The vast, rectangular complex of Angkor Wat is surrounded by a moat almost 1.5 km on a side. A bridge crosses the moat and leads to the outer courtyard, surrounded by a verandah 500 metres long on its long side and 400 metres on its short side. A long raised walkway leads ever onwards, past ceremonial ponds, small "library" buildings and flowers to the temple proper, rising in three main levels and topped by soaring prangs, the typical northern Indian corn-cob spires.

The central, highest prang, stands about 50 metres above the outer courtyard, yet because of the immense horizontal scale of everything, the temple doesn't seem particularly high. The upward swelling of the whole structure of the temple is a perfectly conceived model of Mt. Meru, the abode of the Hindu gods. Watching the temple loom up larger and larger as you approach, with more and more details appearing on the grey sandstone the whole while, is an unforgettable experience.

The lower level of the temple is surrounded by a hallway, almost 200 metres on a side covered in bas-relief carvings on various themes from Hindu mythology. The highlights are the Churning of the Ocean of Milk and the epic Battle of Kurukshtra between the Kauravas and and Paravas from the Mahabharata, but almost all of the reliefs are of exceptional quality.Two of the eight main galleries, however, have crude, substandard carvings dating from long after Angkor's golden age.

The sheer wall area devoted to these carvings is staggering, and yet the expressions on each face, the vitality in each moving figure, rewards individual attention to each scene. I staggered out of the bas-relief galleries, exhausted from hours of concentrating on the walls and the life that seemed to pulse on them.

The second and third levels of the temple are the playground of the apsaras, or heavenly maidens, who were produced during the Churning of the Ocean of Milk and who now dance or pout seductively on any area of blank stone. There's none of the overt sex that is to be found on so many Indian and Nepalese Hindu temples, yet the graceful poses, carefree smiles and willowy physiques of these heavenly maidens create an atmosphere of almost unbearable sensuality, that contrast with the Buddhist images installed in the top story.

The sheer scale of Angkor Wat is breathtaking: it dwarfs any European cathedral in ground area, and even the huge Temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt (the biggest temple I had previously seen), is small in comparison to the area enclosed within the outer courtyard of Angkor Wat. So large, and yet displaying such attention to details, it is an almost perfect building.

The Bayon is much smaller in scale, a mere 80 metres along the outside walls, and displays a different aesthetic. It was designed as a Buddhist structure from the start, since shortly after Angkor Wat was completed Buddhism seems to have completely supplanted Hinduism in the Khmer Kingdom. Bayon's upper stories rise in squat, square pyramid-like shapes, with stone faces gazing out from everywhere. Standing on the octagonal upper story, huge faces intrude disturbingly on your field of view in every direction.

The walkway around the lower level is the site of another collection of bas-reliefs, although these are less religious in nature and are full of scenes of everyday life: fishing, gambling, dancing, marching off to war, hunting in the forest. Though not as complete as the Angkor Wat reliefs, nor as consistently well-executed, the views of the common people at work and play is a welcome contrast to the doings of the gods.

If Angkor had only these two structures to offer visitors, it would still be a spectacular site, The vast supporting cast of temples and palaces scattered around them puts Angkor into a league of its own, compared to almost anywhere else in Asia.

The Petit and Grand Circuits, laid out by the French archaeologists who cleared, excavated and rebuilt the area, lead to most of the other major temples, while the Roluos group lies 20 km southeast of Angkor Wat, and Banteay Srei lies on its own 25 km to the northeast in territory infested by the Khmer Rouge and bandits.

(There is a fairly heavy army presence around the ruins, which is reassuring, and all the main temples have been swept of landmines, but it is still not recommended to strike off through the jungle alone. To go to Banteay Srei still requires an expensive armed guard, so I left it for the next time I return to Cambodia.)

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