Angkor Wat deserves a firm place high on the must-see list of all world travelers. You can’t beat it for the enormity and quality of the archaeological sites of the ancient Khmer civilization.
But there are so many more Khmer sites to see. We’ve blogged before about Banteay Chhmar in Cambodia, where our friends at the Global Heritage Fund take the lead in restoring and preserving the site.
Interested in learning more about what is available, I recently visited three major Khmer sites — in Thailand and not in Cambodia. Travel east from Bangkok by car or rail, a direction few international visitors choose, get close to Cambodia, and you’ll find some outstanding archaeological sites.
I chose the three sites that several travel writers and historians agree are the most important: Phanom Rung, Muang Tam, and Phimai. All three have been well restored by archaeologists, all have acceptable facilities available for visitors, and you nearly have them to yourselves.
Here you can walk around monuments that look like Angkor Wat, but you might be there with only twenty other visitors, or maybe just a handful, instead of the cast of thousands swarming Angkor these days. You still meet Khmer people, as this region is a mix of Khmer (Cambodian) people and ethnic Thai people, all living in total harmony. The nearby border dispute you may have read of is about internal Thai politics and not about ethnic tension. You feel the usual Thailand friendliness toward visitors here that you enjoy elsewhere in the Land of Smiles.
Phimai is a classic Khmer site, very similar in layout and size to the Banteay Srei site near Angkor Wat. Phanom Rung is set atop an extinct volcano, a Khmer religious ceremonial site with views. Muang Tam is just 7 km below, and offers some of the best restored Khmer structures I’ve seen anywhere. I counted five other visitors during my two-hour visit!
Your travel list should now be an item longer.
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