One of the most visited monuments of Cambodia,whose enigmatic history has been forgotten. Its inhabitants abandoned this sacred place overnight. Angkor Wat was a Hindu temple and part of a huge temple complexbelonging to the holy city of Angkor, capital of the Khmer empire. This kingdom was born in the ninth century and prospered for over 600 years. It grew in size and its population multiplied at great speed,until suddenly, a city that had grown to almost a million inhabitants, was abandoned. Eventually, it was swallowed up by the dense jungle. Similar in size to metropolitan New York,Angkor is today a set of ruins that is of great interest to historians. The splendour of the Khmer empire was based on water. The plain of Angkor flooded with the monsoons,and a vast network of reservoirs and canals,over 1,000 kilometers in total, was constructed to supply the rice fields and fill reservoirs. But in order to create this macro-city,thousands of trees were cut down, which led to its ruin:without trees, the rain-cycle broke down,the rains devastated crops, and the canals collapsed. Finally, fleeing was the only solution for inhabitantsdesperate to survive at all costs.
