TIME OUT: CAMBODIA: TRAVEL

One Before Angkor Wat

Beng Mealey was the prototype for Cambodia's greatest treasure. Today, it's just one of many rarely visited ruins in the Phnom Kulen hills

By John B. Haseman/SIEM REAP

Issue cover-dated May 3, 2001

IF PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, King Suryavarman II succeeded beyond his wildest dreams when he built Beng Mealey. The 11th century Cambodian king used the temple as the model for the much better known Angkor Wat. These days, while tourists flock to Angkor, Beng Mealey stands almost forgotten in jungle, along with a treasure trove of other temples and historical sites in the surrounding hills. Getting to any of them can be a real adventure.

"The road is better than last time," says Mourn Phalla, a little ruefully, as our four-wheel-drive slithers and bounces along alternately sandy and rock-strewn tracks, wheels spinning through slick watercourses impassable in the rainy season.

Phalla is a local guide who brings small groups and individuals to the many almost forgotten sites scattered through the scrub of Phnom Kulen, an irregular range of hills some 50 kilometres from Siem Reap. The 22-year-old, who is also pursuing a degree in business management and tourism, has a wealth of knowledge about the area, which is home to 54 known temple ruins.

When we visited Beng Mealey, the "road" was being improved by the anonymous "influential person" who controls the area around the temple. The cost of the roadworks is one reason cited for the $20 fee charged to foreigners entering the temple. The other reason is to pay the salaries of the uniformed and armed police who escort every visitor through the ruins.

Isolated during the long dark period of Cambodia's civil war, Beng Mealey and many of the other sites in the area were under the control of the Khmer Rouge for decades. It was only after demining was completed in 1999 that outsiders could safely visit the temple. As we bounced along the rough track our driver, a Cambodian soldier moonlighting for extra income, cheerfully pointed out areas along the way where he had fought Khmer Rouge guerrillas just a few years ago.

The first sign you're nearing Beng Mealey is the sudden appearance of a pair of stone naga heads, familiar to Angkor Wat visitors from the balustrades that line entrances to many temples. A clump of trees in the distance hide the ruins almost until you stumble over the outer wall of the temple compound.

Beng Mealey is the largest temple outside of the main Angkor complex. In places it's remarkably intact, but other parts are utterly destroyed. Green and grey shrouds of tree roots and vines grip the temple walls in a tight embrace, shrubs and tree branches frame finely-carved images. Phalla and myself, our armed police guard, and two curious village children had the temple to ourselves. The quiet was eerie--and a welcome contrast to the clamour of crowds that throng the better-known temples around Angkor.

Beng Mealey features, on a smaller scale, many of the characteristics of Angkor Wat. There are three encircling galleries, the same four gates and entrances, and a pair of interior libraries. But it differs in having only one central tower instead of the famous five towers of Angkor Wat. Or rather, it had only one central tower; all that remains today is a conical pile of rock blocks. "The tower was here before the Khmer Rouge came," I was told. "And it's gone now." Locals believe the Khmer Rouge blew up the tower after first looting its statues.

The same sad misfortune has befallen many other sites formerly under Khmer Rouge control in the Phnom Kulen hills. The gorgeous site of Kbal Spean, for instance, features a series of Hindu carvings on rocks and under water along a beautiful clear stream on the edge of the hills. But the descriptive billboard shows 11 areas where statues and carved panels have been stolen. The marks where chisels and stone saws did their work are clearly evident. For the visitor, it's hard not to feel a sense of sadness that so much of Cambodia's ancient heritage has been brutally destroyed to feed the insatiable up-market Asian art shops of Bangkok and Hong Kong.

But, damaged or not, these historical sites continue to exert a special hold on Cambodians like Phalla: "I am really proud every time I visit these ancient temples," he says as we remove our shoes and climb the concrete steps to another temple in the area, Preah Ang Thom. It is home to a 17-metre reclining Buddha, maybe 10 centuries old, carved onto the top of a huge sandstone boulder near the highest point of Phnom Kulen. In 1993, shortly after Cambodia's first multiparty elections, the Khmer Rouge opened the site to domestic visitors, carrying them there in sedan chairs. Later, army engineers and former Khmer Rouge soldiers built a road up into this part of the hills and access is now relatively easy. Former Khmer Rouge soldiers and army veterans share security duties, the former enemies now united, hopefully to protect what remains of their common cultural heritage.

At another spot just a few miles from Preah Ang Thom we came upon a real surprise: a clear, fast-flowing stream called The River of A Thousand Lingas. Wading in the clean water was a cool delight. The carvings, a few inches underwater during the cool dry season, are easily visible. Just downstream the river drops 35 metres at Tek Thlak ("waterfall" in Cambodian), from where it's just a very short walk to the ruins of another temple, the clay-built Prasat Tek Thlak.

The underwater carvings at Kbal Spean, the jungled embrace of Beng Mealey, the Buddha at Preah Ang Thom--much remains of the magic. Go see it before the crowds get there.

Several small companies and independent guides offer trips in the area. Hotels and guest houses should have details.