Dawn at Angkor Wat

The best time to visit Angkor Wat, the largest and most famous of the Angkor temples, is early in the morning, when the light is good and it is relatively quiet before the large tour groups arrive. Angkor Wat is visually, architecturally and artistically breathtaking. It is a massive three-tiered pyramid crowned by five beehive-like towers rising 65 metres from ground level. At the apex of Khmer political and military dominance in the region, Suryavarman II constructed Angkor Wat in the form of a massive 'temple-mountain' dedicated to the Hindu god, Vishnu. Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat and an exterior wall and the walls of the temple are covered inside and out with bas-reliefs and carvings. Nearly 2000 distinctively rendered apsara carvings adorn the walls throughout the temple and represent some of the finest examples of apsara carvings in Angkorian era art.