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Not too long ago, in May 2017, according to a CAPA report, quoted Cambodia may not be able to support more than 4 local airlines over the long term. Brendan Sobie, chief analyst at CAPA, said despite the impressive growth in recent years of Cambodia’s aviation market, which chalked up around 400,000 annual domestic passengers and 7 million international passengers last year, local carriers could struggle with commercial viability.
“Cambodia has a very limited domestic market, while its other international markets are not growing nearly as fast as China and are extremely competitive,” he said.
“The 4 existing airlines, none of which operate more than 7 aircraft, lack the scale to compete effectively with foreign airlines, and the proposed start-ups will face similar challenges if they succeed at launching services.”
Cambodia Angkor Air
Sky Angkor Airlines
Bassaka Air
Cambodia Bayon Airlines
At least five new passenger airlines are preparing to launch Cambodia-based operations within the next year, effectively doubling the number of local carriers and raising the level of competition on domestic and international routes.
The new airlines have applied for air operator’s certificates (AOC), with one already receiving approval and four more expected to be awarded within the coming year, according to Mr. Sinn Chanserey Vutha, the spokesman of the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA).
A total of 7 airlines obtained the licensed for operations in Cambodia, with two of the new air operator’s certificates (AOC) issued recently to:
JC International Airlines
Lanmei Airlines
Small Planet Airlines (was awarded an AOC to commence service in no time.)
Additional licences are in the pipeline for
KC International Airlines
Air Siem Reap
Prince International Airlines
Cambodia Airways
Earlier this month, the SSCA granted an AOC to Small Planet Airlines, the Lithuanian-based leisure airline, which operates charter flights between coastal resorts in the Mediterranean region from Lithuania, Poland and Germany. Erikas Zubrus, CEO of Small Planet Airlines Cambodia, said the airline plans to serve Hong Kong, China and South Korean markets in Cambodia while it has also applied for approvals to serve Thailand, Japan and islands in the Pacific region.
KC International Airlines is in the list to obtain AOC's approval. The airline startup, a $100 million Chinese-Cambodian joint venture with ties to the ruling party, expects to launch service early next year to tap into the lucrative Chinese travel market. Vong Kong Leng, the airline’s director of administration and human resources, said the new airline will leverage its Chinese director’s 15 years of experience in the aviation business to fill a niche in the local market.
Prince International Airlines (PIA) and its sister airline Cambodia Airways have also applied for AOCs and expect to commence commercial operations in early 2018. The two airlines, a project of the Chinese investors behind Prince Real Estate, are headed by a former executive of Cambodia Bayon Airlines and will look to convert their board’s connections with Chinese travel agencies into ticket sales.
According to the company, PIA aims to launch with three A320 aircraft to serve the tourism charter market and two Gulfstream jets for local business clients. Cambodia Airways has set plans to operate 10 Airbus 320s and two A330s within the next five years. The airline is expected to operate scheduled flights to Japan, South Korea and Asean countries, as well as international routes to Europe and Asia.
Air Siem Reap, a joint venture between Thai “boutique” carrier Bangkok Airways and Cambodian tycoon and ruling party Senator Ly Yong Phat, has applied to operate flights based in Siem Reap International Airport.
The new airlines will tighten competition in Cambodia’s increasingly crowded air space where over 40 commercial airlines operate scheduled flights. They could also put more pressure on locally registered carriers, particularly those that operate domestic services.
Cambodia has a reputation as one of the easiest markets for startup airlines to obtain an AOC, however the Kingdom has proven a challenging market, with a list of over 30 now-defunct airlines.
The most recent was Apsara International Air, which launched in October 2014 but within weeks had mothballed its sole Airbus 320 after incurring huge losses.
In a report issued earlier this year, Australia-based aviation research and consulting firm the Centre for Aviation (CAPA) warned that startup airlines could face severe headwinds in Cambodia’s already oversaturated aviation market.
Yet SSCA had no intention of capping the number of AOCs, though it could place restrictions on route permits.
Cambodia, Latitude 13°25’48” N longitude100°54’00” E
Alignments:
In 1976, University of Michigan researchers suggested that the architect of ancient Cambodia’s Angkor Wat had encoded calendrical, historical and cosmological themes into his architectural plan for the temple. Published in the journal Science, the study demonstrated how Angkor Wat’s architect had established solar alignments between the temple and a nearby mountaintop shrine that took place during the summer solstice. For example, standing at Pre Rup 6 kilometers away at winter solstice, one would see the setting sun over Angkor Wat. Standing near the southwestern corner in Angkor Thom the rising sun at summer equinox will be visible through, or over, the eastern gate. Six months later, the alignment has shifted to its northern point of sunrise at winter solstice.
What is Equinox?The time or date that happened just twice a year at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are equal in length (around 22 September and 20 March).
The days are longer around the summer solstice and shorter around the winter solstice. When the Sun’s path crosses the equator, the length of the nights at latitudes +L° and -L° are of equal length. This is known as an equinox. There are two solstices and two equinoxes in a tropical year.
On an equinox, day and night are of approximately equal duration all over the planet. Although they are not exactly equal, it is due to the angular size of the sun and atmospheric refraction.
The Solstices (Summer & Winter)
The summer solstice occurs at the moment the earth’s tilt toward from the sun is at a maximum. Therefore, on the day of the summer solstice, the sun appears at its highest elevation with a noontime position that changes very little for several days before and after the summer solstice. The summer solstice occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Cancer, which is located at 23.5° latitude North, and runs through Mexico, the Bahamas, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and southern China. For every place north of the Tropic of Cancer, the sun is at its highest point in the sky and this is the longest day of the year.
The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year. In the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs when the sun is directly over the Tropic of Capricorn, which is located at 23.5° south of the equator and runs through Australia, Chile, southern Brazil, and northern South Africa.
The Equinox (Vernal & Autumnal)
There are only two times of the year when the Earth’s axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in a “nearly” equal amount of daylight and darkness at all latitudes. These events are referred to as Equinoxes. The word equinox is derived from two Latin words – aequus (equal) and nox (night). At the equator, the sun is directly overhead at noon on these two equinoxes. The “nearly” equal hours of day and night is due to refraction of sunlight or a bending of the light’s rays that causes the sun to appear above the horizon when the actual position of the sun is below the horizon. Additionally, the days become a little longer at the higher latitudes (those at a distance from the equator) because it takes the sun longer to rise and set. Therefore, on the equinox and for several days before and after the equinox, the length of day will range from about 12 hours and six and one-half minutes at the equator, to 12 hours and 8 minutes at 30 degrees latitude, to 12 hours and 16 minutes at 60 degrees latitude.
The builders of Angkor Wat creating a temple not only to honor their deities but in its very structure and orientation of the greater cosmic
The origins of the temple – Angkor Wat
It is to Vishnu that Angkor Wat is consecrated, and with more than mere symbolic intent. Hindu temples were built to be earthly abodes for the gods. The central sanctuary was the most sacred place, directly inline with the vertical axis of the central spire that provided the connection between the realms of heaven and Earth. The surrounding architecture of the temple would then mirror Hindu cosmology, being essentially a mandala in stone—a diagram of the cosmos itself. Furthermore, the Khmer civilization had by the time of Angkor Wat’s construction incorporated the idea that a king would, after his death, be transmuted into one of the gods. Hence, it was at Angkor Wat that Suryavarman II, after his death, was believed to reside as Vishnu.
As far as the interpretation of each temple is concerned, the complexity of the relationship between the two Khmer religions – Buddhism and Hinduism – must be taken into account. This relation was sometimes exclusive and other times, in dependence of the attitudes of the ruling king. Documented historical phases of Buddhism/Hinduism explicit conflict and consequent defacing of temples’ images also exist. In any case, construction of the temples was clearly considered as mandatory to attest to the greatness and in some sense to the divinity of the king himself. The temples thus reflected concepts related to the foundation of power and to the cosmic order; as a consequence, it comes as no surprise that a complex religious symbolism is self-evident in all these buildings. Inspiration certainly was in Indian sacred architecture values.
Astronomical significance: Astronomy and Hindu cosmology are inseparably at Angkor Wat. While it is more evident than in the interior colonnade itself, which is dedicated to a vast and glorious carved, 12,900 sqft. of bas-relief, illustrating the gods as well as scenes from the Hindu epic Mahabharata. In Cardinal directions the outer walls measuring approximately 2,600 ft
The East Wall is the scene illustrating “The Churning of the sea of Milk,” a creation myth in which the gods attempt to churn the elixir of immortality out of the milk of time.
The North Wall to The West Wall depicts the “day of the gods,” is a great battle scene from Hindu Epic Mahabharata, continuing to further west is the depiction of King Suryavarman II, in full royale possessions.
The south wall portrays the Kingdom of Yama, the god of death.
It has been suggested that the choice and arrangement of these scenes was intended to tie in with the seasons—the creation scene of the east wall is symbolic of the renewal of spring, the “day of the gods” is summer, the great battle on the west wall may represent the decline of autumn, and the portrayal of Yama might signify the dormancy, the lifeless time of winter.
Here’s the FactsThe architecture of Angkor Wat also has numerous astronomical aspects beyond the basic mandala plan that is common to other Hindu temples. As many as 18 astronomical alignments have been identified within its walls.
Some of the alignments are prominent are:
on spring equinox, the sun rises over the central tower;
on the winter solstice, it rises over a temple at Prasat Kuk Bangro, 5.5 km away;
on the summer solstice it rises, over a prominent hill Phnom Bok, 17.5 km away.
The Measurements in Khmer Empire Some researchers have claimed that the very dimensions of many of the structures at Angkor Wat have astronomical associations. These associations emerge from consideration of the unit of length that was in use at that time, a unit known as the hat or “Cambodian cubit unit.” There is some question as to how long a hat was, and indeed its definition may have not been applied rather a value equal to 43.45cm or 17 inches for the length of a hat is suggested by the structures themselves.
Using this value, archaeologists discovered numerous dimensions of the temple that deem to have astronomical and cosmological significance — for example,
The dimensions of the highest rectangular level of the temple are 189 hat in the east-west direction and 176 hat in the north-south direction. Added together these give 365, the number of days in a year.
In the central sanctuary, the distances between sets of steps is approximately 12 hat. There are 12 lunar cycles (from full moon to full moon, refer the basis for our modern month in a year.
The length and width of the central tower add up to approximately 91 hat. On average, there are 91 days between any solstice and the next equinox, or any equinox and the next solstice, that is the 4 season in a year.
Because of its orbit around the Earth, the Moon’s apparent position in the sky relative to the background stars will appear to shift from night to night. Since it takes the Moon just over 27 days to complete one orbit (known as its sidereal period), it will during this time appear to move through 27 successive regions of the sky. In Hindu cosmology, these regions were known as the naksatras, or lunar mansions. In some contexts there were 27 lunar mansions, while in other contexts an additional naksatra containing the star Vega was included, giving 28 lunar mansions.
Hindu cosmology recognizes four time periods, or Yugas, that are represented in the dimensions of the temple:
The central tower at Angkor Wat contains nine inner chambers. If you total the dimensions of all of these chambers it equals 27 hatin the north-south direction and 28 hat in theeast-west direction, corresponding to the possible number of lunar mansions. Also, the libraries have lengths measured along their interiors of 16 hat in the east-west direction, and either 12 or 11 hat in the north-south direction, depending upon whether or not the doorways are included. Added together, these also give either 28 or 27 hat. Finally, the north-south width of the libraries measured from the exteriors of the wallsis again 28 hat. The Bhagavata Purana, discusses a wide range of topics including cosmology, genealogy, geography, mythology, legend, music, dance, yoga and culture.
The length of the Kali Yuga, is 2 x 603 years, or 432 thousand years.
The width of the moat surrounds the temple, is approximately 432 hat.
The length of the Dvapara-Yuga is 4 x 603 years, or 864 thousand years.
The distance from the entrance to the inner wall is 867 hat.
The length of the Treta-Yuga is 6 x 603 years, or 1,296 thousand years.
The distance from the entrance to the central tower is 1,296 hat.
The length of the Satya-Yuga is 8 x 603 years, or 1,728 thousand years.
The distance from the moat bridge to the center of the temple is 1,734 hat.
Rarely in history has any culture given rise to a structure that so elaborately and expansively incorporates its concept of the cosmos. Angkor Wat stands as a striking and majestic monument in honor of the Universe and our place in it.
SRG Holidays Cambodia arrange special visit during the Equinox each year for photographer comfort and do check with us on the special rate.
In mythology, apsaras are beautiful, supernatural female beings, they are youthful and elegant, and superb in the art of dancing.
Apsaras in A Classical Ballet
The bas-reliefs of Angkorian temples has became an inspiration of Khmer classical dance.
In the visual art studies, most of the figures on bas-reliefs in Angkor Wat, depicted individually or in groups, who are standing still and facing forward in the manner of temple guardians or custodians are called devatas, not all were apsaras. Many of the stories related in the Mahabharata, apsaras appear in important supporting roles. The epic contains several lists of the principal Apsaras, which lists are not always identical.
Angkor Wat alone features both apsaras and devata, however the devata type are the most numerous with more than 1,796 in the present research inventory, more prominently at every level of the temple from the entry pavilion to the tops of the high towers. In 1927, Sappho Marchal published a study cataloging the remarkable diversity of their hair, headdresses, garments, stance, jewelry and decorative flowers, which Marchal concluded were based on actual practices of the Angkor period.
Sappho Marchal published her original work in Paris when she was only 23 years old. Sappho was in a unique position to study Angkor Wat; her father, Henri Marchal, was appointed the second curator of the vast Angkor site for the French colonial government in 1916. Sappho grew up with these extraordinary Khmer women.
Lets get a glimpse of the attire of Cambodian lady from where it begin throughout history.
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