Around the World in 80 Treasures (2005) s01e03 Episode Script

l'm setting off on the third leg of my
marathon tour of the Wonders of the World.
As l make my way through Australia
and south east Asia,
l'll see some of the most awe inspiring and
haunting treasures ever created by man.
l'm heading for a world of spirits.
A paradise on Earth.
Over the past month
l've travelled through the Americas
from Peru to New York.
My next stop is another of the world's
great modern cities.
ln little more than two hundred years,
Sydney has gone from being a dumping ground
for British convicts,
to a confident metropolis,
with a number of potential treasures
l'm keen to see.
l've come to Sydney to seek my treasure.
To find the treasure
that captures the extraordinary history,
the spirit of this city and this nation.
There are several contenders.
The first one is obvious.
The Sydney Opera House.
lt's the great Australian icon
and one of the most celebrated buildings
of the 20th century.
The Opera House was designed in 1957
by a Danish architect, Jorn Utzon
The Opera House is one of the most
memorable buildings of the 20th Century.
lts forms are so strong.
They're like a symbol for the City.
These great shells one upon the other.
lncredibly powerful.
The influences are complex.
Utzon looked at many things.
He'd been to Mexico, seen Mayan architecture.
He loved the platform.
l'm on the platform now.
The shells rise from the -
rise from the platform,
below are the sort of service parts
of the buildings,
and these great steps,
again from the great Mayan temples in Mexico.
So he's thinking of ancient sacred buildings.
Utzon also took inspiration from nature.
He needed to make the structure easy to build.
His solution was ingenious.
The shape of each of these shells originates
from one form.
A sphere.
lf one takes an orange and
one cuts it into components -
l'm now creating the surface of the shells
on a miniscule scale.
And these surface shapes of
standard geometrical form
are the basis of the shell structure
of the City Opera House, you see.
lncredible this use of nature,
use of simple forms,
use of powerful elemental geometry,
use of modern building materials, concrete,
all very ingenious,
to create emblematic building
which sums up the City which has captured
the imagination of the world,
which says Sydney.
My heart sinks
when l enter the Opera House.
lt seems like another building.
The imaginative design of the exterior
has not been repeated inside.
lt's all because in 1966,
Utzon walked off the project
after rows over the design
and escalating budget.
The consequences of Utzon's resignation were,
well, tragic really.
The fact is the relationship between the inside
and the outside is er, what shall one say?
Unresolved, unsatisfactory.
lt's good in parts,
but not as good as it ought to be
and that is very sad.
A masterpiece has been flawed.
For this reason l have decided to reject
the Opera House as a treasure.
My next contender is a stone's throw
from the Opera House.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge
straddles the Bay like a huge longbow.
lt's one of the most famous bridges in the world
and from a distance it has a majestic presence.
But l want to take a closer look
and climb to the bridge's summit.
Ajourney of more than a mile.
lt's the largest steel arch bridge in the world
and it's held together by an amazing
six million hand-driven rivets.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge,
when completed in 1932,
was the great emblem of Sydney, of Australia
and one can see why. lt's a superb - structure.
Superb, exciting too across the harbour.
Magnificent creature.
There's no doubt the bridge
is a great feat of engineering,
but it's like many other bridges in the world
and l wonder what it
really tells me about Australia.
l have a third,
much more surprising contender,
which l believe is more symbolic of Australia
than either the bridge or the Opera House.
lt's a short walk from the bridge
and you'd be forgiven for missing it.
Dwarfed by Sydney's 21st Century skyline,
lies the City's hidden gem.
A charming little Georgian church.
St James' is my treasure
because it tells the story of
how Australia was built.
How a noble nation evolved
out of a penal colony.
St James' may look like any
old late Georgian classical church,
but consider the context, consider the
circumstances of its design and construction.
When this church was started in 1819,
the City was less than fifty years old,
and more to the point,
it was a penal settlement.
A town of convicts, a sort of shanty town.
So this church, in its grandeur,
was astonishing.
lt's metropolitan in its ambition.
lt's a declaration really that one day this town
of convicts, Sydney, would be a great city.
The architect was an English prisoner
called Francis Greenway.
He'd been condemned to death in 1812 for fraud,
but the sentence was commuted
and he was deported to Australia.
The Governor of New South Wales,
Lachlan Macquarie, emancipated Greenway
and decided to make use of
his skills as an architect.
And all this results in a building
that l find absolutely haunting.
ln this barren location,
the other end of the world,
a town of pain, a convict town,
one gets a spectacular church built.
A church as good as anything
in Britain at the time.
Governor Macquarie is now revered
as the Father of Australia.
But at the time his liberal policies towards
emancipated convicts were attacked.
Macquarie was ousted by the reactionary
free men of the city in 1821,
and his favourite architect, Greenway, was sacked
the following year before his masterpiece,
St James' Church, was completed.
Greenway, a broken man,
died in 1837, penniless and forgotten.
But there is a optimistic twist to this tale
which makes one heart and soul rise.
One picks up a ten dollar note.
Not a current one, one of some years ago
and here we see the hero of the church.
The hero of art and architecture in early
Australia Francis Greenway.
Now a hero indeed.
lronically of course a man
convicted of forging letters,
of forgery ends up emblazoning a bank note.
For me this building, this church,
says so much about this nation.
lt says so much about the spirit of this nation.
There's another spirit which existed here long
before Europeans moved to Australia.
The Aboriginal spirit.
l've always been fascinated by the ancient
beliefs of Australia's early inhabitants.
To break the long journey, l stop for a snack
that l'm told is very nourishing,
if a little shocking.
Green ants. Must be a nest.
These are walking lunch baskets.
Their posteriors are loaded with um vitamin C
and the Aboriginal people around here
love to eat them, if you can catch them.
Lovely. Very, very intense taste.
A bit like a good wine.
Now here's a good one offering up
his buttocks. Um.
Now l know the thrill of being an anteater.
Um. Your ass is mine, as they say!
The ants were strangely delicious.
But later l chance upon a brilliant bit
of insect engineering
that makes me feel rather guilty.
lnsect architecture.
About twenty, thirty million termites
live in this sort of high rise structure
made out of mud really.
Mud architecture. A beautiful piece of work.
Termite skyscraper. lncredible.
The termite tower is the work of nature that
the Aboriginal people would appreciate.
lndeed to them this whole landscape is alive
and tomorrow somewhere within it
l will find my next treasure.
l've come to the Northern Territory of Australia
to see the oldest art in history.
Art that dates from the dawn of man.
l'm going to a site that was first inhabited
fifty thousand or even sixty thousand years ago.
But, although ancient, this art is not dead.
l'm going to see a living treasure.
lt's an art form inspired by the kind of nature
which now explodes all round me.
lt was painted by the ancestors
of the Aborigines,
the traditional owners of this land.
There are literally hundreds of paintings layers
one upon the other
on the rock faces in front of me
and round about.
They date back twenty or thirty thousand years.
Some are much - much more recent.
They're living, living paintings
full of meaning and power.
They tell about the Creation,
about life the life of the people,
all those hundreds, thousands of years ago.
They tell us about the past and of course also
they could be about the present.
They could be about safeguarding
the families that live here,
that still live here, the same families.
The paintings aren't left to fade away
with the passing of the years,
but are lovingly refreshed
by Aboriginal painters today.
They're potent works of art.
The paintings of fish, turtles and wild animals,
carry deep spiritual meaning.
l meet Natasha Naji, whose family has lived
at Kakadu for generation upon generation.
- lncredible.
- This is the area that we go hunting,
but not now because there's too much water
at the moment.
- You, your ancestors right back come from here?
- Yeah.
Starting from the oldest man we know.
As we walked through one of the world's
oldest art galleries,
she tells me about the Creation ancestors
and the Dream Time.
The beginning of knowledge and understanding.
There are also moral tales from the past,
including the peculiar story
of the selfish Namagan sisters,
who turned themselves into crocodiles to
prey upon their former, human, companions.
The person that paints the painting is - is - is
kind of more important than the painting itself.
The person has to have the power
and the knowledge.
Usually it's only just men that do this.
Men are the ones that go out spearing fish,
hunting for other sorts of things
that women aren't supposed to do.
Women are just the gatherers.
lt's incredible to be - l mean the stories are
about - about creation, about the past,
but also they seem to be about things
now as well.
With the fish and shows all their insides,
like we get fish today and we come back
and we can have a look at these paintings
and we can see exactly the same shapes
and bones and fat
and everything that's in the fish
that are on the paintings.
So that's the point of the famous,
so called X-ray painting,
where you can see the inside of a creature.
lt's really like a diagram of
how to cut it up or what to eat.
Yeah, yeah, and it shows you
what parts are poisonous
or what parts certain people can
- can eat and can't eat.
Tell you what,
l'd love to the see the Rainbow Serpent.
- She's over here and it is a female, isn't it?
- Yes, yes.
Female goddess, Earth goddess.
- Yes, it's woman power.
- Woman power.
Yes. Come on. We'll go and see.
- Here we are.
- Oh look. Oh! This is
- The Rainbow Serpent.
- This is the serpent.
Where's the um- the head is
gone underground, there.
So this is again - sorry, god l sound so stupid,
the Rainbow Serpent, of course a rainbow.
ln other words the rainbow is a great bridge
between this world and the next.
So many religions, and of course the
Rainbow Serpent is shown as a rainbow.
l hadn't expected it. l thought it would be like,
you know, a snake.
lt's much more powerful, it's much more abstract,
much more sensual. There it is.
Great.
The Rainbow Serpent
pretty much represents our women
and with women culture
and how a young girl becomes a lady.
- A Earth goddess, isn't it, really?
- Yes, yes.
Life coming from the Earth,
life coming from the female.
She um, is like what my grandfather said.
She's like a queen, your boss.
- Yeah, the boss lady.
- Yes.
lt's deeply moving to experience a culture rooted
in the myths of the earliest human society.
To come into contact with beliefs far
removed from our material existence.
But l fear for the future of this fragile world.
lf Natasha's generation turn their backs on it,
what will become of the Creation ancestors
and its ancient and legend memories?
lt's a terrible thought.
l leave Australia for lndonesia,
where l will encounter another culture whose
strange and time honoured traditions live on.
l'm heading into the heart of the lsland of
Sulawesi to a region called Torajaland.
l'm flying north across the Timor Sea,
part of the Pacific Ocean,
to meet a people
who've had traditionally
a very close relationship
with the Aborigines
of the north west coast of Australia.
l'm meeting these people to participate
in a very special ceremony.
lndeed, a ceremony that marks
the most important moment of their lives.
l'm about to enter a world where the process of
dying has been transformed into a way of life.
lt's one of the most beautiful places on Earth,
and, as l'm about to find out,
one of the most mysterious.
This is the village of Ketu Kesu.
The spirit houses are not quaint homes on stilts,
but symbolise the realm of the dead.
They're an important port of call for the
deceased in theirjourney to the afterlife.
l'm about tojoin them on that journey.
On my left are spirit houses,
the domain of the dead.
Each one belongs to a different family.
Embellished with buffalo horns,
buffalo skulls showing the creatures
that were sacrificed at the time of the funerals.
The more horns,
the higher status the family has.
And everywhere there is the cockerel.
Lord Cock, King of the Underworld.
And these buildings are divided
into these three, three worlds.
The ground floor is the Underworld occupied
by beasts who live at the base of the house,
the middle part occupied by man,
the upper part, this amazing roof structure
that's the world of the gods,
the spirits, the ancestors,
they live in the roof space.
And the roof itself is a
very powerful sacred emblem,
perhaps based on a boat. These people came
from the sea, lived off the sea for centuries
so there's a great boat shaped top,
or you can see it as
the horns of a great buffalo.
So this building itself, each building's a
diagram of the sacred belief of these people.
Here we have him, Pong Laladong as he's called.
King Cock, Lord of the Underworld
pecking at my feet.
And here these fine creatures water buffalos,
bull water buffalo, munching looking at me.
Maybe a trifle nervous.
Not surprised because um,
the chances are one day soon
he'll be sacrificed at a funeral.
lf so, his spirit would join the corpse
on its journey to the other world.
l'm about to witness
the fate awaiting the buffalo,
and it's not a pleasant one.
Here death is celebrated with an orgy of blood
and killing to mourn one man
who's already been dead for four years.
The village is teeming with people.
lt's like a festival.
But in fact, as these ladies in black reveal,
it's a funeral.
This is a high point though,
in the life of these people.
The funeral, death, death leading of course
to rebirth in a better place in the stars.
l'm being guided by this man.
He seemed to know what l want.
These people are all the relatives
of the of the deceased, the people here?
Yeah, people are family.
Are these people - they're all family.
Are you family as well?
Yeah, family. My uncle is dead.
Well, do you mind us coming to um,
tojoin in the funeral?
ls it all right - it's all right if we come
and have a look to see your uncle?
Yeah, my uncle.
Everywhere freshly sacrificed creatures -
l'm being dragged inside.
Do we sit down?
This is basically a grandstand.
More like a box in opera.
Each box is numbered, l'm in 39.
l'm being ushered in here
to witness something.
Everywhere people are gathering,
waiting for something to happen.
Not entirely sure what at this stage.
lt soon becomes clear.
As a new victim enters the arena of death.
Oh dear. l'm very fond of pigs.
They're obviously - they've obviously tried to be
merciful, they've gone to his heart, haven't they?
Oh dear.
The people here believe the spirit
of the sacrificed pig
will join the dead man's spirit in the afterlife,
giving him status and wealth.
The funeral's a celebration because the dead,
they've gone to a better place.
They're renewing the cycle of life and death
and rebirth, they've gone to the stars.
Where these people believe their ancestors
came from, where they come from.
But l must say seeing this scene of sacrifice,
this um, this poor pig,
simply as part of the ritual rather
takes the pleasure of all this for me.
God knows how many pigs
have been sacrificed here today.
There's remains of many round about
and two here waiting to go.
l meet Mr Ranti Tasak,
the man who has organised the funeral.
So what relation are you to the deceased?
- My father.
- His father.
lt's your father? Oh my dear, l'm so sorry.
l didn't realise it's your father.
lt's very - very - and - and so all this um,
the gathering here all these people
and the animals being sacrificed
it's in honour of your father?
Because you like your father,
because he loved his father.
That's why he make this -
this kind of offering.
What about the spirit of the animals?
Where do they go?
According to our belief the spirit
of the buffalo and pig
also will go to their heaven,
join with the dead person as well. Yeah.
That's what l thought. So the flesh stays here
to feed the people, the humans,
but the spirit of the animal
accompanies the deceased?
Yeah. And also everyone comes
to pray to this, the dead person.
They hope this - the dead person
could go straight to paradise will go to
The funeral here will go on
for a few more days yet.
Finally, four years after dying,
the dead man will be interned.
Then Hela Tuktuk can go in search
of his final resting place.
ln Torajaland death
is the most important moment in life.
lt's when humans return to the place
of their celestial origin,
so commemorating the dead
is sacred art of the highest order.
This brings me to my next treasure.
The Tau Tau are wooden statues
representing the ancestor.
They're not so much monuments as a means
by which the spirits of the dead
can return to counsel the living.
The body we've just seen
will be brought to a grave like this
and be interned in a cavity
that's been carved out of the rock.
Here you see a whole series of burials,
little wooden doors over a hole
in the which the body's been inserted.
A dozen or so here, two dozen,
and a lot all - all the way round.
Of course what's really striking
are these effigies called Tau Tau.
lmages of the dead placed up there
with this fixed gaze.
Gazing into eternity l suppose.
And round about are offerings
below this row of images,
like the dead in an opera box
watching life's strange doings
with their hands out-held. Amazing.
But below them is a plate wrapped in paper,
hung on string, obvi - obviously offerings
from a family to their ancestor to sustain them,
to appease them keep them
active for the benefit of the family.
Here are some coffins.
Old coffins. One, two.
Empty apart from a gigantic
jawbone in this one, not human.
Ah, now there's another one
over there that looks more intact.
lndeed the lid's on it, it's closed and can there
be a body in storage waiting to be interned?
No, but l'll have a look.
So here's this coffin.
Now it's intact, it's closed, is it sealed?
l mean can there be a body here left waiting?
lt's going to open. Here we go.
What we've got - my god, it's a rat.
How completely bizarre.
My god, she's giving birth as we watch.
She's terrified with her babies,
she's carrying her babies, poor rat.
Oh my goodness me.
So a coffin becomes a natal clinic for a rat.
So the world goes on. Right,
gosh, what an extraordinary moment?
l've been told about one more place called Londa
where l'll be able to complete my journey
into the realm of the dead.
Again the cliffs are occupied
by the eerie forms of the Tau Tau.
But here l'll be able to cross a threshold
into the burial caves
where the voyage to the afterlife begins.
To my three young guides,
this is a very special place.
lt's their own family vault.
We're in a sort of natural crypt
within this rocky sort of outcrop is
this vault full of coffins.
And obviously many must have been broken
because here are these skulls.
ln fact here is a coffin now breaking open
and within the coffin one
of course sees the body.
Stacked one upon the other.
And of course these dead are not dead,
as far as these people are concerned.
They're present and part of
their world their spirits,
which is why there are offerings everywhere.
Here, this skull cigarettes clearly
a favourite offering to the dead,
the dead obviously like to smoke
in the spirit land. Extraordinary.
And there's more, there's more,
it goes round the corner here.
The power of death, incredible isn't it?
Compelling, forceful, in the presence of corpses
of a family. Must be overwhelming
for family members who come down here to
connect with the mysteries of life after death.
And of course they hold the mysteries really,
'cause here are the people with the answers -
and they come and commune
and talk to the living.
And here there's a passage going on,
but no more?
No more. No coffin, no coffins yet, just space.
This is living and dying.
There's space there for future generations,
these young chaps are of the family that own this,
this vault, they will end up in here.
Yes. Must be an interesting feeling.
My journey into the lndonesian spirit world
has inflamed my imagination.
l travel 650 miles south west
to another of lndonesia's
fourteen thousand islands. Java.
My treasure is one of the most
intriguing buildings in south east Asia,
lost in the jungles of Java for centuries.
lt offers a route to heaven.
A route to spiritual enlightenment.
This is the largest ancient monument
in a southern hemisphere.
A giant, pyramidal Buddhist temple
called a Stupa.
Borobodur is one of the greatest
Buddhist stupas in the world.
Built in the 8th century, it's a diagram,
it's like an open book telling you how to,
well, say for example, reach Nirvana.
You have nine levels. Each level is a route
which one takes as a pilgrim to learn,
to learn those things necessary
to achieve enlightenment.
This is the second level of the stupa.
The first level down there shows worldly desires.
This is the first or sacred level,
and these panels, wrapping right way round,
show the life of the Buddha.
Princess Maya here,
the Buddha's mother asleep. The queen.
And she's having this fateful and amazing dream.
She dreams that a white elephant
circles her waist three times
and the third time it enters her womb.
She's going to give birth to some astonishing,
extraordinary creature. The white elephant.
The white elephant is the emblem,
one of the many early emblems of the Buddha
and here we see the white elephant.
Somewhat damaged to his trunk here.
The parasol, emblem of the Buddha above him.
This level and the next two above me,
tell the story of Sudana, the pilgrim,
on his quest for truth.
Presiding over this of course, one of the many
images of Buddha himself sitting quietly.
lt's amazing, Sudana, l mean he's the emblematic
figure, he is the pilgrim, he is you, he is me -
and people who came here would look at the panels,
they would see what happened to him.
They would learn, they would then go on.
This is a lovely panel. Rather architectural.
And here is Sudana, the pilgrim,
the disciple of Buddha.
Now by this stage,
this is - we're at the third level of his story,
he's um, he's getting somewhere.
And this panel is about the power of meditation
to overcome the physical world l suppose.
Because here he is,
supplicating to achieve this.
Levitation. The fellow's floating.
And from here l look over the parapet
to this amazing landscape.
Little changed in twelve hundred years.
Gosh. The power of the place.
Absolutely so tangible.
Enlightenment is getting closer.
And this is signified by a landscape of bell-shape
mini stupas, sitting on top of the giant stupa.
There are 72 of these up here.
Each stupa, bell-shaped,
contains an image of the Buddha.
Now of course very few people
would have achieved this level.
Only, l suppose, enlightened,
inspired monks would have reached this plane
and even they could only catch a glimpse
of the Buddha through these little openings.
l suppose they're emblematic of the difficulty
of seeing Buddha, of achieving enlightenment.
Only a handful of Buddhist pilgrims
now make the spiritual journey here.
lndonesia is largely a Moslem country
and today the great stupa
is teeming with tourists.
What did this great building mean in the past?
What does it mean today?
Well, it encapsulates in the most
powerful way Buddhist beliefs.
lt told, and tells, pilgrims and disciples
coming here how to find the path to Nirvana.
How to escape the woes and ills of the world.
lt tells them that suffering comes from desire
and that to escape from suffering
you must escape from desires.
And now it's still an incredibly popular place.
Now full of tourists.
They all come to look, to feel, to experience
the power of this incredible temple.
l defy anyone to be unmoved by Borobodur.
lt has an atmosphere that seems to offer a glimpse
- all too fleetingly - of Nirvana.
From one of the great Buddhist monuments,
my journey takes me to one of the
great Buddhist nations. Thailand.
Bangkok is a baffling mix of the old and new,
the exotic and the vulgar.
ln the bustling capital city,
sex and money are the new gods.
My treasure is not here,
but an hour's drive to the north.
l've come to the ancient capital of Thailand.
To Ayutthaya,
to tell the tale of two battling brothers.
A tragic tale in which the elephant
plays a central role.
lt happened in the middle of the 15th century.
The brothers were sons of the king and found
themselves locked in a bitter power struggle.
They ended up fighting a dramatic duel
on elephant back. Both were killed.
Their tragic story ended
with the temple of Watt Ratchaburana.
the central tower, or prang, is beautiful.
lt's not my treasure, but it will lead me to it.
The surviving brother built a mighty memorial
to the two brothers who died
in combat fighting each other.
And of course this is not so surprising
because the death of the two brothers
allowed the third brother to become king.
And this tower is part of the great memorial.
And within here the brother secreted
a mighty treasure trove,
one of the greatest in the world,
buried in the bowels of this building.
God, it's hot here. lt was common practice
to bury precious things
in the foundations of sacred buildings.
Jewels, diamonds, pearls, images of the gods,
and this place of course was no exception.
An incredible rich hoard.
This was only discovered in 1957
when two robbers broke into here,
burrowed in and made away with many of the items,
but they were caught with lots of the items.
Not all, but many were recovered
and l can see those now.
The surviving jewels have been
moved to a nearby museum for safekeeping
and this is where l will find my treasure.
This strong room contains a treasure
from the chamber below the tower.
lt's a fabulous collection.
Gold everywhere, wall to wall.
These are some of the items
recovered from the looters
and some of these items were subsequently
excavated when the tower was inspected.
But this elephant here,
this is my particular treasure.
A wonderful thing.
A masterpiece of the goldsmith's art.
Studded with gems. lt's spectacular to see it.
Made in about 1420, the same time
as the tower in which it was found.
Encrusted with gems.
Goodness me, l've never seen it,
of course, this way before, such detail.
lt's beautifully, beautifully finished.
Elephant kneeling with a howdah.
Of course, the elephant is a very special beast
in this part of the world, very auspicious.
The war mount of kings.
And the Buddha, one of his manifestations
was as a white elephant.
So the elephant's very powerful.
But l wonder also in this case whether
this elephant represents the means
by which the two brothers of the king died
in their elephant duel fighting
from the howdahs on top of the elephants?
ln that case l suspect there would have been
two elephants in the tomb.
One survives, the other one gone, looted.
Melted down or maybe somewhere wandering
around the world unrecognised.
Spectacular thing, this.
Leaving behind my most diminutive treasure,
l head to neighbouring Cambodia
in the search for one of
my most awe inspiring treasures.
l've come to see the mighty remains of
one of the great civilisations of the world.
A civilisation so sophisticated
it can be compared with Rome.
This civilisation grew in the jungles
of Cambodia twelve hundred years ago.
Flourished for six hundred years
and then was consumed by the very jungles
upon which it originated.
l'm about to see
one of the great Wonders of the World.
Angkor Wat is a legacy of the
mighty king Suryavarman the Second
and dates back to the mid 12th century.
This is the temple at Angkor Wat,
a place l've wanted to see for years, and what
a place it is. lt's man's vision of heaven.
lt's a Hindu image of the celestial city.
King Suryavarman portrayed himself as a god king
and Angkor Wat was his vision in masonry
and mortar of heaven on Earth.
Angkor Wat was the sacred heart
of the great city of Angkor.
The capital of the Khmer empire,
ruled by Suryavarman.
Angkor was home to a million people,
making it one of the world's largest cities.
l'm at the highest point of the temple.
lts summit.
And that tower over there represents
the sacred mountain of the Hindus,
the centre of their universe,
the dwelling of the Hindu gods.
lt's exterior is embellished
with images of Hindu deities. Cosmic figures.
And inside, originally,
would have been a great image of Vishnu.
And probably the king's body,
cremated as ashes, interred in there in an urn.
This tower is many things,
including a gateway to heaven.
Angkor Wat's soaring towers,
courtyards, avenues and buildings,
are dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu.
Vishnu is the preserver of the universe.
A good whose miracles are narrated
in great stone reliefs carved into the walls.
This is glorious.
Here we have on my right gods,
on my left the demons.
They're pulling,
a great tug of war, the great snake Naga.
And here she is the snake, being tugged.
As they tug and battle
they're churning the sea of milk,
the sea of milk holding power
and all good things.
Presiding in the middle is Vishnu
who was venerated in this temple.
Here he is and another incarnation of Vishnu,
the turtle.
So here we see the battle,
and the prize is immortality.
The gods, thank goodness, get it.
Become immortal and prevail.
This is a tremendous image of this duality,
good and evil, gods and demons.
The constant battle of humanity.
This courtyard's full of Apsara.
These celestial nymphs who were -
are the escorts to the gods and to kings.
This Apsara is staring right at me, eye to eye.
They're beautiful and strangely shiny.
l suppose they've been
much handled over the years.
Extraordinary sitting here.
The whole place begins to make sense.
Angkor Wat is a model of the cosmos
and the universe,
containing at its heart the great temple there.
There's a world within a world this,
with these boundary walls, great causeway -
surrounded by moats representing
the oceans of the world.
And in here one has images of heaven,
of hell, celestial beings.
And sitting here, this is paradise, isn't it?
To appreciate the full meaning of Angkor Wat,
l take to the skies.
Suryavarman's vision becomes clear.
lt's a homage of the gods
and a statement of his own divinity.
There it is, the sacred mountain,
protected on all sides
by moats representing mythic oceans.
But in reality the moat could not keep
the dangers of the outside world at bay.
ln 1177 the Kingdom of Angkor was invaded
by the neighbouring Chans from Vietnam
who sacked the temple.
Angkor was plunged into darkness and despair.
But this is not the end of Khmer civilisation.
A new god king,
Jayavarman Vll, came to the throne
and in 1181 drove the invaders out.
Jayavarman wanted to stamp
his own imprint on Angkor,
so a mile away from Angkor Wat
he built the city of Angkor Thom.
A monument to his triumph surrounded by
a strong wall to defend it from future invaders.
Jayavarman brought one major change to Angkor.
He replaced Hinduism with Buddhism
as the official religion.
The centre piece of Angkor Thom is a tomb
and Buddhist temple called the Bayon.
Hauntingly enigmatic and beautiful.
lts walls were adorned with huge
and powerfully carved faces.
These are my treasure.
This place is all to do with politics and power,
and such power.
These towers incorporating
these gigantic human faces,
they really do capture the imagination.
They are so haunting.
lt's quite hard really to explain why.
They have such a enigmatic
and persuasive quality.
And they tell a very particular story.
What you have here are the images of all
that was powerful
and important in this land
at the time this place was built.
Here we see the king making images to entice
and unite his people.
We have images of his great military commanders
we have images of the king himself.
lt's all here, all brought together in stone
to speak of this land.
To speak of how this land could be united.
And on the tallest tower of them
all was a huge image of the king himself,
combined with the image
of the compassionate Buddha.
Here was the king, the great conqueror,
the great commander,
the great protector of his people,
yet also a man of compassion, a man of caring.
This is really absolutely
brilliant political architecture.
And one looks around
and these stones, though ancient, these faces,
though antique still speak a very potent
and powerful language.
There's nothing quite like these faces anywhere.
They are beautiful.
Art in the service of politics perhaps?
Certainly sacred art.
Sculpture and architecture combined?
Of course.
That's one of the reasons
why they are so exciting.
But one thing or the other,
building, a portrait, both things at once.
And the - the smile his knowing smile.
The eyes. They stare don't they?
Look. They look into your soul.
l've travelled through two continents
in this programme and seen wonderful things.
But what l found most moving, most memorable
are the connections that
traditional people have with nature.
They see life, soul, spirit in all things.
Animals, rocks, the landscape,
stones, of buildings.
lt's amazing really.
And l find it very,
very - a very convincing view.
ln the west, arrogantly,
we see souls only dwelling in humans.
This can't be right, can it?
These stones are given huge human faces.
What's it saying?
Of course it's saying the same thing.
The stones, the buildings are alive.
As one looks one knows it's true,
because the building has such
a personality such a presence.
The presence of a living thing.