Totoeng Thngai Temple

Hello and welcome again to Forgotten Temples of Cambodia. Today we're at Thothong Kanai and look we've got a bumper bag full of helpers. Let's say hello. Hello. Hello. Aren't they fantastic? Usually you'll get one or two kids maybe. On this occasion we've got a posse. The temple posse is what we could call them couldn't we? Now Thothong Kanai is special. I say this of every temple but this one really is a treat and yes it's Thothong Kanai but I believe Sven, my rippling cameraman who today has turned up wearing a thong although he's been given a strict written warning which he hasn't adhered to. I will have words from him later. Sven has come up with a much better name and you'll see why. Come on through let's have a look. Here we have a termite mound. This isn't a particularly big one but from the ground level here it's a little over six foot. Now these are often the things that hold the temples together by weaving the mud between the doorways. That's where they like to be. So they are monstrous. They're incredibly strong. They're like concrete in fact. I mean literally like concrete. Now the first thing we're going to look at when we meet Thothong Kanai is its very unique quality but first I want to show you a plinth which is this way. Now we often see plinths. Now we see them that have the lingers on with the blessings that have the grooves cut into the stone. There's a video on this channel that shows an exceptional one but this is no plinth for a linger. This is a plinth for a statue. There's a cross here of kind of, I don't know if you call them, they're kind of dovetail joints. You can see here. Now there's a balustrade. Let me see if I can get this out. It's full of termites. Oh look see there's all the termites. But you can see this wouldn't be in here. That's for absolutely certain but here would have been a large statue and it is so very ornate. What I need to do is whisk the little people out the way. There you go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. They're in the way and look at the detailing on this. Now what I would expect is to see two of them. One here and one over there to match the uniformity because so often these things are built around symmetry but that is not the case this time. It's bloody big. It's bloody impressive and as you've probably already noticed we're in a bamboo jungle. Well it's a glade but we like to bring imagination to these things and it's fantastic. I've never been in one like this. It's got so many qualities. I'm bursting with excitement over this and it's about time I reveal to you its new name. We call the Stonehenge of temples. Now let me show you why. Come this way Sven and have a look at this. It's just doorways. I'll let Sven have a span and a pan around so you can soak it in and isn't that remarkable. It is very much like a Stonehenge. It's it's wondrous to me. It's everyone has its unique qualities I always say but this one has knocked it out the park. I don't anticipate ever seeing one like this again. Now let's quickly explain as to why this is. We have our trusty old Kamai bricks as always and what they've done is they've basically fallen down so if Sven stays where he is I will walk up here you see and what you'll see is I'm just standing on what was a wall. This as it goes round to here and the same on the other side would have been made the room for this what is this doorway and obviously the bricks have come down. This is repeated again here here here and here leaving this very different very odd patterning um but more important than leaving these doorways up. Let's go to the ladies goodbye. Leaving these doorways that give it that almost Stonehenge back ass of southern England look to it but as I say in a beautiful bamboo forest. Right so what we have here is our trilogy but it weirdly doesn't make sense. Here we have a doorway leading to another we see this raised area here where the rubble is as we do directly behind me so this would have been one room here again we would have seen the door the rubble the rubble a bigger doorway this would have been the main sat the main temple and lastly Sven if you pan over we'll see the third which is here but this one strangely has two doorways right next to one another for some reason it doesn't have the symmetry we're so used to um we know by the bricks this is in fact an earlier temple and what I find also remarkable having these kids here this young lad who's just lazing rather remarkably I'll come and join them hello is these are the descendants of those builders because people we've traveled quite a way to come here down really muddy roads due to the recent rain and the locals don't really travel far from where they're born they pretty much marry into one another's families and so on as is the way in many other countries they don't have the access to trains and things like that so what you're looking at here with these young lads it is their great great great great great grandfathers that would have built this place so it's a real honor to have them here with us today well there you go hasn't it been fantastic this has been an absolute delight there's so many unique qualities being in this beautiful bamboo glade meeting the very ancestors most likely of the temple builders has also been a treat this has been Mr B for Forgotten Temples of Cambodia if you have any comments questions or queries drop it in the comments box I do answer all of them thank you very much for joining me on this ramble today