There are few heart-thumping moments in life matching the ones you encounter as you approach the main temple of Angkor Wat, memories that will keep echoing through your mind, defining one of the most dramatic walks you will ever undertake - part pilgrimage, part Indiana Jones. A sandstone causeway spanning several hundred acres runs over a moat filled with water and lush with lilies and blood red hyacinths poking out like snake-heads. In the far distance, the spires of the Angkor representing Mount Meru, the mysterious abode of the Hindu Gods, emerge through the mist like an array of lotus buds ready to bloom.
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| Lions guarding the mouth of the walkway | The moat around the temple | The moat is particularly lush during the monsoons, when we visited |
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| Before its dramatic discovery in the jungles, it was only known to local legend as a lost city, an ancient kingdom built by Gods and demons. | After the initial exuberant walk across the moat that takes us to the initial gopuras, we reach an inner courtyard along a further walkway that takes us to the actual Angkor temple, characterized by the quincux of ogival redented lotus bud like structures. | There are a sequence of six steps that lead us down from the walkway onto the grassy courtyards around the temple |
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| View of the temple complex from the courtyard at the Northwestern end. There is a pretty severe monsoon brewing that made the palm trees sway widely! | The serpent Vasuki, guarding the balustrades at the front of the temple |
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| Each courtyard along the sides of the main causeway sports a library that opens to both the East and West. | | Along the Northwestern inner wall surrounding the temple, there is a row of shops hawking artifacts. A refreshing sip of coconut water cools us down on an otherwise hot day, as does the short and tempestuous spate of monsoons lasting 10-15 minutes.
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| Angkor, view from the Northwestern end |
