ARE YOU READY TO BE TOMB RAIDER?
Ta Prohm (which means Ancestor of Brahma) is a Buddhist monastery, built of course during the reign of King Jayavarman. This is the temple that will make you feel like Indiana Jones, or more accurately like Laura Croft from the movie "Tomb Raider" and if one of our absolute favourites. The temple used to be a very powerful monastery, with more than 3,000 villages and was maintained by 80,000 attendants, including 18 high priests and over over 600 temples dancers.
It looks like we should thank the French for experiencing Ta Prohm the same way the 19th century explorers did when they discovered the Angkor complex. When the French came and started archeological restorations of Ta Prohm, they made the deliberate attempt to preserve Ta Prohm as it was found, by limiting restoration and cutting down as little of the jungle that surrounds it as possible.
Although most visitors really just want to take their photos here (and we were one of them), there is much more to see in this temple- the decaying but wonderful main entrance, filled with images of the Buddha, the Hall of Dancers, and the relief of apsara dancers. Even if you don't really look for these things, just walking among these ruins covered with magnificent trees, is an unforgettable experience.
