Angkor Wat is easily the crown jewel among the Angkor temples. Suryavarman II (1112-1152) constructed Angkor Wat as a Vishnu temple. There is a school of thought that believes it was constructed as a funerary temple since the temple is oriented towards the west. The moat surrounding Angkor Wat is breathtaking. The moat is 190m wide and 1m deep, and forms a rectangle 1.5km by 1.3km.

4 files, last one added on Mar 22, 2009

Banteay Srei (which means Citadel of the Women) is gorgeous with exquisite carvings, so much so that it is said that a woman must have built it! In many ways, it is my favourite. It is certainly not a very large temple, but its carvings are every bit as exquisite as I was led to expect. The early morning sunlight is warm and golden and highlights the carvings and brings out the warm colour tones. The colour is striking. More than pink, it appears to be golden/rust in colour.

8 files, last one added on Mar 28, 2009

From a distance, the Bayon looks just like a pile of rocks put together haphazardly. No grandiose entrance or causeway a la Angkor Wat here. This temple is definitely not as well preserved, but up close one can see the main draw. The temple consists of 54 towers built at various levels, each having four enigmatic heads carved into the rocks in each direction. As one walks around, these heads are everywhere. The closer one gets to the heads the more intricately carved and enigmatic they appear to be.

One theory suggests that the heads represent Avlokiteswara, one of the bodhisattvas (the Khmers had adopted Buddhism by this time). Another school of thought has it that the heads are those of Jayavarman VII. According to this theory, in those days Khmer used to consist of 54 provinces and this was just a way for the king to keep a benign set of eyes on each of his provinces in the four cardinal directions.

1 files, last one added on Mar 22, 2009