Ta Prohm
UNESCO World Heritage Site: Angkor (1992). A Late 12th Century Monastery And University Built By Jayavarman VII, Left Half Swallowed By Silk Cotton And Strangler Fig Trees On Purpose. Famous As A Film Location. Narrow, Crowded Corridors, With Collapsed Stone, And A Sense Of Lost Jungle That Photographs Overstate · Siem Reap, Siem Reap
Ta Prohm is a late 12th-century Buddhist monastery and teaching centre built by Jayavarman VII, and it is the Angkor temple that was deliberately left to the forest. Silk-cotton and strangler fig trees grow straight out of the roofs and walls, their grey roots pouring over doorways and galleries, and the stone is part held up and part pulled apart by them. That image, helped by its use as a film location, is why it sits near the top of every Angkor list. The site is in the Angkor Archaeological Park, east of Angkor Thom, and part of the UNESCO listing. It is much smaller than Angkor Wat: a rambling set of low galleries, narrow corridors and collapsed blocks you can cover in about an hour. Be honest about the crowds. Between about 9 and 11 am tour groups queue at the famous roots, and the jungle feeling is thinner than the photographs suggest. Arrive at opening or late afternoon. A one-way visitor route, rope barriers and restoration scaffolding by India's Archaeological Survey shape what you can see.
Ta Prohm temple, about 1 km east of Angkor Thom's Victory Gate in the Angkor Archaeological Park, Siem Reap, Siem Reap, Cambodia
Ta Prohm is open daily within the Angkor Archaeological Park hours, roughly from early morning to late afternoon, with the gates closing around dusk. Confirm current times at the ticket office, as hours are enforced by pass checkers at the entrance. Entry needs an Angkor Pass, bought in Siem Reap, and nothing inside the temple is FREE to enter without it. The road past the outside walls and the roadside stalls is FREE to walk. There is no weekly closing day. Individual galleries, stairs and parts of the corridors are CLOSED or roped off during restoration, and the one-way route can change without notice. Heavy rain can also close unstable sections for a day.