Dames, Broads and Dolls.

It’s self-evident, even to an aging warrior, that many Asian women have extraordinarily exotic features – added to which they frequently wear clothing that tantalises – like the Chinese cheongsam and the Vietnamese ao dais, for example.

This being so, one is accustomed to coming across beautiful, seductive Asian women that turn heads – so, as I came across four gorgeous young women in the jasmine-scented Cambodian dusk, I was hardly surprised.

Four young ladies, clearly on their way to an exotic dance club or avant-garde, trendy bar; they were wearing diaphanous hip-hugging sarongs, broad belts that hung from shapely hips, ropes of pearls, pendants, bracelets and forearm cuffs, anklets and other exotic adornment - bling I suppose, would be the modern idiom – capped by extraordinary headwear and hairstyles interwoven with blossoms, tiaras and other striking ornamentation; this was coiffure that would have caused comment even at the Melbourne Cup, an Australian horse race noted for its trackside tonsorial, millinery and fashion excesses; it's an event at which aging warriors frequently make fools of themselves!

I recall these four girls as stupendously feminine - hippy – seductive – real knockouts; author Raymond Chandler would have called them dames, Sinatra – broads, and Bogart – dolls.

The Oxford Dictionary has numerous more quirky expressions to describe good-looking women including arm candy, boy toy, cupcake, glamour puss, nymphet, odalisque and perhaps my favourite, Mata Hari, the stage name of a Dutch, part-time oriental dancer and courtesan during the troubled times of World War I – her other career was spying, for which she was shot!

I’ll admit, the girls being bare-breasted took me somewhat aback – but this would not have been extraordinary when these dolly birds were carved in relief on the walls of Angkor Wat during the reign of Khmer King Suryavarman II, some time in the mid twelfth century. Women have gone bare-breasted in Cambodia for hundreds of years.

These four foxy ladies are apsaras – and there are similar sisters called devatas; in scholarly explanations there are differences between the two, but the descriptions often seem interchangeable and inconsistent.

In short apsaras are female divinities or celestial dancers, so it is hardly surprising that in many carved reliefs they are shown in flight – perhaps in the dead of night, they still make an occasional circuit around their temple? Apsaras also come in many shapes and sizes ranging from life-sized to dinner plate-size. Some are carved in high relief, standing well clear of their background – and some are low relief, so shallowly carved they seem barely to cling to their allotted stone - it’s as if a strong breeze would wipe their existence clear away.

Myth has it that apsaras were born when the Indian deity Vishnu churned the ocean of milk to produce the elixir of life; this tale is told at great length, in 50 metres of stupendous reliefs in the eastern gallery of Angkor Wat. Generally the tale incorporates a pot of gold – a vial of the elixir of life somewhere in view but, in this Angkor Wat telling there is no container of miracle liquid to be seen. Perhaps the apsaras have this missing stash, which may account for their longevity?

Devatas meanwhile are female deities who stand guardians at doorways and generally they are surrounded by deeply etched framework as if forming a little guardsman’s hut as seen outside Europe’s Palaces.

Maybe it’s better just to enjoy these striking and exotic beings without worrying about the precise differences? In these pages I’ll use the word apsaras to refer to both apsaras and devatas, and accept any brickbats from purists.

Apsaras are not to be confused with other numerous carved images associated with Khmer mythology, or classic Indian Hindu and Buddhist texts.

The greatest number of apsaras in a single Khmer temple, and so perhaps the most easily viewed, are the nearly 1,900 that grace the walls, towers, and galleries of the jewel in the Angkor crown, Angkor Wat. Although, despite this crowd, if you want to see apsara super models, drive the ten minute or so journey from Angkor Wat, through the city of Angkor Thom and under Victory Gate to the Thommanon, a small temple which is, in my opinion, the catwalk where the super models strut their stuff.

Apsaras decorate the walls of many, although not all, Khmer temples – perhaps because of the evolution of beliefs or philosophies, or because of the era in which a temple was built, or perhaps the geographic location.

The temples of Phimai and Phnom Rung, built in northern provinces of the Khmer Empire, now Thailand, do not have near-life sized apsaras and the same is true of Beng Mealea, a large temple ruin a few kilometres from Angkor, and yet these are all considered temples of the Angkor Wat style. Apsaras are however resident in the Bapuon, Pre Rup, Ta Keo and Bakheng, and some of the finest apsaras to be seen are at Bateay Srei – and yet all these temples pre-date Angkor Wat.

No matter where you come across apsaras, there’s something about them – I’ve gazed at thousands. I’ve closely scrutinised hundreds of faces. There’s definitely something about them.

More about these dames, broads and dolls on another day.