Beng Mealea and Koh Ker: Angkor Without the Queue

Beng Mealea is a twelfth-century temple built on roughly Angkor Wat's footprint, about sixty kilometres east of Siem Reap, and almost nothing has been done to it.

The galleries have come down. Whole roof sections lie where they fell, sandstone blocks the size of cars tipped at angles, and trees have grown up through the courtyards and out again. You cross it on wooden walkways built over the collapse, which sounds managed and is not: the walkway takes you through the middle of a ruin that is genuinely ruined, with the forest closed over the top of it.

This is the closest you will get to what the nineteenth-century explorers described. Angkor Wat has been cleared, propped and restored for a century. Ta Prohm's roots are carefully maintained theatre, beautifully done. Beng Mealea is just fallen down.

It is also quiet. The drive filters out the coach traffic and you will often have whole sections alone.

There is little carving left to read and no restored sanctuary to climb - the appeal is entirely atmosphere. People who want information prefer Banteay Srei; people who want the feeling of finding something prefer this.

Two hours north-east of Siem Reap, Koh Ker is the strangest thing in the Angkor world.

For about two decades in the tenth century - roughly 928 to 944 - the Khmer capital moved here, away from Angkor, under Jayavarman IV. Then it moved back, and Koh Ker was left in the forest.

What it left behind is Prasat Thom, a seven-tiered sandstone pyramid 36 metres high that looks nothing like Khmer architecture and a great deal like something from Mesoamerica. A wooden staircase now runs up the side and you can climb it. From the top there is forest to the horizon in every direction with no road, no village and no other visitor in it. There is nothing else like that view in Cambodia.

The site holds dozens of other prasats scattered through the forest, many barely cleared, and the sculpture from Koh Ker is among the most prized Khmer work anywhere - which is why a great deal of it was looted, and why several pieces have been repatriated from Western museums and private collections in recent years.

Koh Ker charges its own admission on top of the Angkor Pass. So does Preah Vihear. Confirm what a tour price includes before you go rather than at the gate.

Landmines. Koh Ker was mined and has been cleared along the marked paths. Stay on them. This is not a formality.

Beng Mealea alone is a half-day and pairs naturally with Banteay Srei, which is on the same road out. That is the best single day in the park: the finest carving in Cambodia in the morning, total collapse in the afternoon.

Koh Ker alone is most of a day - two hours each way.

Both together is a long but standard day trip, usually Koh Ker first and Beng Mealea on the way home, because Beng Mealea is closer to Siem Reap. Expect ten to twelve hours door to door.

Preah Vihear is the third of the far temples and the biggest commitment: three to three and a half hours each way to a temple strung along a cliff on the Thai border, with a final climb by local 4x4 from the base station. A twelve-hour day, and the most dramatically sited temple in the country.

Which to skip. If you have one far-temple day and you like carving and history, take Banteay Srei plus Beng Mealea. If you like scale and emptiness, take Koh Ker. If you are a serious ruins person with a spare day, take Preah Vihear.

All of this assumes a three- or seven-day Angkor pass - the seven-day at USD 72 is the cheaper ticket once you are at four temple days.

Transport. These are car trips, not tuk-tuk trips. A private car with driver runs USD 55-90 for the far temples depending on distance; a tuk-tuk to Koh Ker is four hours of open road each way in the heat and is a bad idea.

Start early. Leave by seven. The heat is the enemy, and Beng Mealea's walkways and Koh Ker's pyramid are both fully exposed.

Food. There are simple stalls at both sites and not much else on the road. Eat before you leave or accept rice and noodles.

Footwear. Beng Mealea's walkways are fine but the good bits are off them where the guides take you, over rubble. Koh Ker's pyramid stair is steep and open. Trainers.

A guide matters less here than at Angkor Thom - there is less carving to read - but a driver who knows Koh Ker's outlying prasats will show you three or four nobody else visits.

Roads are surfaced the whole way to both now, which was not true a decade ago. The drive itself is through rice country and villages and is genuinely pleasant.

Combine with the [3-day itinerary](/cambodia/siem-reap/siem-reap-3-day-itinerary) by making this your third day, once the small circuit and Banteay Srei are done.