Banteay Kdei temple in Siem Reap The next day, which was our day 2 at Siem Reap, happened to be our busiest day. We had a whole lot of temples to cover today given that we only had three days in Siem Reap...I wish we had planned for more days in Siem Reap...there are so many temples to see...three days are not enough. If you like ancient architecture, you would absolutely love to spend more time at Siem Reap.
The day started with Banteay Kdei which is a Buddhist temple built during the 12th and 13th century AD during the rule of Jayavarman VII. The temple was home to Buddhist monks at various intervals of time until the 1960s (from wikipedia).
The temple is not in a good condition now (there was restoration work going on when we were visiting... so hopefully it will not deteriorate further). However, experiencing the temple as it is today is an amazing experience. With the trees reclaiming large parts of the temple, and parts of walls collapsing....there is something mysterious and spectacular about this temple. It holds you captive with the enormous structures and the beautiful carvings that you can still find on the walls of the temple. You kind of wonder how amazing it must have been in its prime!
I would certainly recommend that you include Banteay Kdei in your itinerary for Siem Reap.
Sharing some pictures I clicked of the Banteay Kdei temple.
