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Photo: Angkor Wat in Angkor, Siem Reap
Easily one of the
most recognized landmark in Asia and one of the
most famous tourist attractions in Cambodia, the size of
this amazing temple is totally unbelievable.
Covering an area of more than two hundred
hectares, it has the distinctions of being the
largest temple in the world and also the most
famous tourist attraction in Asia. It took slightly
more than thirty years to built following the
vision of King Suryavarman II in the 12th
century to make this place as his state temple.
This temple shows the great Khmer
architecture and have since become a symbol of
Cambodia as shown by its appearance on the
national flag. Angkor Wat is also the most
famous tourist attractions in Angkor.
 The
main attractions here are its soaring towers and
astonishing bas reliefs. This monument was built
and dedicated to Vishnu. This temple shown the
classic design of a temple mountain and
galleried temples to represent Mount Meru, home
of the gods in Hindu mythology. The temple was
designed in such a way that the central of the
temple has three elaborate levels with each
having a square surrounded by intricately
interconnected galleries and it is surrounded by
a vast moat. The central quincunx of towers
represents the five peaks of the mountain while
the walls and moat indicated the surrounding
mountain ranges and ocean.
For those who are
curious, the word 'angkor' is a vernacular form
of the word nokor which comes from Sanskrit word
nagara meaning capital while the word 'wat'
means temple in Khmer. One thing unusual about
Angkor Wat is that it is oriented to the west
rather than to the east unlike the other Angkor
temples and because of this fact, Angkor Wat
could be intended to be used by Suryavarman II
as his funerary temple. There are over one
million tourists that visit the great Angkor Wat
every year.
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