Cambodia - Angkor Wat, part 2

The following are pics of some of the carvings found on the walls. They are called "bas-reliefs".

There is said to be over 40000 of these goddesses throughout Angkor Wat, and everyone of them is a little different (different hair-do, clothing, eyes, hands movement, etc). Wow!

Most of the original Buddha statues look like this.

The heads (and often hands and feet) were broken by the Khmer Rouge (who wanted to abolish Buddism), and/or by looters to sell them to collectors (we saw a few at the National Museum).

Let's finish Angkor Wat with a couple of more random pics. The architecture is quite nice, with "doors within doors" like this:

The thing above the buddha is called the Naga. It's part of the mythology, and it's the symbol of water and fertility. It's said to be the first inhabitant of Cambodia. The details are a little blur, but the story goes like this: Cambodia was covered by water. The gods and demons were fighting (symbolically represented by pulling on both ends of a snake (naga)- we could picture is as the game:tug-o-war). The gods won and the land of Cambodia was created. The Naga is often represented protecting the Buddha in meditation.