## Angkor Wat

Two of the best known structures of the Angkor complex are in this area: the magnificent temple of Angkor Wat and the city of Angkor Thom. Both are surrounded by moats and partially covered by dense vegetation. Individual buildings show up in dark geometric forms in the middle of the bright red colour of vegetation.

Angkor Wat is the rectangle with a wide moat towards the south. An outer wall surrounds the temple complex inside the moat. Two causeways from the west and the east cross the moat. In the architectural style of Indian temples, the main temple is in the centre, rising in a number of stories, each with progressively reduced perimeters. The central tower of the Angkor Wat is 55m high and the temple is exquisitely illustrated by bas reliefs and surrounded by magnificent galleries. Two small libraries and ponds occur to the west of the central temple, on either side of the western causeway leading to the main entrance.

The large square with the narrower moat is the Angkor Thom, the former capital of the Khmer kingdom. Only the temples built in sandstone and bricks have survived. The original city was sacked by the Chams from the east. The Chams were later defeated by Jayavarman VII, who rebuilt the city including its walls and gates towards the end of the 12th century. In the centre of the new city he built the Bayon, an extraordinary structure and only surpassed by Angkor Wat in its grandeur. It is the dark square in the centre of the rectangle in the image. The Bayon was a Buddhist structure, with 54 towers from which nearly two hundred smiling faces of Avalokiteshwara look down upon the visitors. The faces resemble that of Jayavarman VII, the king and the god merging closer.

Other well known buildings Inside the Angkor Thom include Baphuon and Phimeanakas which were built much earlier, both located to the west and slightly to the north of the Bayon. A number of other buildings, pools and wide streets are visible inside the city but so is the jungle which over centuries enveloped the Angkor Thom. Various other building (Preah Khan, Ta Proem), irrigation dikes and the Siem Reap River are also visible in this image. The Eastern Baray is dry but could be identified because of its embankments. In the middle of the baray is located the Vishnu temple of Eastern Mèbon.