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65 The Lao people (Laos) are a group of Thais who migrated from Yunnan to the south along the Mekong River from the 12th to 13th century. In the 14th century they established the Kingdom of Lan Xang. The Vietnamese (Kin) inhabited the east coast of continental Southeast Asia. They gained independence from China in the 10th century, and in the 17th century they advanced to the southern Mekong Delta. The Cham people founded the Kingdom of Champa in central Vietnam around the 2nd century, and around the end of the 4th century they erected under the influence of Hindu culture a massive religious edifice on the land of My Son. At the start of the 13th century they were for a while annexed by the Angkor dynasty. As Champa faced the sea they thrived in the South China Sea trade, but they vanished as a nation in the 15th century. The National Culture of Cambodia Kingship in the Angkor dynasty was not entirely a hereditary system. Fierce wars of succession erupted from time to time, among powerful local individuals who laid claim to the throne. The throne was occupied by the victors, who erected huge capital cities, royal palaces, or national guardian temples so as to display their ability. Buddhism and Hinduism which arrived from India were not accepted totally. They were adjusted into Cambodian versions. Guardian spirits of the land were linked to the Hindu deities and incorporated into Buddhism, and the king himself reigned as a “God King.” Angkor Wat was established by King Suryavarman II, the eighteenth king of the dynasty (who ruled around 1113-1150). At that time, the royal palace which was a wooden structure was lost in a war with the early Ayutthaya dynasty (1431), leaving just the stone temple. Reliefs in the corridors depicted the king having the features of a Hindu deity. As the current god, he built a Cambodian Hindu temple,