Cambodia is best known for the temple ruins at Angkor Wat, but Cambodia offers many, many more ruins for temple-tolerant travelers to visit.
We visited the Sambor Prei Kuk temple ruins as a warmup to our next stop, Angkor. Sambor Prei Kuk is ~30km from the dusty town of Kompong Thom (halfway between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap). The 7th-century Hindu temple ruins are all that remains of Ishanapura, one of the capitals of the pre-Angkorian Chenla kingdom.
There are three temple clusters, huge piles of bricks surrounded by jungle. Plants grow on top of the temples and from any crack they can take root, and a few are completely overgrown by trees. Not many tourists come here, so it's possible to just enjoy the tranquil setting.
The temples aren't in the best shape, but it's possible to make out many of the carvings, including the "flying palace" carvings of guardian deities.
A great way to spend a few hours. We spent the rest of our limited time here exploring the city. We were here for Thanksgiving, and in place of turkey we picked up 2kg of fruit from the market and gorged ourselves on pomelo, mandarin oranges, and rambutans.
I hope you're not tired of our temple reporting, we're in the home stretch of this trip but still plenty more temples to blog about.
-Peter
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