Angkor Wat Temple complex in Cambodia!
The Angkor Wat Temple complex is the number one historical destination spot for visitors to Cambodia. It is the largest religious complex in the world at 402 acres. It is comprised of more than 1000 temples but many have yet to be recovered from the jungle and documented. The Angkor Wat complex began being built in 1130 AD. In 20 years, the Khmer King built this historical Angkor Wat temple to worship the Hindu gods. The following years led to many feats of masterful engineering that were astonishing for the time period. The stacking and laying of the heavy sandstone in tight puzzle like precision was all done without the use of mortar. The immense water irrigation system of hand dug canals flowed from the top of the lands to the low-lying grounds providing many of the inhabitants with fresh drinking water and water for their life sustaining crops. The Khmer rule lasted for about 200 years with an approximate population base of one million people.
In the 1400’s prolonged deforestation caused unforeseen erosion and unintended rerouting of water. Floods in some areas and lack of water in other areas caused region wide famine. Feuds, wars and political upheavals and the death of many citizens led to the abandonment of the temple complex. Over a thousand temples lay untouched and forgotten for several hundred years. Angkor Wat was the only grounds that maintained a small population of monks. This is how Angkor Wat gained the title of the longest occupied religious grounds in the world. In 1860 a British explorer found a temple buried deep in the forest overgrown with trees and shrubbery. Since then the Temples have been slowly discovered and recovered. In 1992 it became a UNESCO World Heritage site.
From 1963-1969 the Vietnam war caught Cambodia in the middle of a horrific war that led to mines being placed all through the Cambodia countryside and surrounding many of these beautiful temples. Today many of the mines are still active and make discovering more temples treacherous. During the 4-year rule of Pol Pot from 1975-1979 the temples remained mostly untouched and intact while he murdered 1.5-2 million out of 8 million Cambodian citizens. Today the main Angkor Wat temple and several of the surrounding temples provide Cambodia with a steady stream of tourists and some much-needed money for this emerging country.
I had a difficult time deciding on which photos to share so I have included many. I hope you enjoy them. Beth H.
