Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → Cambodia → Ta Prohm

Location: Siem Reap Area, Cambodia

Time Required: 1 hour (allow additional time if you’re approaching via the highly recommended death-defying jungle mountain bike approach)

Red Tape/Notes: An Angkor Pass is required to visit all sites within the Angkor Archaeological Park. Passes are sold in one-day ($37), three-day ($62) and seven-day ($72) blocks that must be used on consecutive days. Passes may be purchased at the main entrance on the road to Angkor Wat.

What’s Nearby?: Angkor Thom, Prasat Bayon, Preah Khan, Ta Som, Angkor Wat

Ta Prohm was built in the late 12th/early 13th century and sits about a kilometer east of Angkor Thom. The decision was made to deliberately keep Ta Prohm (at least visually) in the state of abandoned neglect in which it was found, partially reabsorbed by the surrounding jungle. This is what makes the temple so picturesque, and why it was selected as a filming site for Tomb Raider. The site has been carefully stabilized and restored to allow safe access while maintaining its original appearance. This is also the site of the “famous” stegosaurus carving, though modern scholars assert that it’s either a rhinoceros or a boar in front of a leafy background, or quite possibly a hoax (the Smithsonian even did an article about it).

We visited Ta Prohm in a rather unusual fashion – we managed to get an adventure-loving guide, who hooked us up with mountain bikes and led us off on a tour of the jungle. We got slightly lost a couple of times, rode across any number of extremely sketchy bridges (the sort where the wooden slat you’re riding across is barely as wide as your tire and you’re just trying to stay as straight as possible), passed various local villagers and children gathering in the woods, stopped at a couple of other temples sites (Preah Khan and Ta Som) and completed one rather terrifying dam crossing, before finally bursting out of the jungle at the back of Ta Prohm into the clearing. We highly recommend this approach. Shooting with the GoPro was challenging the ride, but we got a little footage from the non-death defying portions:

Epic Travel → Asia & the South Pacific → Cambodia → Ta Prohm