Koh Ker and Beng Mealea

Today we would be traveling about two hours northeast to explore lesser known temples and ruins. On our way out of the hotel we saw the masculine woman again, getting ready for a bike ride dawning a newly purchased bonnet, her Cambodian friend was nowhere to be found so I guess her time expired with him. Unlike yesterday where we encountered a number of other tourists, today it would just be us, the ruins, and the spirits of former residents of Koh Ker and Beng Mealea. Until the late 1990s this was both inaccessible and unsafe due to its remote location in a Khmer-Rouge held area that was peppered with land mines. In fact most Cambodians had war era guns until the 1990s when the government started to round them up. This area is now considered safe, cleared of mines, and they even have what could be called a mostly paved road all the way there. The only danger now was our driver, who weaved in and out of oncoming traffic in excess of 130 KPH. Our guide tried to put our minds at rest saying that there was constant communication going on between the oncoming traffic and us through the use of various head light flashes. Maybe I should have had an Angkor beer for breakfast instead of orange colored juice. Along the way we stopped at a road side bamboo sticky rice stand.


Many people who live along the road just open shop in their front yard.


This stuff was great, it’s basically sticky rice, beans, a little sugar, and some secret ingredients, all put together and stuffed inside bamboo stalks to cook.


Once done she trims the bamboo and you can peal it like a banana to get at the good stuff inside.


For 50 cents USD a stalk you can’t go wrong.


We made one more stop at a convince store for a bathroom break and more water. Our guide was great, very knowledgeable and personable. However I’m not sure if he had a hard time pronouncing Riley or this is how you address a kid in Cambodia, but he always referred to Riley as “The Boy”.


We then arrived at the first ruins in Koh Ker and it was just us.




As our guide was giving us some background and the trees started making some interesting sounds, almost like they were getting ready to fall. Our guide said it was just the ghosts welcoming us. I thought at least they are not telling us to go away.


The Boy getting ready to enter a temple.


Inside looking up.


Inside looking up in a different temple.


I found that this was just about the right mix of temples, yesterday we saw the mainstream ones and today we were seeing the more remote ones. After today we would be templed out so it was the perfect amount and diversity.


We then headed to Prasat Thom.








The stairs to the top are old and unsafe but we headed up anyway. Of course the way we went up was the much more modern and safe stairway in the back (not this one).


The views were awesome and you could see for miles in every direction. Like most days it was hot and muggy, but this morning it was cloudy so I skipped applying sunscreen. A task that I was now performing as fast as possible as I could feel my exposed skin begin to burn with each second that passed.


A broom to keep things clean, like sweeping the dirt from the dirt floor perhaps.


Just an average Cambodian boy out for a ride.


Our guide started telling us about this ruin and the phallic symbol, in Riley’s defense I did not know what he was talking about either. That is until he got to the part where couples would come here to pour water over it in hopes of becoming pregnant, and then I was able to put two and two together. Hey Riley is that a phallic symbol in your pocket or…. Wait, how can you even walk around with a phallic symbol like that.


Moving on.




For lunch we ate with the locals at this roadside “restaurant”. This was my kind of place, crazy sounds, crazy smells, and we were the only white folk to be seen.




I asked The Boy what he thought to which he replied “This is kind of out there”.


The food was good and the beer top-notch. It’s important to consume a little alcohol in these kind of places to ensure you kill any kind of bacteria or parasites you might have consumed.


After lunch we headed to Beng Mealea.


This place was crumbling and with no one around it gave The Boy an opportunity to climb around with a loose interpretation of parkour. I only hope this does not anger the Gods.






More places to check out and explore. When there is no one around your senses awake and you truly are in the moment, no longer sharing a tourism experience with others like yesterday. You are thankful for this experience and struggle to piece it together in your mind, if I could only remember living here.






Some places are amazing and lack words to describe them.




Other places have many descriptive words like, dark, scary, snake-infested, fist-sized-insects, and I think I once saw this in a movie that did not end well.


The four hours in a car does make for a long day but it is worth it, if you want to see what many others miss you need to put in the extra effort.










We then began the journey back to our hotel. Our laundry was waiting for us in our room, however we had a few extra undergarments that were not ours, they were large but still feminine, and Riley and I were each missing a pair of underwear. I returned the extra items to the front desk and they said they would keep an eye out for our missing items. I just hope our missing items did not end up in the hands of the he/she, just as we may have received his/hers by mistake, or we might not see them again. We ate dinner at the hotel that night and then turned in after an another amazing day of experiences.

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