by Mary Norton

Created on: March 26, 2009

Listen up! You may not have heard the name of this fabulous temple before, but, for certain, you will recognise it. Think Tomb Raider. Think Angelina Jolie being directed by the little girl to the jasmine plant before she fell down the hole into the temple. Beyond this, it is most certainly the most published photograph from Angkor Wat. Ta Prohm forces the invitation to commune with the mystery of nature and man constantly interacting with each other in love and war. Putting it another way, it is about as creepy a place as you will ever see as the roots of the huge trees slowly eat the old temple.

In my memory, after several visits to Angkor, Ta Prom occupies a central place. In fact, when I think of Angkor, the image that comes to mind is that of Ta Prohm. Somehow, it is the image of memory in itself, whose tangled roots surround all future experience and twist the mirror we look through. What a magnificent picture of memory, ancient roots and ruins embellishing each other one on one and creating a living representation of Ozymandian hubris: "Look on my works ye mighty, and despair" I can never have enough of this picture that, I often return, after dragging myself away to have a peek at the other far bigger and resplendent temples in Angkor. It is good that this temple was left mostly the way it was found to tell the eternal story of jungle and stone. Some work had been done to keep it safe and the influx of tourists has left its own mark. But, all these years, nature has made its own claim and it is winning.

Each time I visit Angkor, the mystery that Ta Prohm is draws me back. In the misty morning the smell of Apocalypse is now. The roots of ancient trees engulfing the temples seem to protect these from the incursions of modernity and from outsiders' touch as if these are too sacred and have to be seen only from a distance with awe and reverence. In the early morning, when the temple is still free of bustling tourist groups and the morning sun shines through the curtain the trees and jungle mist, I am swallowed up in the mystery. There is stillness and communion with the ancient past that must have been full of life and vibrancy at its peak.

The best time to visit is in the morning, right when Angkor opens its doors to welcome visitors. As the sun slowly creeps through the ruins and the timeless silk cotton and strangler fig trees that have twisted the temples, you think of the time when it was home to 12,640 people with more than 79,000 in neighbouring villages

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