Breathtaking steps at the ruins - Part 3

While Angkor Wat was preserved by the continuous inhabitation of monks using machetes to keep the jungle at bay, or other structures undergoing restoration, the 12th century temple of Ta Phrom is in the same state as when it was first discovered by the 19th century explorers.

Personally, I think Ta Phrom is the most evokative of all the Angkor Temples. (Though initially I knew only this temple through the advertisement poster of 'Tomb Raider'!)The images of Ta Phrom are just as prominent as Angkor Wat and mostly centre around the massive trees seen growing all around the temple grounds and actually on the roofs of the temple itself. These trees are anywhere upto 500 years old now, around the time when the temples were abandoned. They have the consistency of sponge and therefore don't inflict any great damage on the structures.

The Conservation of Angkor saved the main monuments, but didn't clean' it. All the trees and the roots which had invaded and left the rights for the jungle, such as found him by the first discoverers. Roots look like snakes which disrupt and waste statues and walls, and huge trees beat the heads of stuppas. A forest which doesn't want to let escape his gods and which destroys them or protects them.... A place loaded with emotion and poetry for the meditation...

This is the only major temple not to have been comprehensively restored but yet offers a glimpse of what confronted the French explorers all those years ago, when the Angkor complex was rediscovered.

If you can only visit one temple, this is the one. Don't miss it when you are there!!


We feel like the well-protected kids in front of such a magnificent heritage!!


A Malaysian version of 'Tomb Raiders'!! How is it? :P


Guy, what are you doing over there?



The undescribable relationship between the nature and the man-made wonder!


What a cozy hug!!


Ever wonder how did the ancient people manage to build such an everlasting temples city? Here was where they got the adhesive from.


A 'grasshopper-like' insect that we found outside the temple. Any idea what is it called?