Beng Melea , Banteay Srei , Pre rup

Beng Mealea is about 70 kms from Siem Reap and easily reachable now, because of a new road that’s been built. The temple has a beautiful setting because it is largely un restored, and great big trees are thriving amidst its towers and courtyards. A lot of its stones lying in great heaps.

 It is a hindu temple, but there are also some carvings depicting Buddhist motifs. It is oriented toward the east, but has entranceways from the other three cardinal directions also. We entered over a moat and causeway.

 The basic layout is three enclosing galleries around a central sanctuary, collapsed at present. The enclosures are tied with "cruciform cloisters", like Angkor Wat. Structures known as libraries lie to the right and left of the avenue that leads in from the east. There is extensive carving of scenes from Hindu mythology.

Walking within the temple was along the red lines - the rest of it had too much of large stones and bushes to cross into. 

We first came across this huge big tree growing on top of what looked like a corner tower.

 

 Inside, large blocks of stone fallen in the courtyards and trees and vines growing from the crevices of fallen stones.

 Fig trees growing deep within and over the stone piles

































Getting into one of the courtyards

 and climbing on the stone pile to reach the wall

 The trees on the gallery wall (gallery is the walkway around the full inner temple).

 The same type of tree on another part of the gallery.

 Detail of the false door.

 The space between the gallery on the left and the temple


































The windows had these lathe made balusters. Sandstone was used for most of the structure including the well proportioned balusters

 

 Part of the temple

 Amusing to see that my hair was similar to the strangler figs!

 Bark of the tree growing within the courtyard.
Beng Melea had a very serene atmosphere and because there weren't too many tourists around, the peace and quite was beautiful. We spent about 1.5 hours walking around and then went in once again and hung out for another half an hour. It was a most lovely experience.

Some of the women working in the surrounding gave me these berries to eat - they had big seeds in them but otherwise tasted good almost like mini dates.

Bantey Srei
Bantey Srei is a 10th century temple dedicated to the hindu god Shiva.
This temple was an interesting visit - Laterite stone has been used for all the structural elements along with bricks and all the carvings have been done on red sandstone. But laterite??? - like in Goa! Who would've thought that laterite was material used for building way back in the 10th century!

Here is an interepretation center near the temple. I found the design of the space very good. The walls were made of metal frames on which wood louvres were riveted on. For windows, parts of the wall could be lifted up. Very well done design

This picture shows what the temple was like before restoration work started

Entering the temple - notice the laterite stone also on the pathway

Trees within the compound have been cleared - but from the trees in the background, one can imagine what it must have been like when the jungle had overcrowded the temple

 The side walls all done in laterite blocks

And the carvings done on red sandstone

The carvings depicted scenes from the Ramayana

 One of the dwarapals (door watchers in temples) happened to look like a tamil with afro hair!

Pre Rup

is a temple at Angkor, built as the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman around 962. It is a temple mountain – which means that there are several tiers a dozen metres in height each to depict the mount Kailash (the god Shiva’s abode). The entire construction if of combined brick, laterite and sandstone. 

We were told that it would be the best possible place to see the sunset. Unfortunately it was cloudy therefore not much hope of actually witnessing a sunset. Nevertheless we had a few nice views.