Ta Prohm

Ta Prohm is undoubtedly the most atmospheric ruin at Angkor built in the Bayon style largely in the late 12th and early 13th centuriesand should be high on the hit list of every visitor. It gets famous from the movie of Tomb Raider. After then, it also being called and known by many tourists as the temple of housing Tomb Raider tree.

Its appeal lies in the fact that, unlike the other monuments of Angkor, it has been left to be swallowed by the jungle, and looks very much the way most of the monuments of Angkor appeared when European explorers first stumbled upon them. That’s the theory but in fact the jungle is pegged back and only the largest trees are left in place, making it manicured rather than raw like Beng Mealea. A worthwhile visit to Ta Prohm is a unique, other world experience. The temple is cloaked in dappled shadow, its crumbling towers and walls locked in the slow muscular embrace of vast roots systems. If Angkor Wat, the Bayon and other temples are testimony to the genius of the ancient Khmers, then Ta Prohm reminds us equally of the awesome fecundity and power of the jungle. There is a poetic cycle to this venerable ruin, with human’s first conquering nature to rapidly create, and nature once again conquering humans to slowly destroy.

Ta Prohm originally known as Rajavihara means the monastery of the King, Ta Prohm was a Buddhist temple dedicated to the mother of Jayavarman VII. It is one of the few temples in the Angkor region where an inscription provides information about the temple’s dependents and inhabitants. The numbers quoted really are staggering, although possibly include an element of exaggeration to glorify the king.

Ta Prohm is a temple of towers, close courtyards and narrow corridors. Many of the corridors are impassable, clogged with jumbled piles of delicately carved stone blocks dislodged by the roots of long-decayed trees. Bas-reliefs on bulging walls are carpeted by lichen, moss and creeping plants, and shrubs sprout from the roofs of monumental porches. The hundreds years old trees, their leaves filtering the sunlight and casting a greenish pall over the whole scene. The most popular of the many strangulating root formations is that on the inside of the easternmost gopura (entrance pavilion) of the central enclosure. It used to be possible to climb onto the damaged galleries, but this is now prohibited to protect both the temple and visitor. Many of these precariously balance stone weigh a tonne or more and would do some serious damage if they came down.