Progress - Herbie Hancock, Visits Cambodia

Twelve years after Black Buddha was published and two years after Rainbowdharma's film, Festival Canceled Due To Heavy Rain, about a pilgrimage to Cambodia's Angkor Monuments, Herbie Hancock visits Cambodia as a goodwill ambassador according to a notice posted on the UNESCO website:

UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, Mr. Herbie Hancock, Visits Cambodia - Phnom Penh -  Mr. Hancock, a driving force of important movements in music since the 1960s, is a renowned jazz musician and the winner of an Academy Award and 14 Grammy Awards. He has been officially designated as ambassador at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on 22 July 2011.   

"I first visited the famous temple of Angkor Wat, one of Cambodia’s iconic sights! Built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city, it has always been a significant religious centre. It was founded as a Hindu temple, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then became a Buddhist site. Restoration efforts have been taking place on the Angkor Site since 1995. Maria Santoro, the lead engineer working with UNESCO & the Italian government, explained the main conservation challenges faced at the Angkor Wat temple as well as the restoration techniques used to mitigate these damages. The team here is training young Cambodian professionals too, empowering locals with the skills to protect their own heritage

Afterwards, I visited the Ta Prohm temple that the King Jayavarman VII dedicated to his mother in 1186. I marvelled at two new statues of Buddha (just discovered this October within the temple) by the Archaeological Survey of India and APSARA (Cambodian Authorities for the management of Angkor) Teams. Currently 30 projects involving 14 countries are being conducted on the Angkor site.

Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm left me speechless. I could not imagine the scale of the site before nor the span of time of the Khmer Empire. I am absolutely fascinated. I am also encouraged by the combining efforts of the different countries working in Angkor and coordinated by UNESCO. I am proud to see that various nations in the world are combining efforts to restore the remnants of the history of another country.”

Finally, my day finished with an elephant walk to observe the sunset at the Phnom Bakheng temple, one of the first capitals of the Khmer Empire. It was a beautiful day! And it was made possible by this global team here whose work is in many ways a model for the kind of efforts necessary to preserve our heritage but also a model for global peace building and sustainable development.

Angkor showed me today that human beings need each other to move forward. It shows that we cannot do things alone." Source