In Buddhist Cambodia the Temple of Angkor Wat, the largest in the world dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu, seems almost out of place: however it was a Hindu civilization, which once extended as far as Burma, Laos and southern China, to create this masterpiece. Southeast Asia is dotted with grandiose temples, yet Angkor Wat – a representation of heaven on earth, built with blocks of sandstone and enriched with bas-reliefs depicting scenes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas – is breathtaking.
Angkor Wat is also the flagship of an architectural complex that includes a thousand temples, pilgrimage sites and funerary monuments that together constitute a ghost town in the jungle of northern Cambodia.
