• Artistic/Style: Khmer (Baphuon style)
• Location: Visit by boat during the west season
• Duration of Visit: 30-45 minutes.

មេបុណ្យខាងលិច, “Mébŏn Khang Lĭch”, The West Mebon is a temple at Angkor, Cambodia, located in the center of the West Baray, the largest reservoir of the Angkor area. The temple’s date of construction is not known, but evidence suggests the 11th Century during the reign of King Suryavarman I and Udayadityavarman II.

• Location of the temple:

In the dry season today, it is reachable by land. In rainy season, the waters of the 7,800-meter-long baray rise and the temple, located on a site higher than the baray’s floor, becomes an island.

• Symbolism of the temple:

Khmer architects typically surrounded temples with moats that represent the Hindu sea of creation. The West Mebon, located amid waters so vast that they can seem like a real sea, takes this religious symbolism to the ultimate level.

• Architecture of the temple:

The temple was built to a square design, with sides measuring about 100 meters. Each side had three tower-passages crowned with stone lotus flowers and arrayed about 28 meters apart. In the center of the square was a stone platform linked to the eastern wall by a laterite and sandstone causeway.

Today the platform, causeway and much of the east wall and towers remain; the other sides are largely gone, though their outlines in stone are visible when the baray’s waters are low. There is no central sanctuary to be seen, though the platform may have supported some comparatively small structure in times past.

• The Reclining Vishnu:

In 1936, the West Mebon yielded up the largest known bronze sculpture in Khmer art, a fragment of the reclining Hindu god Vishnu. The fragment includes the god’s head, upper torso and two right arms.

A local villager is said to have dreamt that an image of the Buddha was buried in the West Mebon and wished to be freed from the soil. Subsequent digging unearthed the statue of Vishnu.

The Chinese diplomat Zhou Daguan, who visited Angkor at the end of the 13th Century, wrote that the West Mebon had a large image of Buddha with cascading water. Zhou mistook the Vishnu statue for a Buddha image, and the West Mebon for the East Mebon.

The statue, which in complete form would have measured about six meters long, entered the collection of the National Museum in Phnom Penh. It has also been shown abroad, including in Washington D.C.

• Getting there:

As mentioned, the site is under restoration and you cannot see that much although you can still hire a boat from the pier located on the south bank of the Baray (map), just west of the Baray Spillway. You can hire a whole boat to yourself for around $20 or join in with others split the cost.

There are also bamboo huts with hammocks by the water’s edge for relaxing, eating, and swimming and you just need to buy some food from the stall to enjoy a lazy afternoon. Keep in mind this will be super busy on a weekend, especially in the warmer months.

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