Welcome to Siem Reap Cambodia!

Welcome to Angkor Wat.

Siem Reap is the homeland of the world's largest religious building: Angkor Wat. This page will help them the history and culture of the sacred temples around Siem Reap to understand.


The most visited temple around Angkor Wat are Wat Bayon, Ta Prohm and Angkor Thom. But the other Buddhist temples are worth seeing. This small Angkor Wat guide will help you to find mystic places and beautiful temple architecture around Angkor. Especially worth seeing is the sun sunrise from Angkor wat. Many visitors arrive early in the morning to admire the beautiful event of nature. Have fun and enjoy your holiday in Siem Reap in Cambodia

Angkor Wat Pictures

Pictures of Angkor Wat, Wat Bayon, Ta Prohm and the area arond Angkor in Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Angkor Wat Pictures:

Pictures of Wat Bayon:

Ta Prohm Pictures:





Angkor Thom Pics:

Angkor Thom

History
Battle on the Tonle Sap Lake (relief at Bayon temple State)

In 1177 the Cham won a naval battle on the Tonle Sap lake to the Khmer, the then capital Jayenfranagari captured and killed King Tribhuvanādityavarman. In four years of fighting succeeded to a young prince and commander to defeat the invaders, in 1181 he ascended the throne as Jayavarman VII, and during his thirty years' reign, he proved to be one of the greatest kings of Angkor. As the king was Buddhist, Hindu, unlike his predecessors, Mahayana, was on his behalf a number of Buddhist temples, monasteries and universities - both within and outside the walls of his new "big city" of Angkor Thom.

Perhaps his most direct successor Indravarman II (reigned about 1220-1243) continued the building program; Jayavarman VIII (about 1243-1295) was responsible for the destruction of many Buddhist statues and restored a number of important Hindu temple in Srindravarman (about 1295-1307 ), we encounter perhaps the first Theravada Buddhist among Angkorkings. Now the local architectural history is no longer understandable, indeed, established in emerging Theravada Buddhism has been almost entirely wooden buildings.

Numerous armed clashes with Siam, as well as emerging problems with water supply and soil fertility led to the late 16th Century to the decline of Angkorreichs. The so-called discovery of Angkor in the second half of the 19th Century (a meaningless term, because the Khmer had never forgotten the temples, and other European visitors were described long ago) is closely linked with the name of Henri Mouhot, history, especially with the renovation of the École française d'Extrême-Orient. Since 1992, include the World Heritage Angkorgebiet and thus also to the Angkor Thom covered by the UNESCO.

Appendix
Sculptures on the terrace of the Leper King
Some faces of Bayon temple towers of the State
Map of the interior area of Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom occupies the northern part of the first Angkorhauptstadt Yasodharapura. Thus the new capital was smaller than their historical predecessors, but it was bigger than all the cities of medieval Europe.

The square structure has a side length of about 3 km, which have four pages in the main directions. The moat around is 100 meters wide. The walls of laterite is provided about 8 m high and on the inside with a generous earthquake. Divided into quarters and opened up the city through a street intersection. The four end of streets flow into the city gates of sandstone, a fifth gate is located 500 m north of the east gate at the end of another road, the so-called Victory Avenue.

Jayavarman VII was divided important historic buildings in the capital to his new capital. Lay in the northwest quarter of the royal palace with the temple pyramid Phimeanakas. This ensemble completed he and his successors through the Terrace of the Elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King, the Grand Place, the tower series Prasat Suor Prat and said victorystreet. Even the older, overwhelmingly large Baphuon Temple Mount, and two hall-like buildings, the northern and southern Khleang, were integrated into the overall scheme. In the geometric center of Angkor Thom, omitted from the streets and framed, was the state temple of Bayon, with its forest of faces. Apart from the temples and terraces, all the buildings in the city were made of wood () and the Royal Palace and are now gone.

Culture of Siem Reap

The Cambodian Arts & Crafts, e.g. Sculpture in wood or stone, or the art of weaving, and arts like classical Cambodian dance and shadow puppets, were devastated by the murders of the Khmer Rouge, which also fell victim to many artists, almost entirely. In Siem Reap emerged in the years since the restoration of a peaceful civil society, a series of workshops and groups of artists who revive these arts.
Classical Cambodian dance is presented publicly at the Angkor Village Theater, and some hotels (eg Grand Hotel d'Angkor, Koulen Restaurant). With a mixture of pride in their own history and culture, and probably also a sense of the needs of tourists this art is sometimes called the Apsara dance. The dancers wear traditional costumes while that resemble those of the Apsaras, which are seen on the walls of many temples in Angkor. Today, the dancers wear, in contrast to their historical or heavenly role models, outerwear.
The west, especially in the form of the Indonesian wayang shadow puppets known in Cambodia also has a long tradition. In Siem Reap, for example, found in the restaurant of the Hotel La Noria weekly screenings of children of Krousar Thmey Foundation (see References) instead. In the traditional stories are sometimes supplemented with contemporary characters and content to provide current topics and encourage, for example, Solidarity, respect for the elderly, child protection and the fight against AIDS (see also sex tourism). It should also hear traditional Cambodian music with their instruments. The shadow puppets are made in Siem Reap itself, inter alia, in the workshop of the House of Peace Association.
One of the oldest Buddhist temple in the city, the Wat Bo, can be seen on the walls of numerous notable paintings depicting scenes from the life of Buddha. Wat Thmei houses a stupa containing the bones of victims of the Khmer Rouge, to commemorate the murdered man to. Another place of remembrance of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge regime and civil war is the land mine museum on the road from Siem Reap to Angkor. It is established and maintained by Mr. Aki Ra joined the age of 13, the Vietnamese army to fight against the Khmer Rouge and during the war, landmines defused. The offering includes a variety of mines by his paintings, in which he handled the trauma of war. The donations of the visitors, Mr Aki used to finance his work is still required, the disarming of mines that are found by farmers in the area, too.
The banks of the Tonle Sap lake along there are a number of villages, which consist partly of piles and some of which are often known as houseboats and floating villages. During the annual rise of water levels draw the residents who live from fishing, to the entire village. Also on the "big lake" is the Prek Toal bird sanctuary, which, with its abundance of fish and the surrounding flood plain that a wide variety of nesting birds.
In the northeast of the city is the Jayavarman VII Children's Hospital. Financed by donations, organized by the Swiss doctor Beat Richner mainly in Switzerland and France, it offers children free medical care. Under the title Beatocello he plays regularly on Saturdays cello concerts, and tells about the work of the Children's Hospital.
Dith Pran (1942-2008), a Cambodian photojournalist who survived the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, was born in Siem Reap.

Economic Development and Tourism of Siem Reap

During the 1990s, stabilized the political situation in the country. Today, Siem Reap is a peaceful and for Cambodian standards - the country one of the poorest of the earth, is the average monthly income is around U.S. $ 30 - thriving small town. Has contributed greatly to tourism.
Traditionally, and especially the growing of rice and fish in the nearby Tonle Sap basis of life and most important source of income of the residents. Since the opening of the country for visitors from all over the world but also takes the number of visitors to Siem Reap to use as a starting point for visiting the temples of Angkor, continuous, and provides additional income. Thus, since the late 1990s a number of hotels at the beginning of the 20th Century were built opened again. In addition, created a host of new restaurants, hotels and guest houses, which now cover the entire spectrum of tourism - from 5-star luxury hotels to 5-dollar room. At the beginning of the 21st Century, the city presents itself as a thriving tourist center.
Siem Reap has an international airport.

Siem Reap Geography and History

Siem Reap is located about 10 km northeast of the Tonle Sap lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia and one of the most productive inland waters of the earth on both sides of the Siem Reap River (Stung Seam Reap) and about 6 miles south of Angkor Wat. Like many other small towns in Cambodia - Siem Reap has about 60,000 inhabitants - it evolved as a merger of a number of villages that had sprung up around the many Wats (Buddhist temples and monasteries). The city center is the Old Market, which is surrounded by houses in the French colonial style.
The area around Siem Reap for centuries belonged to Siam and the Siamese kings were tributary. During the colonial era, France took possession of large areas in Southeast Asia. For that "French Indochina" included not only Cambodia and Laos, and Vietnam. With the Treaty of 25 March 1907 consumed the colonial government also Siem Reap, Battambang and Sisophon with a total of more than 20,000 square kilometers.
In the years of the reign of the Khmer Rouge from 1975 were the inhabitants of Siem Reap, like those of all other cities in the country, trafficked for forced labor in the fields. Only after the victory of the Vietnamese troops in January 1979, they returned to their city, which was even until the beginning of the 1990s, the target of attacks by the Red displaced in the surrounding forests Khmer. For years, residents had to protect the city center with barricades. The last attack by a battalion of the city and the camp of the UNTAC peace-keeping force (United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia) in 1993.

History of Angkor Wat

In the 10th Century were built under Yasovarman I (reigned 889 - ca 910) numerous irrigation and dams, which contributed to that among other things several times a year rice could be harvested. This successful agriculture led to food surpluses, and the Khmer Empire brought great wealth. So it happened that the land in the south of China as a regional power center in the Khmer and Southeast Asia has been able to build large cities and huge temples to.

In 1113 King Suryavarman II ascended the throne and ruled until about 1150th He built the power of Angkor, and then Kambuja called in several military campaigns against the neighboring Cham, against Dai Viet (see History of Vietnam) and from the Mon Kingdom Haripunjaya further. In addition, he restored temples at Angkor and builds new ones.

Although the worship of Siva, the predominant religion of the ruling class of the country itself was, however, was Suryavarman II, it can be inferred from the inscriptions on its construction and pilgrimages, a follower of Vaishnavism. In the temple of Wat Phu pilgrimage he made about next to a Shiva lingam and a statue of the Bhagavati (an incarnation of Uma or Parvati, the consort of Shiva) built a statue of Vishnu.
Apsaras
Vishnu was also the main temple of Angkor Wat, the king ordered the construction in the southeastern part of the set up I already paid under Suryavarman capital. The original name was therefore probably bisnulok or Vishnuloka when Angkor Wat was only centuries later, the name of the temple complex, when he was converted to a Buddhist shrine.

About the actual purpose of the work to this day no clear clarity. The rulers of the Khmer saw themselves as stewards of God under whose protection they were also themselves and the country. Each of them had at least build a great temple was dedicated to this deity. Unusually for the temples of Angkor is the orientation of the Angkor Wat. Unlike the other temples, whose main access point or output points to the east, is the Angkor Wat faces west, the direction Yama, the god of death. Some researchers suggest the temple, therefore, to be the tomb of the king. A grave chamber or indications have not yet been found.

Surrounding the temple complex
Total investment of Angkor

Angkor Wat is only one part of the much larger total investment of Angkor with its multitude of temples of Angkor Thom, which is the largest (see also): Temples of Angkor. Like other great temples at Angkor areas was that Angkor Wat is surrounded by settlements. The building material of stone, however, was reserved for religious buildings, which is why the secular buildings, including the residences of the rulers, are not received.

Dating
Usually the construction of Angkor Wat, as described above, attributed to King Suryavarman II. Some scholars date the construction period and in later times, tend to exhibit stylistic and religious-studies. In 1927 Philippe Stern argued that the style of the Bayon temple, a refinement of the style (late 12th century represented by the middle of 13th century) and he would later be developed accordingly.

History since 1500
Monks at Angkor Wat

The vast buildings have a number of damages. Weather conditions, the tropical vegetation and human destructiveness, such as the looting by the Siamese in the 15th Century, have added to the temples. Another reason for the decline is that the Khmer from 13 Century turned to Buddhism, which is why no new temples were built over. Added to this was that the Khmer cut down all the forests and crop failures by the then-failing water and climate change. The plant, however, was the latest since the 16th Century as a Buddhist shrine, were attached to the 1546 to 1747 more than 40 inscriptions that convey the content of Theravada Buddhism.

After it, due to the political situation in Cambodia, in the second half of the 20th Century was hardly possible to carry out restoration works, different organizations are now engaged to stop the further disintegration of Angkor Wat.

Besides the tourists, Buddhist monks are among the daily visitors to the temple.