Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ARRIVAL AND INFORMATION
KOH KER
From Siem Reap
Improved roads mean that Koh Ker is
now easy to reach, although you'll need your own
transport. The temple is usually (and most easily) visited
from Siem Reap, from where it's a 125km (roughly 2hr
30min) journey. It's easily combined with a trip to Beng
Mealea, from where it's a 65km (1hr) drive (55km to the
Seong turn-off, then 10km to Koh Ker itself ). Various
operators around Siem Reap offer this trip, or variants on it.
Via
Tbeng Meanchey
The site can also be reached from
the east via Tbeng Meanchey (70km; 1hr 30min) along a
decent surfaced road.
Entrance fee
$10.
Preah Khan (Kompong Thom)
Some 70km north of Kompong Thom, the temple enclosure of
PREAH KHAN
(KOMPONG THOM)
is the largest in Cambodia, its central sanctuary featuring the
earliest example of four huge faces looking to the cardinal directions, a motif that
subsequently became almost synonymous with Cambodian temple architecture. Little
is known about the temple's
history
. The earliest buildings are attributed to
Suryavarman I, and it's believed that Jayavarman VII spent time here before moving to
Angkor - the famous carved stone image of the king displayed in the National
Museum in Phnom Penh was found on the site (see p.69). In the 1870s Louis
Delaporte carried off the temple's prize sculptures (they're now in the Guimet museum
in Paris), while looters have also pillaged the complex in recent years, using pneumatic
drills to remove statues - resulting in collapsed towers, crushed apsaras and the broken
images that lie scattered on the ground.
3
The site
Four different temple groups and numerous prasats and buildings lie scattered around
the extensive site over an area of several square kilometres. At the heart of Preah Khan,
the
main temple group
dates from the twelfth century and was most likely built by
Suryavarman II. Its well-preserved causeway, not dissimilar to those at Angkor Thom,
is decorated with a frieze of swans (peer over the edge just before the steps up to the
gopura). Making your way through the complex, via the elaborate east gopura and two
sandstone galleries, you'll come to the central sanctuary, with its Bayon-style, four-
faced tower.
East of the central sanctuary is the 3km-long
baray
, home to the remains of
Prasat
Preah Thkol
, a cruciform sanctuary sat on an (inaccessible) island in the centre of the
lake. At the west end of the
baray
, the elaborate eleventh-century
Prasat Preah Stung
boasts galleries, carvings of apsaras and a central sanctuary topped with four massive
faces, the latter the hallmark of Jayavarman VII and found only in a few places outside
Angkor. East of the
baray
is the small ninth-century temple,
Prasat Preah Damrei
,
enclosed in a laterite wall and with its upper levels guarded by stone elephants, often
draped in orange robes.
ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE
PREAH KHAN
KOMPONG THOM
From Siem Reap
Preah Khan is one of the trickiest of the
major temples to get to. The route to the temple runs
directly past Beng Mealea, although the last stretch of
track from Beng Mealea to Preah Khan is still unsurfaced
- it's generally not too bad in the dry, but can become
almost impassable in the wet.
WHAT'S IN A NAME: PREAH KHAN
Note that we have followed the common practice of su
xing
Preah Khan
with the province
name Kompong Thom in order to distinguish it from the temple of the same name at Angkor.
It's also sometimes su
xed with the district name
Kompong Svay
, and just to add to the
confusion, locals call it
Prasat Bakan
.
