Sacred Stones & Jungle Ruins: Beng Mealea and Banteay Srei

We’ll come and pick you up from 8:00am at your hotel and start the journey to Beng Mealea along the national road No. 6 towards Phnom Penh. About halfway along the journey, we’ll stop at Dom Dek market which is one of the most popular local markets. After exploring the market, we’ll continue our journey to Beng Mealea temple which is a large jungle temple covering an area of around one square kilometre. This temple has been largely left in ruins which adds to the feeling of a “lost temple”. Here, you’ll see many trees literally growing through the temple which makes it a perfect spot for photographers looking to get some detailed temple photos. The temple was built in the style of Angkor Wat and it was built by the same king. Many historians believe that Beng Mealea might have served as a prototype for the world-famous Angkor Wat.

We’ll then stop for lunch in a local restaurant and continue our journey to Banteay Srei temple. Along the way, we’ll stop at the Cambodia Landmine Museum. Here, you can learn about how the Cambodian people have been affected by landmines as a result of decades of conflict including the genocidal Khmer Rouge, a civil war, the Vietnamese occupation and extensive bombings from the USA. Many of Cambodia’s landmines have been cleared but there are still millions which are still affected people all over the country. There’s still a lot of work to be done.

Finally, we’ll head to Banteay Srei which translates into English as the “Citadel of the Women”. It refers to the delicate nature of the carvings which are so fine, it’s said that they could only have been done by the hands of woman.