Angkor Thom Causeways and Entry Gates

Beyond the causeways, the towering city gates are flanked by giant three-headed sandstone elephants, and at their summits the massive smiling faces that have mystified visitors for centuries gaze out toward the four cardinal directions.

Five causeways lead into Angkor Thom: South (from Angkor Wat), North (toward Preah Khan), West (to the West Baray), East (the Gate of the Dead), and the Victory Gate. Four lead directly to the Bayon temple at the city’s center; the Victory Gate instead connects the Terrace of the Elephants and the Royal Palace enclosure with a highway that once ran east for hundreds of miles.

Each hundred-meter causeway is lined with 54 Asuras (demons) on one side and 54 Devas (gods) on the other, both gripping the body of a nine-headed naga - a “rainbow bridge” between the world of men and the world of the gods.

The causeways are more than decoration: they depict the Hindu myth of the Churning of the Sea of Milk. From opposite sides, the Asuras and Devas engage in a cosmic tug-of-war, using the naga Vasuki to churn the sea and extract amrita, the elixir of immortality. Bayon, at the center, represents Mount Mandara, the pivot of the churning. Together the 54 demons and 54 gods total 108, a sacred number in Hindu and Buddhist cosmology.

Each causeway ends at a gopura, the gateway through the city wall, capped with four smiling faces like those at Bayon. The 13th-century Chinese emissary Zhou Daguan recorded a fifth face at the summit, “brilliant with gold.” Flanking each passage sits the god Indra atop the three-headed elephant Airavata, plucking lotus flowers with its trunks. All the gates date to the late 12th - early 13th centuries under King Jayavarman VII, in the Bayon artistic style.

South Causeway - the old public entrance and, thanks to its proximity to Angkor Wat, the busiest and best-restored, with the most intact statuary. Many visitors are dropped at its start to pose with the Asuras and Devas, then walk through the gate.

East Causeway (Gate of the Dead) - one of the four leading to Bayon, but rumored to have served a different purpose. Some say the gopura was reserved for defeated armies returning from war; others tie it to funeral processions, hence the name.

Victory Gate Causeway - just north of the East Causeway, it leads to the Terrace of the Elephants and Royal Palace enclosure. The army is believed to have marched out to war through this gate, returning through it if victorious and through the East Gate if defeated.

West Causeway - the least intact; nearly all its statues are broken, stolen, or removed for preservation. Rarely visited, its appeal is the quiet natural setting, especially at sunset.

North Causeway - also lined with Devas and Asuras and less crowded than the South, it leads toward Jayavarman VII’s other monuments: Preah Khan, Ta Som, and the exquisite Neak Poan.