Cambodia / Phnom Penh / Wat Ounalom

Wat Ounalom is the most important Wat of Phnom Penh, and the center of Cambodian Buddhism. It is north from the National Museum of Arts (two streets from the Royal Palace). Wat Ounalom was built in 1443 to keep a hair of the Buddha. Before the Khmer Rouge emptied Phnom Penh in 1975, more than 500 monks used to live at the Wat. The Khmer Rouge killed the abbot and a large number of monks and vandalized the buildings and their treasures. After the Vietnamese invasion on 1979 the Wat was restored, and today again serves as the center of Cambodian Buddhism.

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