Cambodia. Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Sunrise at Angkor Wat (Enlarge) There are two great complexes of ancient temples in Southeast Asia, one at Bagan in Burma, the other at Angkor in Cambodia. The temples of Angkor, built by the Khmer civilization between 802 and 1220 AD, represent one of humankind's most astonishing and enduring architectural achievements. From Angkor the Khmer kings ruled over a vast domain that reached from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal.
The structures one sees at Angkor today, more than 100 stone temples in all, are the surviving remains of a grand religious, social and administrative metropolis whose other buildings - palaces, public buildings, and houses - were built of wood and have long since decayed and disappeared. Conventional theories presume the lands where Angkor stands were chosen as a settlement site because of their strategic military position and agricultural potential.
At the temple of Phnom Bakheng there are 108 surrounding towers. Temple of Ta Prohm, Angkor, Cambodia. Balloons Over Bagan. Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon, Burma. Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon, Burma In 1586, an English man, Ralph Fitch, visited the great pagoda and had the following to report: ....it is called Dogonne, and it is of a wonderful bignesse, and all gilded from the foot to the toppe...it is the fairest place, as I suppose, that is in all the world; it standeth very high, and there are foure ways to it, which all along are set with trees of fruits, such wise that a man may goe in the shade above two miles in length....The origins of Shwedagon are lost in antiquity, its age unknown. Long before the pagoda was built, its location on Singuttara hill was already an ancient sacred site because of the buried relics of the three previous Buddhas.
According to one legend, nearly 5000 years had passed since the last Buddha walked the Earth, and Singuttara hill would soon lose its blessedness unless it was reconsecrated with relics of a new Buddha. Shwedagon Paya. Heart stopping at any time, the Shwedagon Paya glitters bright gold in the heat of the day. Then, as the sun casts its last rays, it turns a crimson gold and orange, magic floats in the heat and the mighty diamond at the spire’s peak casts a beam of light that reflects sheet white, bloody red and jealous green to the far corners of the temple platform.
It can be quiet and contemplative or colourful and raucous, and for the people of Myanmar it is the most sacred of all Buddhist sites, one that all Myanmar Buddhists hope to visit at least once in their lifetime. Visible from almost anywhere in the city, Shwedagon is located to the north of central Yangon, between People’s Park and Kandawgyi. The admission fee, which goes to the government, includes a lift ride to the raised platform of the stupa.
The following details the history and attributes of the main structure. History The great golden dome rises 322ft above its base. In the 15th century, the tradition of gilding the stupa began. Son Doong Cave.