Phnom Kulen: The Separate USD 20, and Whether It Is Worth It

Phnom Kulen is a sandstone plateau about fifty kilometres north-east of Siem Reap, and it matters for two reasons that have nothing to do with the waterfall everyone photographs.

It is where the stone came from. Angkor Wat, the Bayon, Banteay Srei - the blocks were quarried up here and moved down to the plain, and quarry faces with cut marks are still visible. Moving sandstone on that scale, by canal and elephant, is arguably a bigger engineering achievement than the temples themselves.

It is where the empire was declared. In AD 802 Jayavarman II held a ceremony on this plateau proclaiming himself *chakravartin*, universal monarch, and independent of Java. Cambodians give that date as the founding of the Khmer empire. There is a real sense in which this hill, not Angkor, is the country's origin point.

It is also a living pilgrimage site. Cambodians come up here in numbers at weekends and holidays to bathe at the falls and make offerings at the summit pagoda, and that is a large part of the atmosphere. You are a visitor at somebody else's sacred mountain, not at an archaeological park.

That combination - quarry, founding site, working pilgrimage - is what makes it interesting. The waterfall is the thing that sells it.

Phnom Kulen is not on the Angkor Pass. It charges its own USD 20 per foreign visitor, collected at the bottom of the mountain, and this catches people out constantly because Kulen is bundled into tour listings alongside Banteay Srei and Beng Mealea, which are covered.

So a day sold as three sites may carry an unadvertised twenty dollars a head. Ask what a tour price includes before you book, not at the barrier.

The same applies to Koh Ker and Preah Vihear, which also charge separately. Only the temples inside the Angkor Archaeological Park are on the pass - our pass guide sets out exactly what the USD 37 / 62 / 72 does and does not buy.

The road is one-way by time of day. The single mountain road runs up in the morning and down in the afternoon, with the changeover around midday. That is not a suggestion, it is how the traffic is managed, and it means a late start can mean you are not allowed up at all. Leave Siem Reap by eight.

Allow a full day. Fifty kilometres each way plus the mountain road is two hours of driving before you have seen anything.

Everything about whether Kulen is worth your USD 20 and your day comes down to water.

July to December, and especially September to November, the two-tier waterfall runs properly. The upper fall is a broad curtain, the lower one drops into a pool people swim in, and the river above it runs over the carved riverbed. This is the trip people rave about.

February to May the falls reduce to a trickle or stop. The pool is shallow and brown, the carved riverbed is dry stone, and you have paid twenty dollars and spent a day for a view and a pagoda. In April it can be genuinely disappointing.

The honest verdict: in the wet months and just after, Kulen is a very good day and the swim is the best thing you will do in Cambodia in that heat. In the dry months, spend the day on [Banteay Srei and Beng Mealea](/cambodia/siem-reap/beng-mealea-and-koh-ker) instead and do not feel you have missed anything.

Weekends the plateau fills with Cambodian families, which is either the best part of the day or a crowd, depending on what you came for. Weekdays are quiet.

The waterfall, two tiers, with the lower pool the one to swim in. Changing facilities are basic. Bring a towel and something you can swim in that covers you reasonably - this is a pilgrimage site.

The river of a thousand lingas. Above the falls the riverbed itself is carved - hundreds of lingas in ordered grids, plus Vishnu reclining on the serpent Ananta, cut directly into the rock so the water runs over them. The idea was to sanctify the water that then flowed down to the plain and irrigated Angkor. Best when there is water; visible either way.

Kbal Spean is the more famous version of the same idea and is a different site, closer to Banteay Srei, reached by a 1.5-kilometre forest walk. Do not confuse the two - operators sometimes blur them.

Preah Ang Thom, the summit pagoda, holds a reclining Buddha carved from a single sandstone boulder, about eight metres long, from the sixteenth century. Shoes off, shoulders and knees covered, and a steep stair up.

The quarries and Srah Damrei, an elephant and other animals carved life-size in stone deep in the forest, need a guide and a walk and almost nobody goes. Ask if you want the version of the mountain that is not on the tour.