Prean Khan was the most deceiving temple we visited. I wish we had more time because this was such a super neat temple. When we first arrived at the temple, we had to walk a little ways on a dirt path to get to the actual temple. We didn't have a tour guide with us today, and had just taken a tuk tuk around for the day. I didn't know anything about this temple before we arrived, so we were expecting this to be a quick look around and return to the tuk tuk.
We arrived at the front of the temple to see a small charming detailed temple. There were two huge headless statues guarding the entrance to Prean Khan. We figured it was such a small temple we would be done seeing the entire thing in about 10 minutes, and told the kids just 10 more minutes.
We entered the temple and started walking straight down the only pathway. It started out as a high entry way, with about every 10 feet or so a doorway down the same hallway. After we went through our fourth doorway, we started to wonder how far this hall actually goes and where does it lead to?
We kept walking through doorway after doorway and started to notice that the doorways were getting smaller and smaller as we moved down the hall. Kevin and I were having to crouch to get through the doors and it even got to a point where Big Sis had to duck to enter the next section of hallway. Despite the kids reminding me it had been 10 minutes, I was determined to see where this never ending hallway lead to. We finally reached a four-way stop in the hallway with a large Stupa right in the middle.
We had finally reached the center of the temple. It took us about a 20-30 minutes to reach this point. The area opened up all around the stupa and we were able to explore around the center. While we were there, we stopped at talked to some Cambodia police that were walking around the central section of the temple. We learned that this temple is referred to as the "Temple of the Father". It is not referring to a Heavenly Father, but of the King's father. It was built in the 12th century in honor of King Jayavarman VII's father. We asked about the doorway getting smaller, and they told us it was to force those coming to the center to bow as they entered the sanctuary.
At this point the police were commenting on how beautiful our family was and asked if they could help us take pictures. Kevin gladly obliged, and we took the next ten minutes having the police move us all around the center of the temple to take pictures of us. Now, I'm not new to this rodeo, so I knew they would be expecting money after they returned our camera. Kevin hasn't experiences this before, so when the officer held out his hand, Kevin looked a little lost. I explained that they were expecting money for their services. Kevin said he didn't ask for them to take pictures, but they offered and took the camera. I got some money out and thanked them for their help. I have learned in my travels that when visiting other countries, especially poor countries, no one does anything just to be nice, they always expect money, even if they say free. But, we did get some great pictures and they told us a ton of history about the temple.
The carvings and details in the center of the temple were so amazingly detailed and preserved for being so very old. We learned from the police that the dimensions of the temple were 800 meters by 700 meters. There were four halls that lead to the center and each hall faces North, South, East and West. The East entrance was the king's entrance. We had entered in the South entrance and had only walked 400 meters, plus the walk from the tuk tuk to the South Entrance. In order to get to the other side, we would have to walk another 400 meters, then 800 meters to get back to our tuk tuk, which would be be more then a mile. Considering that the kids were starving, and we had to pretty much hurdle and crouch every ten feet, we decided for the sake of the kids, we should just go back down the south hall and make our way back to the tuk tuk.
As we made our way back down to the South Entrance, we noticed a small archway that lead to a little courtyard. The buildings were beautiful with some fun windows. We enjoyed a few minutes walking in the sun and admiring the sculptures.
As we were walking down the dirt pathway to our tuk tuk, we stopped a tour guide and showed him our list of temples in the area. Our kids were beginning to hit the point of no return, so we knew we only had about one more temple stop that we could squeeze out of them. I asked the guide if he could pick only one temple on the list, which would he suggest we see. He said to go to Neak Pean, because it was so beautiful and a very quick visit. We got back in our tuk tuk and requested our last stop at Neak Pean.
To get to the Neak Pean temple, you have to cross over a large marsh. There is a long walkway that was built over the march to allow tourist to see the temple. The marsh was one of the largest marshes I have ever seen. There were a ton of mosquitos and so many people. I kept Little Monster in the backpack because the narrow pathway was enough for only two people with absolutely no railing.
It was so very very hot. Little Monster was done. D.O.N.E. and wanted so bad to get out and run. The only way I was able to keep him content was to bribe him with suckers. I walked as fast as I could over the walkway, since he was jumping all around in the backpack and vocally complaining quite loudly.
After walking for what seemed like forever, since I was carrying a jumping child on my bike while walking over a narrow walkway, we finally arrived at the temple. I'm not going to lie, It was a bit of a let down. I wasn't expecting to see something so small on a tiny island in the middle of a pond.
The sun was beating down in all it's glory, so we took less then a minute to take a picture, then turned around and made our way back over the walkway. Perhaps if the kids weren't so tired and done, and perhaps if it wasn't so blistering hot, and perhaps if I knew we would walk the plank to arrive at a small temple only to view at a distance, we might have appreciated the beauty of the temple, but we can't live in a world of perhaps. I could have skipped this temple and been just fine. The walk to this temple, defiantly pushed the kids over their threshold, but promises of a swim in the hotel pool and an ice cream kept them at bay.
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