The reclining lord Buddha @ Preah Ang Thom
This 8-meter-long statue of a reclining buddha is the largest in Cambodia and among the 10 largest in Asia.
It rests on top of a sandstone formation and the statue is carved out where it is. Meaning someone saw the buddha in the stone and carved until he was set free.
The surrounding Preah Ang Thom temple was built after the Buddha was carved.
Kulen Mountain was the place where the first Khmer prince declared the establishment of the Khmer Empire in 802. The Khmer prince Jayavarman II declared himself chakravartin (lit. 'universal ruler') and by that claimed imperium as a god king ruling an Empire.
The empire lasted for over 630 years.
Getting to this site is fast and easy from Siem Reap, and the area carries a lot of other excursion worthy sites, including trails for the day trip trekker.
The conglomerate of holy sites on the Kulen Mountain was proposed as an official World Cultural Heritage site by Cambodia just before the pandemic started. An approval of this request seems proper, this is the national mountains and cradle of Khmer culture and empire after all.
https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/6460/
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