Angkor Wat

The view of Angkor from the first gate.  Welcome to Mt. Meru made real.

The paltry humans streaming out.

The central tower.

Its really big. Really. Angkor Wat is reputed to be the largest religious structure on the planet. Nothing I write about it will convey how big it is, nor will the photos accurately reveal its scope.

I put off the Big One until today, my final temple day in Siem Reap. To deal with the huge crowds that flock to Angkor Wat, I consulted Raphael and Roberta, my superlative hosts. According to the lovely Italian duo and several guide book sources, the tour buses gather up their hordes around 11:30 and head off for group lunches. Thus the plan was concocted.

I arrived on Trusty Rusty at about 11 AM, hid out for a coffee and fruit shake, and then took my chances. Sure enough, as I was heading over the causeway, across the almost 200 meter moat (eat your hearts out mediaeval castles), I felt like a salmon swimming upstream. The tour groups, each following their flag bearer, were heading out.

What can I tell you about this place? If you asked me what my favorite temple was after four days of Angkor exploration, I would not pick Angkor Wat. And yet had I not experienced it I would have missed out on so much. It simply isn't intimate or immediate, like many of the other temples. It is vast, dwarfing any expectations. For example, just on the lower walls of the Wat, there are over 800 meters of bas-relief. Not 800 square meters, but rather 800 linear meters. It is, Friends and Neighbors, one hell of a lot of carved stone.

I walked the West to East axis, like a pilgram. I climbed to the highest tower. I climbed down and walked all the way to the East gate where, Miracle! I got it. There was no one there except the monkeys. I had a measure of scale, the whole of the East gate, a lonely and almost tumbling down structure. As I walked back along the South side of the Wat, solitary and at bit of a distance, I was able to appreciate the monumental beauty and symmetry of this mountain of stone, its five towers perfectly proportioned, its huge walls and tiers running out of my sight lines. I understood the message.

If you want your subjects to view you as a God-King, build something like Angkor Wat. The possibility that one human being could spark the immense army of effort required to create this mountain of stone would, indeed, lay a believable claim to divinity.