Three Tourist-Free Temples at Angkor Wat

Cambodia breathed life back into me.

It was easy to fall into a pattern in Chiang Mai. My Airbnb was cozy, quiet, and dark. I would sleep in, roll out of bed and over to the coffeemaker and hammock, and read or write.

A few blocks away, I became a regular at the Chiang Mai Gate night market, making a dinner each night of $1 pad thai and 50 cent smoothies.

Chiang Mai itself is an expat haven and it feels almost westernized. It is lovely but it has no edge.

Not so Cambodia.

As I hopped into my tuktuk at the airport, I sipped in the sultry Siem Reap night air. The road from the airport was dusty and less developed than what I had seen in Chiang Mai, and I could feel my senses sharpening. Cambodia already felt a little more dangerous, a little more challenging, a little more demanding than Thailand, and I liked it.

I was in Siem Reap, of course, to see the famous temples of the Angkor Wat complex. Angkor Wat had languished on my bucket list for years and was probably the site I was most excited to visit in all of southeast Asia. It is a an extensive complex of temples built by the Khmers and is the largest religious site in the world.

I checked into my Airbnb, a gorgeous room in a villa owned by the sweetest Cambodian couple. Thony, the owner, set me up with a tuktuk driver, Mr. Wan, who would take me to the temples over the next few days. I had opted for a three day pass in order to take my time while seeing as many temples as possible.

I felt a nervous thrill of anticipation as Mr. Wan turned the ignition on the tuktuk. I had tried to do research on which temples to visit and when…sort of like trying to figure out Fastpasses at DisneyWorld. I wanted to beat the crowds and the heat, and hit each temple at the hour of the day guaranteed for good light. But the Angkor Wat complex spans over 400 acres, and it is pretty overwhelming.

Mr. Wan didn’t speak much English, but he had won my heart by turning around to apologize each time we hit a rough patch on the road (in Cambodia, this is about every 30 seconds.) So I put my fate in Mr. Wan’s hands and asked him to take me whereever he thought was best. We visited some of the most famous temples, including Angkor Wat at sunrise (a must…and if you know me you know getting up at 4 am is not my favorite activity.)

Not much can compare to sprawling Angkor Wat itself, which almost literally took my breath away and will go down as one of my all time favorite travel experiences. But Mr. Wan took me to several temples a little more off the beaten path that were nearly as exciting with a fraction of the tourists.

Preah Khan

Everyone goes to Ta Prohm (where Tomb Raider was filmed) to see the awesome trees taking over the temples. And Ta Prohm is great but it is inevitably choked with tourists. Preah Khan has some of the same awesome nature-bests-man temples, but when I was there, I only saw one other tourist! Plus it is pretty big, so you can explore and wander freely even if a tour bus shows up.

East Mebon

Huge, quiet, elephant statues. What more could you want? The perfect place to get lost in dusty corners and imagine you are living ten centuries ago.

 

Neak Pean

Want something totally different? Tired of getting covered in red clay dust? Go on a ramble down the long pathway to this peaceful island temple.

Now, what these pictures don’t show are the layers of sweat, dust, and bug spray I was coated in each day, or the frustration I had when I occasionally couldn’t find Mr. Wan in the sea of tuktuks and tour groups. But spending a full day hopping in and out of a tuktuk, gazing upon thousand-year-old temples, and finishing with a mango shake and fish amok, was 100% worth the mud, sweat and tears.