Hindu temple
Baphuon Temple
Angkor Archaelogical Park, Krong Siem Reap
Five-tier sandstone temple-mountain later reshaped into a giant reclining Buddha from its own dismantled stones.
This guide to Baphuon Temple in Siem Reap follows Udayadityavarman II's eleventh-century sandstone mountain to Shiva, once so gilded a Chinese envoy called it a tower of bronze. It turns on the moment Angkor's kings changed faith and workers pulled the temple's own carvings apart to build a giant reclining Buddha into its western wall. Look west along the wall for the plain courses of stone that mark where the demolition happened.
Audio guides are written and narrated by AI.