A good friend of mine told me few years ago his favourite trip was seeing Ankor Wat in Cambodia. He is very well traveled. Ever since that time I been wanting to see Angkor Wat .

I was able to find some time on my East Asia Trip to stop in Siem Reap Cambodia.

I will write another post about the logistics of visiting Ankor Wat and the surrounding temples. On this post I ll focus on the temple itself.

Angkor Wat was built in the early 12 th century as a Hindu temple by a the Hindu King Suryavarman II . It is a Vishnu Temple . It is also believed the king built this temple to hold his ashes .

What makes Angkor Wat so incredible is thinking about when the structure was built . It was built in the early 12 th century and I don’t believe there any other structures built at that time that compares in size or design !

It is a massive structure surrounded by a water moat all around , an outer wall , bridges , five peak structure representing Mount Meru , and walls and walls of detailed carvings . My favourite discovery as a Hindu was that on one main side of the wall, carvings from Ramayana exist and on the other side carvings from Mahabharata exist . It was incredible to see stories you have heard growing up on walls of buildings build hundreds of years ago !

Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples are what is left over from an advanced civilization of its time . Historians believe Ankor Wat was surrounded by a city made up of wood houses and a network of canals and roads for transportation. At the time when London was 18000 People, Angkor Wats surrounding area is believed to have been inhabited by up to 750 000 people !

It is the largest religious monument in the world and to be able to explore and see it is a unique experience!

If you are going to visit Angkor Wat go see it at sunrise. There is a unique beauty to it at Sunrise that makes waking up at 4 am worthwhile!

Many people visit Cambodia to just see Angkor Wats and it is definitely worth the trip .