The Bayon Temple : Enigmatic and dramatic centre piece of a vanished empire

 

The Bayon temple , Angkor 

The Bayon Temple sits at the center of the city of Angkor Thom and is every bit as impressive as Angkor Wat.  This is a must visit site when travel to Angkor. Its part of the Angkor Thom complex, which as I had mentioned in an earlier post, is the fortified city , and holds several of the main temples of the Angkor. This temple is part of the "small circle" tour. 

Do note that Angkor Wat, the main temple of the Khmer empire, is actually outside the walls of Angkor Thom. This city is itself surrouded by a moat, and crossed by five gates ( the gates of the victorious and and the gate of the dead are part of these five). 

This Bayon temple is famous for many reasons. Firstly, there is no clear knowledge as to why it’s called “Bayon”. The French explorers apparently heard this name from the locals in the early 20^th century when the discovery of Angkor was underway. Literature suggests it could mean “pedestal for sacred statues” ( https://smarthistory.org/bayon-temple-angkor-thom/).

The temple is built on three levels, to represent Mt Meru, There certainly are many “faces” in the temple, all show enigmatic smiles. These face-towers are on the inner most, or third level of the temple, and today only 37 out of the original 49 face-towers apparently exist (as heard from the guide). These faces, with eyes open, elaborate head dress, and broad smiles, could well represent The Buddha, or Brahma, and remain the source of much debate and discussion even today. Be that as it may, this is a sight to see. Really massive, and intricate.

It’s also generally considered one of the only Buddhist temples in Angkor, which was a Hindu site, and one the largest and last temples to be made. It was the centre piece of the royalty, the state temple as it were.  By the 12^th century, the prevailing religious belief was Buddhism ( King Javavarman VII), around which time this temple could have been completed.

Its walls depict many of the daily lives of Cambodia/ Khmer in the 12^th and 13^th centuries as well as depictions of the Angkor wars with the Chams.

Overall, this site inspires awe and reverence for the scale, and skill of the builders. A glimpse into the distant past. This temple is over 1000 years old. We must appreciate the time frame. Much of what we see, experience and use today did not exist when this monumental temple was already at its peak!

Business of Tourism : Travel apps need to better their game ! ( Deceptive Patterns research by Conscious Patterns , August 2024)

ASCI Academy (Advertising and Standards Council of India) and Parallel (a product design studio in Bengaluru) came up with some very interesting research on apps and their trade practices in August 2024. 

They studied 9 industries, 12000 screens and 53 apps. One of the industries, of our interest here, is also travel. They defined and studied 12 “deceptive patterns” – practices designed to get users to undertake actions or data processing that they did not intend. 

Travel apps used 9 out of 12 "deceptive patterns" . This is important to understand , because these apps are actually very useful and have become defacto go-to gateways for travel, tourism, holidays and transport. 

Even more crucial to note as ASCI -Parallel do in their research paper -  over 751 million users are online in India, and quite unknowingly, share massive data with anyone who asks!

What are these Deceptive Patterns? Very interesting definitions, and in many cases, are very intuitive too. We have all experienced these at one time or another, on apps and websites.

Deceptive patterns defined:

• 1.     Privacy deception:  getting you to share more info that is needed or intended.  (79% use this)
• 2.      Interface interference: highlighting some interface only, misdirection. (45%)
• 3.      Drip pricing: revealing additional fees slowly thru the process (43%)
• 4.      False urgency: creating artificial pressure of FOMO (32%)
• 5.      Nagging: constant pop ups (15%)
• 6.      Bait and switch – advertise something, serve something else. (13%)
• 7.      Basket Sneaking – add unwanted costs (donations etc)  (13%)
• 8.      Forced action – force users to do an action (make accounts etc) (11%)
• 9.      Confirm sharing – use social pressure to complete an action ( 8%)
• 10  Subscription trap -make cancellation difficult of a subscription (2% )
• 11. Trick question – vague language (2%)
• 12 .Disguised ads – blend with editorial (0%).

They surveyed 53 apps. This is the summary:

• 1.      52 out of 53 apps exhibited at least one deceptive patterns (“DP”).
• 2.      90% of apps showed between 1-4 DP.
• 3.      On an average, there were 2.7 DP per app.
• 4.      One app, had as many as 23 DP instances!
• 5.      Privacy deception accounted for 24% of total occurrences
• 6.      79% of all apps showed privacy deception. They really want your data!
• 7.      The travel apps use 9 out of 12 deceptive patterns – that’s a lot !
• 8.      Delivery and logistics used 8- very close behind.
• 9.      All 9 ecommerce apps made it very difficult to delete your account.

Travel apps use many deceptive patterns

One of the many industries they surveyed was travel and tourism. In this, they checked the apps of the leading players – EasemyTrip, Agoda, goibibo, yatra, makemytrip, cleartrip, redbus, and booking.com.

The list of DP that the travel trade uses, is not surprising, when you sit back and think- almost every DP is used in some manner or intensity. Eg- just a few that we all can relate to:

1.      Drip pricing (33% of all apps studied) – add on costs till final cost is something else !

2.      Confirm sharing – pressurize to get advantage of some deal at a point in the booking.

3.      Nagging – pop ups keep pressurizing you to take an action .

 These practices essentially underline the importance of data- the new black gold! Data like this allows targeted marketing and selling, reduces marketing and sales costs, and potentially provides a database for cross selling. Its inevitable that some data needs to shared to use services- just be aware of what exactly needs to be shared! 

After all, caveat emptor! 

Read the research on : https://www.consciouspatterns.in/research-findings

Cambodia has had a dark history in the 1970s-1980s, with the Khmer Rouge running amok in the country. 

The Killing well, Wat Thmey

One of the sites of their outrages is near Siem Reap , now an active Pagoda site, called Wat Thmey. This is a small museum just on the outskirts of Siem Reap, which one may visit for an understanding of this dark era. 

This place is also sometimes referred to as " the killing fields" in literature. The skulls and bones of the people who died here are displayed. Its a somber site, and we hope such atrocities never happen again anywhere. 

The larger Cambodia Landmine museum with the war materials and all is a bit further away and we didn't visit that. 

Pub Street!

 

The most famous touristy street in the city, Pub Street could be anywhere in any major city in the world. It may be designed with that in mind, to aggregate tourists in one place, easily controllable and a sort of evening show case social spot. A lot of restaurants of all kinds. We landed up at a Greek restaurant called Ella just outside Pub Street twice during our stay, with the others being a lot of non-vegetarian fare.

The street is well lit at night and buzzing and overall felt very safe; but as said, it still wasn’t at its peak. Hopefully in 2023-24 it will be back to its best. That said, the street was clean and well maintained and with a range of cuisines. In terms of creating infrastructure for tourism, it was well done.

Just across from Pub Street is the local market, facing the river that runs right through the city. The usual Knick knacks and tourist stuff; and do remember to bargain. Overall, quite nice, and the people were, at least what we saw, heard, and interacted with, quite friendly.

A somber reminder, in the midst of such beauty

Even as you gaze upon the wonders of Angkor and its temples, their intricacy, beauty, style and scale, do remember to look around beyond them, to more modern times. 

Cambodia has an unfortunate history of war and human carnage. While much of that, thankfully, is now in the distant past, the country has made efforts to make sure locals and visitors never forget about the landmines and the havoc they wrought then, and wreck even now. 

Media reports will tell you that even today, that up to 

6 million landmines remain in the land, and Cambodia has the highest rate of accidents caused by landmines. A lot of effort at clean up is on, but it isnt easy. Hopefully one day the land will be free of this scrouge. 

A reminder of the landmines and the havoc they caused is at almost every tourist site in Siem Reap. At almost every major walkway, there are small tents (See photo- this one was at Bantaey Srei temple) under which landmine affected persons sing or play music- they even play music depending on the nationality of the tourists passing by. Tourists can donate if they so wish, but never once did they ever solicit. 

Banteay Srei : an intricate masterpiece of a temple in Angkor

One of the most intricate, intimate and beautiful temples in the Angkor Archaeological Park area is the temple of Bantaey Srei, rediscovered in 1914. 

Its about 32 km (50min or so) from Angkor Wat, outside the city of Siem Reap. You need a vehicle to reach it. Tuktuks and taxis are available, though we preferred a taxi as the distance was a bit too much for an open tuktuk, and the roads outside Siem Reap tend to be not as smooth or well maintained as in the Angkor premises. Our taxi charged us US$ 40 for the day- it was quite worth it, as it become decently humid later in the day. 

This temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva and Parvati, and made in the 10th century, is quite unique, in its sheer intricacy and delicacy of its walls, temple decoration and surroundings. Its name apparently means "citadel of beauty or citadel of the women".  Not surprisingly ,its regarded as the highlight of the Khmer culture. 

Set in jungle land but with a very clean organized entry area, its a small temple as far as the other Angkor temples go. Its made mostly of red sandstone, giving it a very nice tint and colour. There are scenes from the Ramayana across the temple. 

There have been some thefts and damage to this temple over the years, but much has been restored. Each of the six staircases are guarded by human figures with animal heads, but apparently many of these were stolen and had to be remade. 

When we visited in December 2022, much of the temple was sealed off as reconstruction work was still on, but you could still see the temple , its entrances, libraries and with a good camera most of the temple sanctuary itself. 

This may be a bit out of the way from the main Angkor complex, but its a visit really worth making. 

Business of Tourism : Extent of tourism in numbers - the T/P Ratio

Overtourism is the current rage in the travel, tourism, government and social circles. There are cities being overwhelmed by visitors in particular months and empty in others; there are protests and water being squirted over tourists ( which is sad because tourists cant be blamed for local policies that enable them to arrive!).

That said , I thought it would be interesting to gauge from numbers exactly how bad is the problem of over tourism. I compiled a few numbers (see table) from various sources - the Ministry of Tourism India (2022 data) , UN tourism site, Euromonitor, Statista, ET, TOI, The Guardian, CNN and a few others). 

The "T/P ratio" is essentially simply Tourist- to- Population ratio. Just my way to grasp the scale of the issue. 

Not surprisingly, western Europe has some T/P  ratios that could be called alarming. The point here is that not all these millions are leisure travelers. Quite a large component will be business arrivals too. Still, the numbers are huge in already huge cities. Istanbul, for example, gets 25% more visitors thru its gates in a year than its resident population. London, nearly 2x, and Barcelona, the current hot topic, 37 % more than its population. These are serious enough "overruns" to stress out people, resources like water and sanitation, as well as transport. ( populations are measured differently in different cities - some take in only metro city areas; some the wider metro area including suburbs, but the core purpose of the analysis remains good). 

numbers in millions.
Sources: Euromonitor, Statista,
WTTO, UN Tourism Dashboard, media reports,
TOI, ET, Guardian, CNN

India : big on population, low on tourism

Ironically, in the second half of the table, you can see how under-developed India is on the tourism scale. India gets less than 1.7% of global tourism, and its FTA (Foreign Tourist Arrivals) are about 9 mn. Basically, the whole, huge subcontinent of India , one of the oldest and most diverse cultures on Earth, gets less tourist arrivals than any one of the cities in the table! 

India has tremendous potential for tourism - both domestic and international. There are some clear concerns, but they pertain to infrastructure, costs, general perception of safety, and that India is destination by itself requiring much time and planning). 

There's essentially no concern on overtourism for India! As it is, Indian cities are densely populated. A few million more may not even be noticed! 

Check out my INSTAGRAM feed for pictures of ANGKOR temples, Cambodia

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Business of Tourism: Rising costs doesn't deter Indian tourists to Europe

Further to the discussion on if entry fees are an effective barrier to slow or stop tourism, take a look at the numbers from India to Europe, the most preferred destination for Indians.  

Source: schnegenvisainfo.com / TOI/ HT/ 
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/

Take a look at the data for Schengen visas issued to Indian citizens (see table 1).  

There are three interesting data points here.

First, there was a smart recovery from the low of the pandemic years (2020-2022) and it really shot up post 2022.  

Second, in the same duration. the Schengen visa fee rose from Euro 60 to 80 per head and is today, in 2024, euro 90. Every three years or so, the EU revises this fee. The latest revision was effective June 2024. 

Third, check out the rejections. There was a smart spike in the rejection % as well. India now is the third most rejected country from European visas. There is no refund for rejections (I think that's unform for all countries, even India). The key data point is- how much Indians lost to rejections. In 2023, it was about Euro 12 mn  against about Euro 10mn in 2022. 

So, what does it look like, in money terms? See table 2 below. 

Table 2: 

Source: schnegenvisainfo.com / TOI/ HT/ 
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/

So, this clearly shows the price inelasticity for Schengen visas in India. Expect this price to cross Euro 100 by 2026, possibly. The point is, increasing price barriers - visa fees / hotel taxes / entry fees/ fines only cause the demand table to readjust to a higher cost level and go on as usual. Dips if any, will be limited and short. 

So how do you slow down over tourism? I believe more long-term damage to image and attractiveness of a destination will be done by singling out genuine tourists with embarrassment, financial losses, or violence (actual or threatened), like we saw in Barcelona. The latent hostility is even more concerning. Many people will pause a bit, and wonder.  Should I spend my money in a place that's clearly hostile? Or at the very least, disdainfully tolerates me for my money? 

Tricky, knotty issue, it sure is! 

Business of Tourism : What enables over tourism?

Over tourism remains a topic of great debate. in an earlier post, I tried to understand what could be done about it (taxes, phase out, new destinations and so on) .  Here, I wanted to explore another closely related issue : permissions and approvals.

Its easy and convenient to say tourists mess up , clog up and in general ruin the place.  That in itself is a broad generalization and not always true. 

But how and what enabled so many to visit so many areas for so many days? 

Some key factors: local authorities, logistics and prosperity.  

To start with, isn't it local authorities ( municipalities, state governments and national ministries) who allow the proliferation of short stay apartments? 

How does a tourist enable / force / cause flats or apartments to be converted into short stay tourism accommodation without active support,  frame work and planning by landlords and city authorities? 

Does a tourist have any say in housing or zoning or public transport policies of the destination? Clearly, no. 

In all the arguments raging across media, I don't find much debate on the role of authorities in allowing the shift of housing for locals into short stay for tourists (Barcelona did say they would ban all short stays, but after 4 years).  They welcomed the money that came in ( both local landlords who rented out and governments who got taxes and income).  

But perhaps it went overboard?

No one fault can be pinpointed here - it is the responsibility of authorities to grow their economies, and they simply used one economic lever. But then to turn around and blame transient visitors  almost entirely for this problem is a bit rich. Local protestors would be aware of this. Surely they would be asking hard questions of their administrators. 

The other enabler is of course, logistics or access. The expansion of low cost airlines suddenly opened up new destinations otherwise out of budget. Here again, landing / docking rights are the economic assets of the destination-its entirely there prerogative to control them. The tricky balance is to get more money in, without messing up the works- economic, cultural, business. 

The third enabler is the growing prosperity of the middle classes elsewhere in the world that puts more money and enables them to travel, supported by vastly expanded air, sea and road links. In India, at least, foreign travel is no longer a luxury, The moment the young people have excess funds and/ time, they will travel. Its just part of being the new Global Indian culture and imagery that has crystalized over the past decade. And India isnt even the largest source markets for many tourism-troubled destinations- not yet. 

Just look at India only (not even that other big source market - China) . 1400 mn people- of which the middle class would be 500mn. To put that into perspective- that would be more than the population of Scandinavia and most European countries, and quite big chunks of S/ S E Asia as well! Even if 10% of these 500mn are able to travel, that's 50mn. Europe holds the pride of place for every Indian- and even within Europe, certain destinations are always top of the list- Switzerland, UK, Spain, Portugal, Italy for sure, Next layer for the more discerning would be eastern and central Europe, and for the jaded Indian, Scandinavia/ Iceland. 

Another interesting aspect is FOMO - the fear of missing out in travel and tourism. Just consider India again. With 65% of its population below 30 years and infrastructure still shoddy for tourism, the longing for the "first world lifestyle" means that a whole mass of people are traveling- and putting on social media that " they made it" . That perfect insta photo/ that perfect facebook post. It all adds to the allure of travel. Its a good thing in many ways for Indians - exposure, style, perspective, confidence. But only if done correctly.

The fourth enabler I would say are the investments into the tourism infrastructure by a lot of players, from hotels, to transport, to F&B and governments. The rapid expansion of chain hotels and Air B&B stays opened up vast accommodation options and allowed more stays for longer. Its a matter of another debate if hotels are better for a city or short stay rentals. Hotels are usually more expensive but offer a control point for the destination. 

In sum, it was a perfect conjunction of circumstances and enablers that drove excessive tourism numbers. There are hard solutions in hand, and some soft, long term. But perhaps the travel industry will find its right, if an uneasy and flexible, balance sooner than later!