Angkor Travel Guides – Tour to Cambodia
Angkor – Cambodia
Angkor Southeast Asia’s greatest artistic and spiritual feat swelters in its Cambodian jungle setting near the immense lake of Tonle Sap . A visit to this evocative ancient city is the highlight of any itinerary in the region and easily justifies the special effort required.For six centuries from AD 802 until 1431, the Khmer royal capital rose in bricks, laterite and stone to create one of the wonders of the world. This mesmerising network of palaces and temples incorporated not only astonishing statuary, carving and construction skills, but also an incomparable vision and scale .
Angkor - Cambodia
Angkor Thom
This colossal fortified city was built in the late 12th century by the last of Angkor’s great rulers, Jayavarman VII , to enclose royal, religious and administrative structures . Its square layout puts the Bayon at the centre of a symbolic heaven and earth, the walls representing the mountains surrounding sacrad Mount Meru and the moats (now dry) symbolising the ocean . Five elaborately carved entrance gates crowned with enigmatic faces lead into the city : arriving from Angkor Wat, the South Gate is introduced by 54 statues, demons on the right and gods on the left, all holding the sinuous bodies of seven-headed serpents (naga) .As pillaging has been the bane of Angkor, many heads are copies ; the originals are kept at Siem Reap’s Angkor Conservancy…
The vast scale of this king of monuments makes it as confusing as it is breaking . Majestic causeways lead to a wonderland of towers, galleries, chambers, porches, courtyards and terraces, all on different levels connected by steep stairways. Above rise the temple’s most prominent features : five seemingly encrusted towers ( four in the corners and one in the middle) , built in graduated tiers to resemble tapering lotus buds and once coated in gold. It took 30 years to construct this early 12th –century chef-d’oeuvre , whose role as funerary temple for Suryvarman II gave it a western orientation towards the setting sun, symbolising death . Unlike other Angkor monuments , the wat was saved from the ravages of vegetation by an almost continuous presence of Buddhist monks from 1432 until the present day.
