Ta Prom
Prasat Ta Prom, at Cambodia’s UNESCO World Heritage-listed Angkor. with its giant trees and sprawling roots, is certainly one of the vast Angkor complex’s most famous and photogenic sites, Commonly called the ‘Tomb Raider Temple’ due to its appearance in the 2001 film of that name, the late 12th-century, Jayavarman VII-period ruined sanctuary does consequently see a lot of visitors and in the high season in particular can get rather busy.
A regular, classic itinerary would have you entering by the popular West Gate and perhaps exiting to the east side car park or vice versa. However, a visit by way of the picturesque, yet rarely-visited, north entrance is an excellent way of avoiding the crowds, for the first part of your visit at least. There’s no car park and zero drink or postcard vendors either so you’ll be on your own as you pass through the spectacular sandstone entrance with its iconic and mysterious carved faces.
Colourful, but spoils the atmosphere somewhat! A trail through the forest leads from the massive sandstone gateway or gopura to the main temple complex where the coach parties of selfie-taking would-be Lara Crofts are harder to avoid, but it certainly makes for an atmospheric entrance to what is, crowds or no crowds, always a truly amazing sight.
A visit to the jungle-covered ruins of Ta Prom Temple is featured on our 2-week Cambodia Overland, Saigon to Phnom Penh tour, the shorter, Phnom Penh to Siem Reap ‘Highlights of Cambodia’, as well as our Laos and Cambodia Indochina Adventure and Cambodia and Thailand family tour, Ruined Cities and Tropical Islands tour. For any further info, details and schedules of these or any of our tours to the kingdom, check the Cambodia page of our website.
The famous Lara Croft doorway For those with less time to spare the site also features on our 4-day Angkor extension or mini-tour.
