You should visit Angkor Wat a least twice to do it full justice and on one of the visits you should take time to walk around the entire central complex. You can visit it either late in the afternoon (the light is best then, but this is also the time when the large tour groups come) or in the early morning, at 8.00 am or earlier - then the temple is not so crowded.

Angkor Wat was built under the reign of king Suryavarman II as a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu ( the large statues of four-armed Buddhas in the outer galleries were originally images of this Indian god). Normally Hindu temples are built with an orientation to the east, which is viewed as the most auspicious cardinal direction, not so Angkor Wat; its main entrance lies in the west. Historians believe that this indicates that Angkor Wat was used for funerary purposes and that it was intended as a mausoleum for the king after his death (there is no archeological evidence for this, however).

Everything in Angkor Wat is grand and larger than life size. It took probably around 30 years to build the monument; the area of land covered by it is more than 210 hectares, the towers rise to 65 meters from the ground. All this is surrounded by a large moat that is filled with tranquil water. The structure is that of a temple mountain, based on 3 rectangular platforms, each smaller than the one below. From the third platform rise the five famous towers, conical in shape, with a lotus patterned point. The overall form resembles a lotus bud. Angkor Wat has been planned so that all five towers can only be viewed from certain angles. Despite its dimensions, Angkor Wat is more than just a colossal mass of stone; its galleries, terraces, chambers, and courtyards give is a sense of space and airiness. You will see.

Enter Angkor Wat via the west (main) entrance. Walk over the bridge that crosses the moat (you will be asked to show your Angkor-Ticket). The approach to the temple is along a 350 m long causeway that ends in a Gopura (entrance pavilion or entry tower) that is the centerpiece of a large column gallery that extends along the moat. A large statue of Vishnu (now re-decorated to represent a Buddha image and much worshipped by the locals) is inside on the right of the entrance.  A raised walkway with a balustrade of stone Nagas (mythical serpents) leads to the main sanctuary. Before you proceed on this way you can walk down the steps to the ground and then a few meters to the side. From there you have a good view of all of the five towers. Return to the pathway and continue. To the left and the right you will see two smaller stone buildings.

They are called libraries (it is assumed that they once held the holy scriptures of the temple). They have very fine and interesting stone carvings that you might want to examine more closely. There are also two reservoirs which, when filled with water, beautifully reflect the towers of Angkor Wat.

At the end of the pathway you will first reach the so-called Terrace of Honor, located immediately before the Gopura to the central temple complex, and then enter Angkor Wat itself. Turn now right and circumambulate the entire first level galleries to see the famous bas-reliefs. All of them are interesting, but the best are: The Churning of the Ocean of Milk, The Battle of Lanka, and The Judgment by Yama.

The Churning of the Ocean of Milk depicts a story from the Hindu epic Bagavata-Pourana that was very popular with the ancient Khmers. 92 demons and 88 gods (the gods are the ones with the conical headdresses) churn for a 1000 years the ocean of milk to extract from it the elixir of life that grants them immortality. As a rope, they use the body of the serpent Vasuki, the pivot is the mountain Mandara. After a lot of churning, the mountain starts to sink. Vishnu, in his reincarnation as a tortoise, comes to their help and supports the mountain. (This is depicted in the centre of the image). After another 1000 years the churning is finally successful and the milk oceans yields the elixir of immortality (and also the goddess Laksmi, a three headed elephant, a white horse, the cow of plenty, and the Apsaras (heavenly nymphs, they can be seen dancing in the upper part of the relief).

The Judgment by Yama depicts the Khmer's ideas of Heaven and Hell. The spirits of the dead are brought to the god Yama to await their judgment. The good ones are allowed to proceed to one of the 37 heavens of Hindu mythology where they enjoy idyllic surroundings in the celestial palace and are rewarded by a pleasant life of leisure. The sinners, yoked in groups or four, are dragged by Yama's assistants into one of the 32 hells and receive terrible punishments - they are forced to swallow red-hot coals, sawed in half, have their bones broken, or have their bodies pierced with nails.

The Battle of Lanka shows a scene from the much-loved Ramayana (Reamker in Khmer) epic. It shows monkey warriors fighting against demons whose kings has abducted the beautiful Sita, wife of the hero Rama (a reincarnation of Vishnu).

After you have visited the first- level galleries ascend to the cruciform shaped gallery of 1000 Buddhas. It used to contain many images, but only a few remain. You can light incense in front of one of them.  The large basins in the floor once held water. Through the large window openings you have a good view of the libraries that stand in the courtyards. Then ascend to the second level (to the original stone staircases with high, but very narrow steps, quite difficult and almost dangerous to climb, have recently been added wooden staircases with normal steps that are easy and safe to use). The second level is also surrounded with galleries, but their interior is rather plain. In the courtyard, however, the walls are lined with lovely representations of over 1500 dancing Apsaras. They appear in groups of twos and threes, always in frontal view. Examine the fine details of their hair dresses and their jewelry. At first you will probably think that they are all the same, or only a few varieties, but as a matter of act, each of the 1500 Apsaras is different.

Their third and topmost level of Angkor Wat rises 42 meters above the second one and was originally reserved for the king and the high priests. You have to climb a lot of steps to reach it, but it is worth the effort. This level is the smallest and divided by galleries into 4 courtyards. In each of the four corners of the platform stands one of the main towers. A narrow outer gallery provided beautiful views of the surrounding countryside. In the middle of the third level stands the fifth, the central tower, the highest of all. Originally it held a statue of Vishnu, but that has been replaced by a Buddha statue to which you may make an offering.

Early visitors to Angkor Wat

There is a common misconception, that Angkor Wat had been forgotten entirely for centuries and then been rediscovered by the French naturalist Henri Mohout in the 1860s. This is not true. Angkor Wat has never been forgotten. After the fall of the Khmer empire it was used  as a Theravada temple by buddhist monks, and there were even Europeans who saw it much earlier than Mohout and reported on it (the earliest Europeans seem to have been Antonio de Magdalena, a Portuguese capuchin friar who visited Angkor in 1585 and saw the ruins. The earliest plan of Angkor was drawn by a Japanese pilgrim in the seventeenth century (Japanese merchants have been present in Cambodia and Thailand since 1600, and Angkor Wat, which at that time was an important and famous Buddhist site. 

What did it look like?

The gray stone walls are all that remains of the Angkor Wat of former days today but imagine what it must have looked like in all its splendour, probably decorated with carvings, painted coloured woodwork and golden spires (the Chinese envoy Zhu Daguan, who visited Angkor in the 13th century and wrote a report on it, mentions "golden towers, golden bridges, golden Buddhas".) The high ceilings of the galleries with their crude corbelled vaults were probably covered with wooden coffered ceilings, for instance, in one the first level galleries a concrete version of such a ceiling has been added to give you an idea of what it must have looked like. The bas reliefs were perhaps painted or gilded. Some have a sheen on them, but that may also have resulted from many, many hands touching them over the course of the centuries. Maybe there was music or ritual dances were performed.