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A few hours from Siem Reap is Cambodia’s hidden jungle-encased Beng Mealea temple. Here’s how to see more Angkor history away from the main sites.
It took me over six hours to cycle from Siem Reap to the jungle-encased Beng Mealea temple in Cambodia on a journey that would normally take an hour by public transport.
Biking through the flat plains of the Cambodian countryside on dusty ochre turf and avoiding the main, paved highway routes. If you are looking for a Beng Mealea tour with an explorative angle – this is it.
From simple countryside outings and the Angkor temple tours that last days and get you out of the city, there are bike tours for all endurance and curiosity levels. I booked the one which looked the most challenging and which would take me on a 75km ride starting from the centre of Siem Reap.
A ride to Beng Mealea, seen as one of the core Angkor Wat period temples, is located east of the main temples of Angkor in the city on what was once a royal highway that connected them all.
Beng Mealea Temple in Cambodia – Finding Angkor’s Jungle Labyrinth
Contents
Getting to Beng Mealea Temple from Siem Reap
Beng Mealea Tour by Bike
I was informed that the tour would last approximately nine hours, starting at 7 am and finishing at 4 pm. I assumed this to be a few hours of bike riding, a break for lunch and the temple visit, and then a few hours to return.
Instead, we set out on a ride that would take us directly to Beng Mealea from Siem Reap city, with an estimated arrival time of 2 pm, where we would later get a tuk-tuk home.
It was much further than I thought, but I was ready for the challenge, equipped with a new mountain bike and a Khmer local for guidance and language support.
With a mixture of awe and agony, it was a scenic and adrenaline-pumped day. When biking, you quickly turn off the first main road and begin a six-hour off-the-beaten-track journey that takes you through the golden-hued Cambodian countryside, where fisherman and ox and cart farmers line the green, watery flatlands and where orange dirt tracks and luscious palm trees guide the way.
The dusty village road to Beng Mealea temple.
Public Transportation Options
However, not everyone has the stamina or the time to embark on a long, countryside-flanked tour. Getting to Beng Mealea by public transport is easy and requires some pre-planning and haggling. Options include:
- Taking a tuk-tuk: which will cost in the region of $20-$30
- Two hours each way, including wait time
- Hiring a taxi: which will cost in the region of $40
- One hour each way, including wait time
The only downside is missing out on a lot of the scenery since getting to Beng Mealea this way is via main roads and passing through a village area on the approach to the temple.
Bikes loaded on the tuk-tuk for the return to Siem Reap.
Beng Mealea Tour Options
Even if you are not a regular bike rider, a long-haul biking adventure is an opportunity to see a different side of Cambodia. Grasshopper Adventures day bike tours start from around $45 – $99, including customised tours of personal interest like this. You can check the full tour list.
You can enjoy a full-day tour of Beng Mealea and the lost city of Koh Ker and have the opportunity to visit two off-track UNESCO temples in one day. The price excludes the temple entrance fees but includes pick up and drop off to your hotel/hostel and a picnic lunch on the grounds of Beng Mealea.
This trip combines Beng Mealea with Kulen Mountain Waterfall and the floating village of Kampong Phluk on Tonle Sap lake.
Or double up a temple trip with a visit to the village of Kompong Kleang, where the sandstone blocks for Beng Mealea were cut from.
The Way to Beng Mealea – City to Overgrown Jungle
While I was living in Cambodia at the time and had already seen a lot of countryside working in a local village, this remained one of my best and most beautiful experiences yet of rural. So much so I had to constantly stop to take it all in, savour the serenity and capture photos of a route I would never be able to re-trace alone.
The road from Siem Reap to Beng Mealea is a journey through rural Cambodia and endless countryside.
Cambodian farmland outside Siem Reap city.
Passing through villages on the way to Beng Mealea.
Yellow rice fields in Cambodia.
My guide was patient and provided good insight, and there was not one other tourist in sight for the entire journey. It was just me, my new Khmer friend and the beautiful local people who waved and high-fived us throughout the journey.
On the orange, dusty road through a rural village in Cambodia.
Tranquil, rural Cambodia.
The road to Beng Mealea temple, Cambodia.
It was an arduous journey at times, especially in the constant heat that bears down on you. I got tired and felt irritable. I had to pull over near the end to guzzle a bottle of water and munch through some snacks to regain a little energy! I wondered why I put myself up for a Tour De Siem Reap.
Yet, with a bike, you are the master of your journey. You can choose when to slow down. You can choose when to stop and take hold of the scene in front of you. A tuk-tuk or a car wouldnβt afford you such an opportunity.
Consider a bike tour to Beng Mealea, for a scenic route.
Pit stop in a small village.
Visiting Beng Mealea – Cambodia’s Jungle Temple
Arriving at the temple entrance, you stand immediately in front of a stone-stacked facade flanked by a towering diamond-shaped portal that summons you to find a way in after centuries of remaining hidden.
Beng Mealea, a temple on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List since 1992, still lies in ruin, largely unrestored. Yet, this unstirred scene is exactly what makes this site so fascinating.
The history of Cambodia’s jungle temple is unknown, although inspection puts it in a similar architectural style and layout to Angkor Wat, only smaller. Beng Mealea, built entirely from sandstone, is assumed to have also been constructed in the 12th Century. Nature has reclaimed the space where this temple once stood as the spiritual centre in the middle of a large town.
Only the jungle knows the temple’s real standing and remains defiant in concealing it.
The entrance to Beng Mealea temple shows how untouched it is.
Beng Mealea hasn’t been opened to the public as long as the complex of Angkor temples in central Siem Reap. It’s only been a little more than a decade that people have been finding their way through the jungle floor as it is slowly uncovered.
That means it’s a little more untrodden and less known, adding to its unkempt canvas’s explorative feel. It’s like getting to and exploring the Preah Vihear Temple in Cambodia, a hard-to-reach archaeological site and a contested border with Thailand.
Nature reclaims Cambodia’s jungle temple, where fallen stones remain untouched since the time they fell.
A long rectangular room of Beng Mealea temple where a tall tree has risen from the ground and overtaken the space.
A monk stands in front of a pile of fallen stones at the Beng Mealea Temple complex.
Stones are stacked in front of an old Angkor temple archway.
A huge tree trunk breaks through the floor of Beng Mealea temple and reclaims the walls.
My Cambodian guide, proud to show off the ancient history of his country, took me on a route through the temple where no one else could be found. We clambered haplessly over toppled stones that were once magnificent rooftops and towering doorways, meandered through lost corridors, and swung on the branches that had weaved their way through the historical labyrinth and taken over the temple structure.
There’s a lot of stone climbing required the fallen temple complex of Beng Mealea.
A hidden doorway filled with fallen stones.
One of the many hanging branches in the jungle temple.
We found peace at the end of a long and strenuous day. An opportunity to see a different side of Cambodia, visiting Beng Mealea will end up being a temple adventure you first assumed was out of reach but one that rewards you if armed with enough curiosity and stamina.
Beng Mealea Entrance Fee
According to the Tourism of Cambodia, the regular admission ticket (see below) for the monuments of Angkor (a collective ticket for the multiple temple sites) is not required to visit Beng Mealea. There is a separate entrance fee of $20, $10 and $5.
If you do intend on visiting the holy trinity of the Angkor temple complex that includes Angkor Wat, Ta Phrom (the βTomb Raider’ Temple) and Bayon (the temple with the faces), you will need to purchase the main ticket that covers a collection of temples separate to Beng Mealea, Phnom Kulen and Koh Ker.
- Single-day ticket: $37
- Three-day pass: $62
- Seven-day pass: $72
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Rashaad says
That must have been an amazing experience! Do you have to plans to cycle across another country? I would love to do that one day.
Neil Playdon says
Hi Becki, wow you certainly don’t do things by half. 75km bike ride in what must have been very hot and humid conditions. I take my hat off to you. The temple certainly looks worth the effort to get to and as you say a much more interesting trip there than by taking public transport. Tell me …did your guide also take those photos of you as well?
Becki says
The guide did take the photos, yes. It was just him and I on the tour.
Ryan says
This reminds me of a quote by Ernest Hemingway, “It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.”
It is so different traveling by bike, being able to stop everywhere, and knowing that the long distance traveled was not sitting down, but through hard work. THis is why I want to bike across the USA this summer. Awesome post Becki!
Guy says
Cycling is such a pleasurable thing to do on quiet roads. It sounds like you had perfect scenery for a wonderful ride. I bet your legs ached afterwards though.
The temple looks very interesting although maybe a little bit dangerous?
Becki says
Not dangerous at all π Walkways have been made. I’m just curious.
Neil says
Love it, looks like great fun and very rewarding. As much as i’m looking forward to Ankor, i’d very much like to find a less touristy temple site such as this.
Keep them coming Becki and we’ll see you soon π