The southern height of the central organization of Angkor Wat, formed of a quincunx of towers, can be seen in silhouette at the far afield fall of a long unpleasant through the reforest. Whether one gets there by the straight main road (six kilometres from Siem Reap) or by the original winding and shaded improvement road (route Commaille), one finally skirts the south-west corner of the water filled moat to get the monument by its principal right of entrance - the western causeway - the fall of which is shaded by a magnificent Banyan tree. A road that eventually leads to the airstrip continues from the causeway to the left. This orientation to the west, contrary to the supplementary Angkor monuments which slant the rising sun, initially gave cause for much confusion - some seeing a closely topographic necessity where others saying ritual organisation. Angkor Wat, forming a rectangle of more or less 1,500 by 1,300 metres, covers an place - including its 190 metre broad moats - of as regards 200 hectares. The outside enclosure wall defines an expanse of 1,025 metres by 800, or 82 hectares. It is the largest monument of the Angkor organization. Constructed to the south of the capital (Angkor Thom), Angkor Wat is sited in the south-east corner of the ancient city of Angkor - Yasodharapura - built by Yasovarman I, centred by now reference to Phnom Bakheng and which stretched surrounded by the Siem Reap river to the east and the dike of the baray to the west. The temple could consequently have been placed regarding either side of the main entry road to Angkor Thom. In terms of topography, unaided the ease of transporting the stones from the quarries of Phnom Kulen by river pleads in favour of an orientation to the west. This scuffle seems insufficient, and hence one is drawn inevitably to reasons of tradition. It is therefore likely that it was the destination itself of the monument that unchangeable its odd orientation, in order to observe some particular rite. Due to research by Mssrs Finot, Coedes, Przyluski and Dr Bosch, the Head of the Service Archologique des Indes Nerlandaises, it seems proven that Angkor Wat is in fact a funerary temple, and the unaided one built during the life of the founding king - Suryavarman II - for
his consecration, and probably moreover as a depository for his ashes.