Khao Phra Vihan Khmer Temple Ruin

Khao Phra Vihan: Once you arrive at the Thai side of the border for this temple ruin you park in the parking lot by the museum the Thais have set up to show the history of the Khao Phra Vihan temple complex. After looking around in the museum you exit and walk down the road a way to the border checkpoint on the Thai side and pay a 200 baht entrance fee to cross the border. A copy is made of your passport, but no stamps are placed inside, so it does not show that you have been in Cambodia on your passport when you do this tour of the ruins.

Here's a picture from my friend Old Hippy of the Thai border shack.

When you have your payment stub you have to walk further down the road to actually cross into Cambodia. It is a bit of a walk and the sun can be very hot. There is very little shade in this area.

Photo by Old Hippy.

As you walk down the road you'll notice a hill to your left. Here can be seen some abandoned Thai Army outposts left over from the border dispute and from the old Khmer Rouge days. This area was heavily mined decades ago and there is still a possibility of a mine or two left around that wasn't found when the French helped the Thais demine the area. I wouldn't go walking off the paths myself. This picture above is from my friend Bob. It is an old machinegun bunker that sits by the road. I notice they left up all the concertina wire, which could be dangerous for any young children climbing on the hillside.

Photo by Old Hippy.

Here the sign above explains the demining of the area. The French government funded the demining efforts. Notice the dates of this. They started demining operations on 05-10-2003, and finished on 13-12-2003. It took them two months to do this.

A sign in Thai warning of landmines. Photo by Old Hippy.

Another photo by Old Hippy of a broken concrete landmine danger sign laying by the side of the road leading into the Khao Phra Vihan ruins.

There is an expanse of volcanic rock you need to cross to get to the Cambodian border. Be extremely careful walking here. There is a fairly steep incline and the rock is filled with holes and cracks one can twist an ankle on. There are no handicap facilities here to cross this area. Older people need to be very careful walking here. There is no pathway, sidewalk, or railing at all, just the stone expanse.

The entrance sign to Khao Phra Vihan (Wihan). Photo by Old Hippy.

The stairway to heaven, or hell if your knees are as bad as mine are. I would suggest those who are out of shape or elderly to use a cane for climbing these ancient stone stairs to reach the top where the temple ruins lay. The stairs here are in very rough shape and dangerous to climb. This picture above was taken by myself in the mid-ninties. On this most recent trip in November of 2005 I noticed the stairs had deteriorated even further and there were many sandbags shoring up the old stones in the stairs. Be careful.

A more recent picture from my friend Old Hippy of the stairs.

There has been a lot of damage and deterioration to the stairway and ruins since the last time I was here about three years ago. Notice the many broken sandbags on the lower stone stairs. The wooden gateway and sign in Khmen is a recent addition as well. I have to say the Cambodians really need to use some of the money they are now collecting here to maintain and repair this wonderful and interesting ruin. Sadly, it looks like they have done nothing constructive since reclaiming this national treasure. I brought Bob here two weeks ago to see this place. He loved it.

One of the first things you notice when finally arriving at the Khao Phra Vihan ruins is that you aren't even close to being near the ruins themselves. This ruin complex has been being fought over by the Thais and the Cambodians for ages. It is a temple/castle/fortress built by a Khmer prince during the Angkor Cambodian civilization's expansion throughout the Isaan plateau. There are many others dotting the countryside of what is now Thailand, formerly Siam. Recently the Thais and Cambodians had another argument over these ruins. The thing is the ruins can only be accessed through what is now Thailand's land. The site itself is actually in Cambodia, but due to the way it sits on the landscape it cannot be accesssed from onside the Cambodian border. For many years the Thai's military had taken over the ruins because the Khmer Rouge genocidal maniacs were using it as a base military camp and hideout. The ruins themselves sit atop a very high mountain cliff which overlooks the Cambodian valley jungles below and provides excellent military advantages due to it holding the 'high ground' of the immediate vicinity. The two governments finally reached a compromise... they BOTH charge visitors to enter the site, 200 baht each (around five dollars). So you pay the Thais at the border 200 baht to enter Cambodia and the ruins area. Then you also pay the Cambodians 200 baht as well. Nice compromise huh? :-)

You will walk quite a way to actually reach the entrance itself. Once you've run the gauntlet of Cambodians trying to sell you everything under the sun you come to these stairs (pictured above) and begin your adventure to the ruins of the Khmer... Khao Phra Vihan.

As you can see a Cambodian flag now flies over the entrance to the ruins where a Thai flag once flew. There are many bitter feelings toward the Thai from the Cambodian people due to the amount of time the Thais held onto these ruins.

Another shot of this by my friend Old Hippy.

The biggest hurdle to seeing these ruins is the condition of the stone carved stairs leading up to the actual ruin, which does sit on the top of a mountain. Once you get past the stairs you can see in the first photo there is... yep, more stairs! Three hundred in all I was told, but it seems like many more in the blazing 95 degree temperatures you usually have here. The stairs are cut and set at at strange height for most foreigners legs I think. Once you reach the top of the stairs, finally, you see there is a promenade of stones in a wide walkway leading up to, yep, more stairs! Bring a couple bottles of water with you (although you can buy some at the top, as well as beers and colas and such) and bring along an umbrella for the ladies, as the sun will definitely give you a burn. 

This picture was taken from the inside of the first doorway of the temple ruins looking down toward the stone promenade and Cambodian flag outpost.

The temple ruins here are not in the best of shape. There has been little restoration of the ruins themselves here over the years, actually, none at all. The Cambodians are very poor and do not spend any money toward upkeeping the ruins. Conversely at another Khmer ruin inside of Thailand, the Khao Phanom Rung temple complex near Buriram, the Thais have restored the ruins with the help of the French archaeologists and the grounds are well kept, beautiful even, and very clean and pleasant. It's a nice place to picnic actually. Here in Khao Phra Vihan it is very basic and no work has been done to attract more tourists to the place, which actually is part of the charm of these ruins. Going to these ruins is an adventure, not a stroll in the park. I've been here to Khao Phra Vihan six times now over the past thirteen years.

Here's a picture from my first trip to Khao Phra Vihan.

As I stated before the ruins were under Thai army guard for many years. The first time I went here there were gun enplacements (howitzers?) up on the top of the temple. There was also LIVE ammo for these cannons placed near the gun positions back then, and razor wire all around the guns themselves. The cannons were placed to overlook the Cambodian valleys below, where Khmer Rouge rebels still were in hiding then. These remnents of Pol Pot's murdering fanatics were still causing problems in the countryside doing kidnappings and acting as local warlords and bandits. This temple ruin is very high up and there can be great views of the surrounding countryside up there on a clear day. This helicopter crash site was up there on my first trip up back in the 90's. It was a Thai army copter that had crashed while bringing up some friend of either the Thai King or the Prime Minister, I forget now which. It stayed there many years after the crash, but now has been removed. I was just here showing a friend the ruin a couple of weeks ago and I noticed the cannon and the crashed copter were now gone. Notice the barbed wire and stone and sandbag barriers near the crashsite. Still today you can see a bunker in the ground at the top where cannon ammo was stored.  

As you can see the ruins are not restored.

Imagine what this looked like when it was first completed.

These ruins are very representative of the Angkor Wat ruins in Siem Reap.

The front entrance to the Khao Phra Vihan main upper temple.

The end of the stone promenade coming up to the first entrance.

Even after all these centuries you can still see bits of the original paints on the temple ruins.

Another nice shot of the ruins by my buddy the Old Hippy. He has a really great eye and an awesome camera, a Nikon D70 35mm Digital with many lenses and filters. It makes my Sony 5.0 Megapixels CyberShot camera pics look horrible! I want one of these for myself.

This picture by Old Hippy is one of my favorites. It shows much of the main temple on top of the mountain. The concrete section in the foreground is an ammo bunker built and used by the Thai army when there used to be cannon on the top overlooking the Khmer valleys below where the Khmer Rouge were hiding. 

The back entrance to the main upper temple. During certain ceremonies, and depending on who you were, only certain entrances and exits to the complex could be used in ancient times.

A good shot of this section's entrance by Old Hippy with his trusty Nikon. His camera takes postcard quality pictures.

While sitting and relaxing in these ruins at the top of this arduous climb to the top of this mountain I cannot help but drift off in my mind to the glory days of the empire that built these immense and beautiful structures. I imagine what it was like then. What an enormous task it must have been to build these temples at the top of this prominence. I cannot fully comprehend the work involved to make this dream of a prince to have come to fruition. How many lives were lost in the construction of this place? How did they get the stones in place way up here? What did it look like with the paints, and silks, and teak wood structures now long gone. I always wish I could travel back in time and see it all in it finished glory and beauty. What drove these people? Their accomplishments were great and their civilization widespread over vast distances and many lands. They fought many wars with the Thais and the Vietnamese over the centuries. I love seeing these ancient structures of these great civilizations. Here in Thailand I can see many of them, and have.

Photo by Old Hippy.

A final word of warning. Don't buy anything from this lady and shop in the picture above! Tourist scams abound in Southeast Asia. This shop at the border crossing area here inside Cambodia is one of many selling all sorts of goods and liquor. Friend Old Hippy bought a few bottles of what is labeled as Johnny Walker Black Label. The bottles have Singapore Airlines Duty Free stickers and seals on them. They are sold for 350 Thai baht each for these smaller bottles of supposed 'duty free' booze. Once Bob got back to Bangkok and opened these he found they were filled with a cheap Thai rum called Mekong Whiskey, which goes for about 200 baht for a quart bottle. So as you can see they are making quite a profit off this little tourist scam. You are forewarned!

The beers (Angkor beer, a favorite of mine) sold here are fine, as are the foods, colas, bottled waters, and various knick-knacks, curios, and t-shirts. Just bargain hard for anything you buy there instead of just paying what they ask. Most prices quoted for souveniers will be double of what you can bargain them down to. Pay half is my motto.

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Some facts on Khao Phra Vihan for the readers:

Prasat Khao Phra Vihan is a splendid Khmer ruin just across the border in Cambodia. Perched on a 600-metre hill, the complex was built by a succession of Khmer kings from the 10th to12th centuries and predates its larger brother Angkor Wat. Constructed in Papuan and early Angkor styles, Khao Phra Vihan originally served as a Hindu temple. Even though the temple lies in Cambodia, the only road to reach it is in Thailand.

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Tomorrow... the Wat Phi Mai ruins.

I hope you've enjoyed these pictures and will some day visit Khao Phra Vihan for yourself. It is worth the effort.

Mike

Copyright 2005. All rights reserved by the author.