March 29, 2018 - In 1152, after only 37 years of labor the world’s largest religious complex was constructed. After 866 years it is still unrivaled today. It has been in continuous use as a place of worship since it’s completion. This is Angkor Wat.
To give you a sense of this accomplishment consider these facts. William the Conquerer had only recently died in England after the construction of the small Tower of London. Notre Dame Cathedral was just getting started in Paris and would take 300 years to complete. Leif Ericson had only just recently found North America. And calculus, the kind of math one might need to make such a monster was not shown to us by Newton until the 17th century.
To try to select one photo is like trying to capture the Vatican with only one shot. It is that big. All of this was done by the hand. The work of 300,000 laborers and 6000 elephants. I included an aerial view to give a sense of the size. The enormous moat around it was also hand dug
The design is a microcosm of the Hindu origin of the universe. The peaks represent the sacred mountains of the Himalayas leading to the central mountain, Mt Meru . - the very throne of the gods .
Bourdain writes , “So how do I sum up Cambodia ? That is the wrong question. You don’t sum it up. You open your eyes, you let it happen, you breath it in”
Our brief time here is over. Tomorrow is another travel day. We leave for our final leg in this trip, Vietnam.
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