The Angkor Wat alternative: exploring Cambodia’s forgotten ruins

I did a double take at the temple’s empty guestbook as it was handed to me from the small, wooden ticket booth. Nope, no visitors yesterday. And cambodia travel  just two the day before that: one German, one Thai.

What a difference a two-hour drive can make. I had spent the previous day at one of the world’s greatest tourist sites, the largest religious temple in the world, Angkor Wat. There, I’d had to use my guide’s local intel to get the best views before the crowds descended. And yet here we were on day two, just 160km up the road, with another temple all to ourselves.

I had taken a detour to the 12th-century Banteay Chhmar, which was also built during the reign of the almighty Khmer king Jayavarman VII. It is believed to have been a tribute to the Buddhist ruler’s son, who died in battle, but historians can’t be sure. It remains one of the most mysterious of all the Angkorian temples.

Tourism in Cambodia is focused on a few hotspots – those grand Angkor temples. When the country reopened its borders in the 1990s, after years of civil conflict, it welcomed just 100,000 visitors a year; by 2016, that figure had ballooned to five million, and it is forecast to rise again this year. Although barely 2,000 of those visit Banteay Chhmar, numbers were boosted slightly by the paving of the main road from Sisophon and Siem Reap in 2015.

 Banteay Chhmar, Cambodia. Banteay Chhmar was reconstructed, where possible, and reopened in 2014.
 Banteay Chhmar was reconstructed, where possible, and reopened in 2014.
Banteay Chhmar temple was neglected for years: it was looted to near-devastation, its towers had almost entirely collapsed, and it was strewn with landmines during the civil war in the 1970s and 80s. But eventually the mines were cleared, and a team of archaeologists reconstructed what they could from the wreckage, and reopened the site in 2014.

Trees sprout on top of gallery walls and creepers hang between one tumbledown gateway to the next

Today, trees sprout on top of gallery walls, lichen dapples beheaded sculptures, and creepers hang between one tumbledown gateway to the next. One of the towers has been painstakingly rebuilt, and from its top, a giant stone face looks down with a gentle, almost paternal, smile.

I booked into one of the homestays (£5.50 a night) offered by Banteay Chhmar Community-Based Tourism (CBT). Come nightfall, the CBT arranged dinner in the temple grounds, surrounded by flaming torches, their resin made from local gum trees. To Tour from siem reap to phnom penh  a throbbing chorus of cicadas, we ate soup made from channa striata, commonly known as snake fish. The CBT’s torch-lit dinner is available as part of a two-day package for $98 per person …

However, a private dinner at Angkor can cost tens of thousands of dollars, my guide, Bunt, told me. “I heard of one family from Germany who spent $125,000 on a meal. And they still woke up hungry the next day!”