430 00:31:55,179 --> 00:31:59,081 which obviously meant that it was some, trying to check out on trade, 431 00:31:59,217 --> 00:32:02,380 check out, get the intelligence on what this kingdom was like. 432 00:32:02,820 --> 00:32:04,344 To show to Mongol Emperor 433 00:32:04,622 --> 00:32:08,251 what sorts of people lay at the far boundaries of his empire, 434 00:32:08,693 --> 00:32:11,287 what sorts of products they had, what they looked like. 435 00:32:17,602 --> 00:32:21,368 The inhabitants are rude and ugly and very black 436 00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,440 The indigenous women are very lustful. 437 00:32:25,109 --> 00:32:28,044 If a husband has to leave for a distant mission, 438 00:32:28,346 --> 00:32:30,507 that's alright for a couple of nights. 439 00:32:30,949 --> 00:32:34,749 But after a dozen nights the woman will certainly complain, 440 00:32:35,153 --> 00:32:38,748 "Who am I, a ghost that needs no one to sleep with?" 441 00:32:40,291 --> 00:32:45,024 He was a keen observer, telling us about the people, the daily lives. 442 00:32:45,997 --> 00:32:48,488 Zhou Dagoun left us something very special. 443 00:32:49,600 --> 00:32:54,299 He has left the only first hand record that we have of Angkor. 444 00:32:54,672 --> 00:32:57,971 He was here when Angkor was a kingdom. 445 00:32:58,376 --> 00:33:00,901 But we have to always keep in mind he was a foreigner, 446 00:33:01,045 --> 00:33:05,141 so he was perceiving the kingdom and what he Knew 447 00:33:05,283 --> 00:33:07,478 in his background which was Chinese. 448 00:33:08,886 --> 00:33:10,751 About Zhou Dagoun little is Known. 449 00:33:12,323 --> 00:33:13,950 He was probably about thirty years old, 450 00:33:14,625 --> 00:33:16,786 a diplomat, perhaps an aristocrat. 451 00:33:17,729 --> 00:33:19,663 >From the details he reported to the Khan 452 00:33:20,098 --> 00:33:23,431 emerge a character fascinated with earthy pleasures. 453 00:33:25,536 --> 00:33:28,164 He came from an obsessive prudish kind of culture 454 00:33:28,306 --> 00:33:30,365 and he saw in this tropical climate 455 00:33:30,508 --> 00:33:34,376 and enjoyed seeing, women taking off their scanty costumes 456 00:33:34,512 --> 00:33:36,571 and getting into the river to bathe with nothing on at all, 457 00:33:36,981 --> 00:33:38,881 and he commented on this 458 00:33:39,017 --> 00:33:41,986 not only because it was so barbarian and rare and un Chinese 459 00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,351 but I think also because he enjoyed watching the spectacle. 460 00:33:49,627 --> 00:33:51,492 Every three or four days 461 00:33:51,629 --> 00:33:55,156 the women go and bathe in a river outside the city. 462 00:33:56,434 --> 00:33:58,493 Even the women from the noble families 463 00:33:58,636 --> 00:34:01,628 take part in these baths and aren't ashamed. 464 00:34:04,242 --> 00:34:07,143 Everyone can see them from the to of their heads 465 00:34:07,278 --> 00:34:08,905 to the bottom of their feet. 466 00:34:09,947 --> 00:34:13,383 The Chinese, on their day off, go and see it. 467 00:34:13,885 --> 00:34:16,945 I've heard that there are those who enter the water 468 00:34:17,088 --> 00:34:19,022 to take advantage of the situation. 469 00:34:22,527 --> 00:34:25,690 The water is always as hot as fire. 470 00:34:31,536 --> 00:34:33,902 For Zhou Dagoun, his year in Angkor 471 00:34:34,038 --> 00:34:36,632 would be full of such surprises and contrasts. 472 00:34:37,708 --> 00:34:40,438 He was Chinese, but from the frigid plains, 473 00:34:40,745 --> 00:34:44,181 a Mongol whose race worshipped war above all things. 474 00:34:47,952 --> 00:34:50,614 By contrast, the Khmere had embraced Buddhism, 475 00:34:50,922 --> 00:34:52,890 and its creed of compassion and rebirth. 476 00:34:56,627 --> 00:34:58,754 The city of one million enjoyed a calendar 477 00:34:58,896 --> 00:35:01,524 full of parades, festivals, and holy days. 478 00:35:31,662 --> 00:35:34,995 The Chinese who arrive as sailors find it comfortable 479 00:35:35,133 --> 00:35:38,034 that in this country one doesn't have to wear clothes. 480 00:35:38,569 --> 00:35:42,699 And since rice is easy to earn, and women easy to persuade, 481 00:35:43,107 --> 00:35:45,371 there are many who desert to stay. 482 00:35:47,311 --> 00:35:49,370 As he catalogued Angkor's marvels, 483 00:35:49,714 --> 00:35:52,740 Zhou Dagoun himself may have thought about deserting for a life 484 00:35:52,884 --> 00:35:53,976 in the jungle paradise. 485 00:35:56,521 --> 00:35:57,715 As a spy of sorts, he no doubt soon discovered 486 00:35:57,855 --> 00:36:00,016 that all the Khmere's might and majesty 487 00:36:00,358 --> 00:36:03,885 largely depended on one thing water. 488 00:36:09,233 --> 00:36:12,828 Three rice harvests a year fed the city of about one million, 489 00:36:13,437 --> 00:36:16,304 and paid for everything from temple building to defense. 490 00:36:19,510 --> 00:36:22,343 To grow the rice, they had to tame the water. 491 00:36:26,784 --> 00:36:30,276 They harnessed the water from the Ton Le Sap Lake 492 00:36:30,421 --> 00:36:34,414 by building a series of canals, dikes, and moats 493 00:36:34,792 --> 00:36:37,556 from the lake up to the city of Angkor. 494 00:36:37,695 --> 00:36:38,992 During the rainy season, 495 00:36:39,297 --> 00:36:40,855 when the lake began to rise 496 00:36:40,998 --> 00:36:44,934 water was forced up these canals, up above the city, 497 00:36:45,203 --> 00:36:49,799 and collected in large reservoirs, called barays for year round use. 498 00:36:51,275 --> 00:36:54,039 And in fact the system that was employed at Angkor 499 00:36:54,178 --> 00:36:55,236 a thousand years ago 500 00:36:55,379 --> 00:36:57,677 is more advanced than any irrigation system 501 00:36:57,815 --> 00:36:59,612 used in Cambodia today. 502 00:37:02,653 --> 00:37:08,057 The relationship between the king and water has a very long history. 503 00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,589 The whole reason that Angkor is located on this plain 504 00:37:13,130 --> 00:37:15,496 is because of the access of water. 505 00:37:17,835 --> 00:37:21,828 So the king could provide fish and rice 506 00:37:21,973 --> 00:37:25,033 and therefore his people would prosper 507 00:37:25,343 --> 00:37:27,311 and his genealogy would continue. 508 00:37:34,452 --> 00:37:37,785 Not surprisingly the symbol of water a snake 509 00:37:38,122 --> 00:37:39,680 is key to Khmere faith. 510 00:37:40,925 --> 00:37:43,450 In Angkor, Zhou Dagoun would have found 511 00:37:43,594 --> 00:37:46,085 the revered reptile depicted countless times, 512 00:37:46,797 --> 00:37:49,766 in scenes said to reveal the secret of immortality. 513 00:37:51,702 --> 00:37:55,468 The churning of the ocean of milk is Known in Hindu mythology 514 00:37:55,940 --> 00:37:58,807 its much loved in Cambodia in their art. 515 00:37:59,143 --> 00:38:04,342 It's depicted with gods on one side and demons on the other 516 00:38:04,482 --> 00:38:08,248 and they're holding a large scaly body of a serpent. 517 00:38:08,919 --> 00:38:12,377 They pull left and right and left and right 518 00:38:12,657 --> 00:38:14,557 in a way that we would call a tug of war. 519 00:38:14,992 --> 00:38:19,122 They're churning to try to yield the elixir of immortality. 520 00:38:22,033 --> 00:38:25,264 Immortality was a daily pursuit inside the Royal palace, 521 00:38:25,569 --> 00:38:26,934 the abode of Khmere Kings. 522 00:38:36,747 --> 00:38:39,147 Kings had more than a thousand concubines 523 00:38:39,517 --> 00:38:41,212 the most beautiful women of the empire. 524 00:38:43,954 --> 00:38:47,617 Scores are depicted at the Royal Terrace... no two alike. 525 00:38:50,461 --> 00:38:53,555 Concerning the concubines and the girls of the palace, 526 00:38:54,465 --> 00:38:58,595 I've heard that the number is between three and five thousand. 527 00:39:04,208 --> 00:39:06,472 When in a family there's a beautiful girl, 528 00:39:06,811 --> 00:39:09,109 she's immediately sent to the palace. 529 00:39:11,382 --> 00:39:13,714 As a foreigner, and an oddity, 530 00:39:14,251 --> 00:39:17,152 Zhou Dagoun wasn't permitted to enter the Royal palace... 531 00:39:18,189 --> 00:39:21,920 but he heard a legend about the magic that took place inside. 532 00:39:33,571 --> 00:39:34,629 In the Golden Tower 533 00:39:34,772 --> 00:39:39,266 inside the palace the sovereign goes to sleep in its highest part. 534 00:39:40,111 --> 00:39:43,979 All the locals assert that inside the tower there's a genie 535 00:39:44,382 --> 00:39:46,907 master of the whole territory of the kingdom. 536 00:39:47,718 --> 00:39:51,119 This genie appears every night in the form of a woman. 537 00:39:51,956 --> 00:39:55,915 Its with her that the sovereign lies with and then has sex. 538 00:39:56,994 --> 00:39:59,360 If one night the genie doesn't appear, 539 00:39:59,497 --> 00:40:03,524 this is because the time for the barbarian king's death has come. 540 00:40:04,235 --> 00:40:06,726 If the king doesn't show up even for one night, 541 00:40:07,138 --> 00:40:09,231 something terrible will happen. 542 00:40:15,713 --> 00:40:19,513 He would comment on some of their unusual customs 543 00:40:19,650 --> 00:40:22,847 but then he would always draw comparisons back to the way 544 00:40:22,987 --> 00:40:24,284 we do things in China. 545 00:40:24,588 --> 00:40:29,218 So I think he saw commonalties between the Khmer and the Chinese. 546 00:40:30,761 --> 00:40:33,821 In this country it's the women who Know about commerce. 547 00:40:34,298 --> 00:40:37,756 If a Chinese arrives here and immediately takes a woman, 548 00:40:37,902 --> 00:40:40,063 its because he wants to take advantage 549 00:40:40,204 --> 00:40:41,694 of the woman's trading skills, 550 00:40:42,006 --> 00:40:44,031 [which could easily exceed his own.] 551 00:40:46,043 --> 00:40:48,603 Zhou Dagoun disapproved of most Angkor customs 552 00:40:48,746 --> 00:40:51,681 but praised one the status of women. 553 00:40:54,785 --> 00:40:57,948 The envoy noted that women ran commerce throughout the city, 554 00:40:58,289 --> 00:41:02,020 and women intellectuals were among the king's most trusted counselors. 555 00:41:06,263 --> 00:41:09,494 Women figure prominently in engravings on a temple at Angkor 556 00:41:09,867 --> 00:41:10,834 called the Bayon. 557 00:41:14,338 --> 00:41:16,238 They depict dozens of types of business 558 00:41:16,373 --> 00:41:18,705 and the daily activities of Khmere life. 559 00:41:21,378 --> 00:41:24,313 In fact everything the Mongols wanted to Know about the Khmere 560 00:41:24,448 --> 00:41:28,942 was right here agriculture, slaves, rare goods. 561 00:41:29,753 --> 00:41:33,189 For Zhou Dagoun it would have been an intelligence goldmine. 562 00:41:35,392 --> 00:41:39,192 Valuable products are the feathers of the kingfisher, 563 00:41:39,330 --> 00:41:43,733 elephant tusks, rhino's horn, and beeswax. 564 00:41:44,869 --> 00:41:49,431 The white rhinoceros horn is veined and is the most precious; 565 00:41:50,274 --> 00:41:52,208 the black one is inferior. 566 00:41:59,316 --> 00:42:02,752 In general, the people of this country are very simple. 567 00:42:03,287 --> 00:42:04,811 When they see a Chinese, 568 00:42:04,955 --> 00:42:07,753 they are respectfully frightened and call him "Buddha". 569 00:42:08,392 --> 00:42:12,726 Seeing him, they throw themselves to the ground and bow low. 570 00:42:14,765 --> 00:42:18,599 >From Zhou Dagoun's reports we Know about the fact 571 00:42:18,736 --> 00:42:20,328 that there were astronomers there. 572 00:42:20,704 --> 00:42:22,171 We Know about the fact that, 573 00:42:22,306 --> 00:42:27,107 that various groups of people within the court were scientists. 574 00:42:27,478 --> 00:42:29,673 So this was an area of discovery. 575 00:42:30,014 --> 00:42:34,144 This was the Renaissance area of southeast Asia. 576 00:42:36,854 --> 00:42:39,880 More than five centuries before Europe's Renaissance, 577 00:42:40,157 --> 00:42:43,786 Cambodian Michaelangelos sent their masterpieces soaring skyward. 578 00:42:45,763 --> 00:42:48,698 Reliefs at the Bayon acKnowledged the builders; 579 00:42:49,366 --> 00:42:52,665 but one monument at Angkor made them immortal. 580 00:42:57,408 --> 00:43:01,037 The Chinese envoy Zhou Dagoun was probably barred 581 00:43:01,178 --> 00:43:05,274 from Angkor's greatest marvel, a funery temple built for a king. 582 00:43:07,084 --> 00:43:08,608 He skipped over it in his report, 583 00:43:09,386 --> 00:43:12,412 mentioning only that a Chinese artisan had probably built it. 584 00:43:19,697 --> 00:43:22,791 No doubt the envoy coveted the Khmere's timeless masterpiece 585 00:43:23,667 --> 00:43:24,656 Angkor Wat. 586 00:43:34,278 --> 00:43:37,076 Over a century before Zhou Dagoun arrived, 587 00:43:37,214 --> 00:43:39,614 the last stone was fitted into place. 588 00:43:41,518 --> 00:43:42,985 Archeologists have determined 589 00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:45,247 that it took almost thirty years to complete, 590 00:43:45,623 --> 00:43:47,784 and was finished in time to bury the king. 591 00:43:52,196 --> 00:43:55,723 Some historians believe Angkor Wat is a funery temple. 592 00:43:56,266 --> 00:44:00,896 The main basis for this is that the entrance is at the west. 593 00:44:02,039 --> 00:44:05,531 In Hindu mythology this signifies death. 594 00:44:06,377 --> 00:44:11,974 When you enter you feel you're moving from the world of man 595 00:44:12,116 --> 00:44:14,016 to the world of the deities. 596 00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,718 Look to the left. It's a battle. It is a battle of war 597 00:44:20,858 --> 00:44:23,691 and massacre and slaughter and pillage and fire. 598 00:44:24,461 --> 00:44:30,457 But at the east is the famous story of the churning of the ocean of milk, 599 00:44:30,968 --> 00:44:32,196 the beginning of life. 600 00:44:36,140 --> 00:44:40,008 Never in his life would Zhou Dagoun have seen anything like it. 601 00:44:41,245 --> 00:44:44,339 The austere Mongol religion had nothing to compare 602 00:44:44,481 --> 00:44:46,073 to sacred mountains of stone. 603 00:44:50,521 --> 00:44:53,854 Angkor Wat was built to please a Hindu god, 604 00:44:54,191 --> 00:44:56,921 but came to draw the devout of many faiths. 605 00:45:02,433 --> 00:45:06,096 Climbing the staircase reveals levels of increasing holiness. 606 00:45:10,574 --> 00:45:12,633 Then you continue to the next level. 607 00:45:12,976 --> 00:45:17,913 The walls are bare in total contrast to these reliefs, totally bare walls. 608 00:45:19,917 --> 00:45:20,474 Why? 609 00:45:20,884 --> 00:45:24,911 Because you look at the top and what do you see but the pinnacle, 610 00:45:25,556 --> 00:45:29,549 the image of Vishnu that would have been housed inside this. 611 00:45:29,927 --> 00:45:35,058 And so the bare walls provide a quiet background 612 00:45:35,199 --> 00:45:39,693 to carry your eye upward to the very most sacred point of the temple. 613 00:45:44,842 --> 00:45:48,141 According to tradition, priests placed the king's ashes 614 00:45:48,278 --> 00:45:50,712 inside the temple he built for himself. 615 00:45:52,216 --> 00:45:54,946 Yet the monarch didn't dwell in the next world alone. 616 00:45:59,223 --> 00:46:03,751 Attending him are 1700 enchanted beings, called Apsaras. 617 00:46:08,499 --> 00:46:11,764 The Apsaras are the celestial nymphs, the beautiful women 618 00:46:11,902 --> 00:46:14,063 that fly through the heavens and dance for the gods. 619 00:46:21,945 --> 00:46:23,173 And they stand ready 620 00:46:23,313 --> 00:46:25,873 dressed in theirjewelry and beautiful costumes 621 00:46:26,016 --> 00:46:29,782 to do whatever the gods would need to make them happy 622 00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:31,410 and for the kingdom to prosper. 623 00:46:37,194 --> 00:46:40,163 These celestial nymphs were born simply to please the gods, 624 00:46:40,297 --> 00:46:41,025 can you imagine? 625 00:46:45,803 --> 00:46:48,772 Angkor Wat had hardly claimed its place on the horizon 626 00:46:49,173 --> 00:46:50,197 when disaster struck 627 00:46:56,513 --> 00:47:00,540 Drawn by its increasing splendor the Chams, from what's now Vietnam, 628 00:47:00,751 --> 00:47:02,548 attacked and burned the city. 629 00:47:05,389 --> 00:47:08,324 Countless inhabitants were killed, or forced into exhile. 630 00:47:20,170 --> 00:47:24,106 By the time the capital was rebuilt, a sea change had taken place. 631 00:47:27,644 --> 00:47:28,668 His people had suffered... 632 00:47:29,313 --> 00:47:32,111 so the king built a walled city, Angkor Tom, 633 00:47:32,449 --> 00:47:34,007 to protect them in time of war. 634 00:47:37,054 --> 00:47:40,785 Like their king most of the Khmere people abandoned Hinduism, 635 00:47:41,191 --> 00:47:42,715 and followed in the Buddha's path. 636 00:47:46,230 --> 00:47:48,460 Zhou Dagoun was familiar with Buddhism, 637 00:47:48,866 --> 00:47:50,390 a popular religion in China. 638 00:47:51,201 --> 00:47:53,863 But he was awed by its Cambodian face. 639 00:47:57,975 --> 00:48:00,102 Above each gate of the enclosure, 640 00:48:00,244 --> 00:48:03,805 there are five big Buddha heads carved in stone, 641 00:48:04,381 --> 00:48:07,782 their faces turned towards the four cardinal points; 642 00:48:09,186 --> 00:48:12,053 at the center is placed one of these heads, 643 00:48:12,723 --> 00:48:15,556 but this one is decorated in gold. 644 00:48:17,261 --> 00:48:20,697 It's a kind face, it's a god of compassion and wisdom. 645 00:48:22,099 --> 00:48:25,728 This art feature had never before been seen at Angkor, 646 00:48:26,036 --> 00:48:28,527 and in fact there's not a prototype Known. 647 00:48:31,575 --> 00:48:35,011 Some say that it represents the king looking in all directions, 648 00:48:35,145 --> 00:48:36,578 north south east and west, 649 00:48:36,713 --> 00:48:38,943 and that makes him the Ruler of the Universe. 650 00:48:44,655 --> 00:48:48,785 Everyday the king holds audiences for affairs of state. 651 00:48:51,561 --> 00:48:55,463 The king, sword in hand, appears in the golden window. 652 00:48:56,233 --> 00:49:00,761 All present join their hands and touch the earth with their foreheads. 653 00:49:01,571 --> 00:49:05,667 It is plain to see that these people, though barbarians, 654 00:49:06,143 --> 00:49:08,236 Know what is due to a prince. 655 00:49:11,515 --> 00:49:13,346 Zhou Dagoun arrived in Angkor 656 00:49:13,483 --> 00:49:16,919 when its king had undisputed control over an empire 657 00:49:17,054 --> 00:49:18,783 of seemingly limitless potential. 658 00:49:19,957 --> 00:49:21,322 Despite his glowing account, 659 00:49:21,792 --> 00:49:25,319 his master, Timur Khan never plundered the nation's treasures. 660 00:49:29,900 --> 00:49:33,165 Perhaps Cambodia's climate was too similar to that of Vietnam, 661 00:49:33,470 --> 00:49:36,098 where the Mongols had tasted rare defeat. 662 00:49:38,075 --> 00:49:41,169 Or perhaps the Khmere seemed too strong to tame. 663 00:49:44,681 --> 00:49:48,811 Zhou Dagoun may have painted too fine a portrait for invasion. 664 00:49:49,720 --> 00:49:53,986 Maybe Timur decided it wasn't really worth invading. 665 00:49:54,358 --> 00:49:56,121 Or maybe there were plans 666 00:49:56,259 --> 00:49:59,023 but other things were happening in the middle kingdom 667 00:49:59,162 --> 00:50:02,495 that in a sense blocked any future expansion. 668 00:50:05,836 --> 00:50:08,202 Yet the Khmere's story would soon come to an end 669 00:50:08,705 --> 00:50:10,696 whether the Mongol Khan invaded or not. 670 00:50:12,743 --> 00:50:16,406 Archeologists and historians have pieced together the final chapter. 671 00:50:18,882 --> 00:50:20,372 By Zhou Dagoun's time, 672 00:50:20,684 --> 00:50:25,747 22 kings over 500 years had worked the land until it began to fail. 673 00:50:27,124 --> 00:50:31,390 Rice harvests dropped, and stone monument building... ceased. 674 00:50:33,897 --> 00:50:36,297 Maintenance of the reservoirs and canals suffered. 675 00:50:37,134 --> 00:50:40,262 The kings' sacred covenant with the water... was broken. 676 00:50:46,309 --> 00:50:48,937 Early in the 15th century the kingdom of Siam 677 00:50:49,079 --> 00:50:51,604 made profitable raids into Khmere territory. 678 00:50:53,050 --> 00:50:56,918 A climactic battle in 1431... brought about the end. 679 00:50:59,656 --> 00:51:00,645 All but abandoned, 680 00:51:01,058 --> 00:51:04,516 the Khmere capital was lulled into a centuries long sleep 681 00:51:04,795 --> 00:51:06,092 by the encroaching jungle. 682 00:51:10,534 --> 00:51:13,059 Fortunately, Zhou Dagoun had long since 683 00:51:13,203 --> 00:51:14,830 carried his chronicle to safety. 684 00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:18,870 Angkor had won the envoy's admiration, 685 00:51:19,009 --> 00:51:22,445 and he repaid it with the only surviving portrait 686 00:51:22,579 --> 00:51:24,740 of Cambodia's ancient treasures. 687 00:51:30,454 --> 00:51:31,751 Coming to Angkor for most people 688 00:51:31,888 --> 00:51:35,688 is a bit of a pilgrimage to a sacred place. 689 00:51:36,026 --> 00:51:39,052 Somehow it just touches your soul. 690 00:51:41,832 --> 00:51:43,800 Every time you see it looming out of the forest 691 00:51:43,934 --> 00:51:44,992 it hits you very, very hard. 692 00:51:45,135 --> 00:51:47,660 The mystery is it doesn't explain itself. 693 00:51:50,507 --> 00:51:51,838 We don't Know much 694 00:51:51,975 --> 00:51:54,876 except from reports of Zhou Dagoun of how they lived. 695 00:51:55,812 --> 00:52:00,909 Yet, we can still see the monuments they left and we can speculate 696 00:52:01,051 --> 00:52:04,885 and we can dream about the greatness of this civilization.