Colombia Passport

Sep 17. Angkor Wat According to Don Bosco. Last September 12 we were observing with attention how difficult people find to climb the higher tower of Angkor Thom. The stairs are just impossible and it seems like you are going up a rocky mountain. Our question was how the ancient inhabitants of Angkor Wat did to get access to the upper rooms? Of course in that time there were elders, sick persons and many other natural limits for humanity.

We observed with attention and people try to get up just as they do in our modern stairs of our nowadays buildings: in front, step by step going ahead. That is easy of course if the stair is wide and appropriate to our feet, but did our ancestors walk up as we use to do now?

We sat down a moment and we started to check how the people went up and down the stairs, most of them foreigners coming from modern cities like the Europeans and Asians. Even some Cambodians did the same. After some observations we saw an elder Cambodian man, white hair and serene looking. He was about to teach us how our ancestors went up and down those stairs. He just walk up diagonally and came up in few seconds. Of course, the stairs were built for be walked diagonally:

1. Diagonally the foot fits the stairs very well.

2. Diagonally your hands are ready to hold the upper stairs.

3. Diagonally you do not see down.

4. Diagonally is safer and you do not have the danger to slide down.

5. Diagonally you are almost as you were walking in a plain floor.

6. Diagonally you show more respect for the sacred places.

Then it came the experiment: We went up and down several times. It was easier and we did not get so much tired. There was a Spaniard lady that was waiting her boyfriend down. She said to us that she was afraid to go up. We told her to try and we told her we discovered a way. When she asked which one we said: “Just do as the Cambodian way“. We showed to her how and she did.

Now you can change that add: “Climb by your own risk” and you can write better “Climb as our ancestors: Diagonally” plus the following pictures we did for this matter.

	Surely our ancestors did not went up like this!
	Surely they went upstairs like this: Walking up diagonally.
	Everybody can do this.
	Better if you are without shoes: safer and it shows respect for the sacred place.
	Let us teach how to climb using the old traditions of our ancestors. Go up (this page, of course)