The geographical framework of the ancient Khmer empire is reflected in that of its monuments. Although these are found grouped in a particularly dense expose in the Angkorian region to the north of the Great Lake, one can however adjoin in totality more than a thousand remains scattered anew the amalgamated of the place in the midst of the gulf of Siam and Vientiane in description to the one side and together surrounded by the Mekong delta and the valley of Menam upon the choice - that is to state in Cambodia itself, the major share of Cochinchina, humiliate and center Laos, eastern Siam and a part of the Menam valley. The changes that occurred anew the centuries came not from any deficiency of submission in the population, but rather from a contrast of a mammal flora and fauna in the middle of the sober regions to the north of the chain of the Dangrek mountains and the fertile plains to the south. Present day Cambodia is found bordered by the Gulf of Siam to the south-west, Laos to the north and Vietnam to the east and south-east. Its main artery is the Mekong valley, which crosses from north to south. This is allied at Phnom Penh by the Tonle Sap, spreading to the north-west in a large plain of water that extends for some 140 kilometres by 30 and irrigates the surrounding plains. The Tonle Sap - when a maritime gulf that now forms a lake - has the abnormality that each rainy season, from May to October, its waters are no longer accomplished to flow into the flooding Mekong and become choked, rising by ten metres and suitably forming a big regulatory basin, whose surface area triples that of the sober season. Large water festivals subsequent to canoe races during Novembers full moon mark the decline of this time, and the King, in a figurative ritual, presides vanguard than the reversing of the current. Each annual deluge sees the Tonle Sap rise still bonus, enormously flooding the forested zones that member happening its banks and ensuring a particularly abundant source of nourishment to its fish - hence making it the richest fish pond in the world. Cambodia lies together together plus 10 and 14 degrees latitude north, and the climate nears the equatorial bearing in mind an vis--vis constant temperature. The contrast among the teetotal season and the season of the muggy rains is, however, quite marked, and although the average temperature of the year is28 degrees, the nights of December and January - that are particularly lighthearted - see the temperature slip to a propos 20 degrees, even if the months of April and May are distinguished by a torrid heat reaching 35 degrees in an freshen charged once storms which never crack. Although affected by the monsoons, the country is protected from the coast by chains of mountains ranging from 1000 to 1500 metres in peak - notably the Elephant mountains, where the Bokor altitude station is located - giving it a less humid and unhealthy climate than Cochinchina. Here the skies are often quite roomy and determined - and altogether favourable to moonlit nights.