The Temples of Angkor

The Temples of Angkor

Although Angkor Wat is the ‘bucket list’ temple, there are in fact 91 temples within the 100,000 acres of the Angkor Heritage Complex; we visited just six.

Language lesson: Angkor = city, Wat = temple, Thom = big, all words are derived from the Sanskrit or Khmer languages.

The temples were built in stages from the 9^th to the 15^th centuries, by different kings and, at that time the Khmer people followed the Hindu rather than the Buddhist religion practised today.

As many have already written books about them, here’s a very brief summary:

The Pink or Women’s temple – Banteay Srei 967 AD – dedicated to Shiva

The temple is made of red sandstone and uniquely amongst the temples, not made by a monarch.  It’s ‘small and perfectly formed’ and its feminine qualities have meant it is attributed to at least in design if not partially constructed by women.

Not huge but pretty nd delicate

Many temples in the Angkor complex show a lathe like 'turning' of stone.  This technique is usually reserved for wood - and it's unsure how the local artisans managed it.

'Lathe' turned stone - a symbol unique to Cambodia

 Angkor Wat – the City Temple – dedicated to Vishnu early 12^th C AD

Paul, Candy, Roger and Suzie in front of Angkor Wat

This is HUGE and is the world’s largest religious monument covering 1.63 million square metres!  

This huge corridor originally had a timber ceiling.  There is bas relief along the length

It’s (not surprisingly) crowded and it also has a couple of tricky steps Paul took with our USA friend Roger, whilst Candy and Suzie sat, watched and laughed.

Paul and Roger after climbing the zillion steps - not sure it was worth it in 45 degree heat, Angkor Wat

The carving is exquisite and really deserves the hype.

Our guide's favourite elephant

A very tactile bas relief

Although the complex was orginally built with the assistance of elephants, few remain today - and they charge $USD20 per hour:

800 elephants left in the region, but you can hire me - no thanks...

Angkor Thom – The Big or Great City – 12^th c AD

This not actually a temple but the city covering 9 square kms.  At one point around 1200AD it was the largest city in the world!

There are five gates to the city – the best preserved has ‘happy’ faces to the right of the entrance and grumpy ones to the left – Vishnu and Shiva again – Vishnu the god of preservation and Shiva the god of mischief – you can guess who’s left and right in this equation.

The left evil Vishnu faces

The right side nice Shiva faces on the road to Angkor Tom

The huge moat at Angkor Thom

The Temple of the Faces – Bayon - 12th C

This amazing temple complex well, it is the temple of the faces - and most pictures actually tell more than any text.  It lies within the Angkor Thom complex as an added bonus.  It is said the temple's builder King Jayavarman VII (K7 for short) served as the model for the faces.

Baroque style temple

The faces in the setting sun provided quite a vision, temples generally face east and this temple, like Angkor Wat is surrounded by a huge artificial moat.

Some of the 700 faces representing Lokesvara

The jungle temple - Ta Prohm - late 12th c

Like Bayon this is considered a baroque temple rather than the more classical style of Angkor Wat. Unlike the other temples within the Angkor complex ir is largely unrestored anf is covered in strangler figs.  It has featured on recent editions of National Geographic and the Smithsonian Magazine.

The strangler fig tree taking over the temple

As well as the movie Tomb Raider - Angelique Jolie's a big fan of Angkor according to our guide.

Angelique Jolie as Lare Croft at Ta Prohm

Frankly it's probably more than anyone needs to know about these temples in a single session!