Closing chapter

Wooden signs point the way, coming from the South Gate direction

The southwest Prasat Chrung and the nearby irrigation channel formed by Run Tadev and Beng Thom were the final pieces of the Angkor Thom jigsaw on my epic cycle ride a few weeks ago. If you have time, it's definitely worth doing all or some of the embankment pathway on top of the mighty city walls, either on foot or by bicycle, just to experience a different perspective on the city and to enjoy the solitude, peacefulness and the surrounding scenery. I saw a variety of birds on my travels though the biggest, a crane, was sat on a solitary tree-stump in the middle of the moat near the last of the corner temples. Here's some final photos to close the chapter on my cycling adventure.

The southwest corner of the laterite wall and moat

The devata at this shrine have not escaped the attention of the temple robbers

The false window with blinds and two devata standing alongside

Two decorated posts with praying figures on the left side and vegetal scrolls on the right

A view out over the moat and the Angkor balloon in the distance

The last section of path before you reach Prasat Chrung coming from the South Gate

Run Tadev was either a very long laterite bridge or was used as an irrigation channel or sluice gate to allow water to run into the moat at the far end

The laterite structure of Run Tadev is covered by earth and vegetation and the other end of this long tunnel opens out at the foot of the moat

The marshy Beng Thom was used as part of the ancient city's irrigation system

The final Chrung...and relax

The southwest Prasat Chrung, the final one of the four corner shrines on my cycle ride; this is the west false entrance.

My recent bicycle ride along the embankment walls of the ancient city of Angkor Thom seems to have been taking place for weeks, whilst in actual fact it took a little less than four hours and that included stopping to visit and photograph five monumental gates into the city, four corner shrines that few ever get to visit and negotiating a few breaks in the wall as well as meeting up with a group of five twenty-something Khmers, who were out for a picnic, on their bikes, as they reminded me that the day of my trip was a Buddhist holiday. They shared their water, as mine had run out and they offered to share their food as we chatted about life in general and about work - they worked for ANZ Bank - and so my 30+ years in British banking aroused their interest. Nice folks and it was good to chat having spent the previous three and half hours on my solitary ride. We met at the southwest corner Prasat Chrung, which translates as 'temple of the angle,' after my five minute cycle from the West Gate, parallel with the water-filled moat. This shrine is the most visited of the four corner temples as the access from the popular South Gate is straightforward. The prasat itself is similar to the others though its west door is false and it only opens to the east. The devata are here in numbers though they are small in size, the windows have half-blinds as in the other shrines but the only pediment carving I could find was on the ground and the Buddha image had been remodelled into a linga, a popular pasttime in the 13th century. I thought the temple might be a pleasant place to visit to experence a quiet sunset across the moat sometime in the future. After our chat, they cycled off to enjoy their picnic near the West Gate, while I stopped at a cutting in the forest which took me to an ancient laterite bridge and a nearby large pond. The bridge is Run Tadev and the pond Beng Thom and both acted as a way of letting out water from the city and into the moat. Then it was back to the South Gate, descending from the wall for the last time and cycling back to my hotel for some food and a well-earned shower. My cycle ride of around 13 kilometres was definitely an enjoyable way to see parts of Angkor Thom I'd never seen before, to get a different persepctive of the walled city and a way to enjoy a part of Angkor without the crowds. For the last four hours Angkor Thom had been mine, and mine alone and that gave me a great deal of satisfaction. I hope you've enjoyed the journey too. Try it sometime.

The pleasant cycle path from the West Gate heading to the southwest corner

The best devata on show at the southwest Prasat Chrung

This is Prasat Chrung from the south side, with its false door

The all next to this devata looks decidely unsteady

This pediment has a defaced Buddha, converted into a linga and lies on the ground, protected by red ants

A devata on the north face of the corner shrine

This devata is playing hide and seek with a tree growing next to the temple

The east entrance to Prasat Chrung is now supported by wooden beams. The stones in the foreground were part of a small shrine or gate to the east.

Well-kept and tidy

The main shrine of the northwest Prasat Chrung with a ruined small building in front

A pediment with a standing Lokeshvara minus its face and a group of acolytes

It's Prasat Chrung time again, this time the northwest one, sitting in the overhead sun with little shade, though tidy and well-kept, located at one of the corners of the walled city of Angkor Thom. The view over the wall looked out onto fields and cows to both right and left, though I could just make out the sandstone blocks that used to act as the wall of the long-gone moat. The track from the North Gate was straightforward except one massive break in the wall that had made the path at that point difficult to negotiate on my mountain bike. The devata in niches on the walls of the central shrine were in reasonable condition and a standing Lokeshvara, minus its face, pediment was still in situ above a grinning kala lintel. Any of the four shrines in the corner of the great city could double-up as a picnic venue, so keep that in mind if you fancy a day's walking trek along the walls of Angkor Thom. Next stop would be the West Gate that used to be the most evocative of the city's gates until the authorities decided to make it safe with enough timber to make a small forest.

The gentle track that leads to Prasat Chrung from the North Gate

A massive break in the laterite wall made this section hard to cross

Below the wall, green fields and grazing cows with some sandstone slabs at the foot of the treesA reassembled pediment on the ground showing a re-formed linga and two acolytes

The east entrance to the main shrine with its Lokeshvara pediment

A grinning kala lintel with vegetal scrolling below the pediment

This devata over time has lost her feet which now look stunted

An uncrowned simple-styled devata in a niche

Two crowned devata, the left holding a lotus blossom

The devata of the northwest Prasat Chrung are well developed though their decoration has worn over time

The main shrine of Prasat Chrung with its many devata, windows with blinds and different colours on it walls

One more look

The stele kiosk at the northeast Prasat Chrung

In a final look at my favoured Prasat Chrung, in the northeast corner of the walled city of Angkor Thom, I've read that the stele kiosk(s) were constructed after the death of Jayavarman VII to house the stelae - literally a long-list of names or descriptions inscribed onto stone slabs - which provided the foundation stones for the walled city and the huge moat surrounding it, as well as extolling the virtues of the king of kings. The walls themselves are 3.3 kilometres in length along each side and by now, I still hadn't reached halfway in my epic cycle ride around the walled embankment, as I continued to the North Gate of the city.

A solitary doorframe with a ruined pediment at the western end of the temple site

The southern false doorway of the main shrine with lintel, pediment and colonettes in situ

A pediment without its Buddha on a plinth and a kala lintel above the south-facing doorway

Two corner devata on the southern face of the main shrine at Prasat Chrung

The devata at the northeast shrine are definitely smaller and less decorated

The eastern doorway of the main shrine on the left and the stele kiosk on the right, unusually very close to each other

My favourite Chrung

This is the northeast Prasat Chrung with its stele kiosk on the left

Now back to the northeast Prasat Chrung, sitting in isolation in the corner of the walled city of Angkor Thom and only accessible along a shaded track leading from either the Victory Gate or the North Gate of the ancient city. It's my favourite of the four temple shrines, all with the same name, because it appears to be the forgotten shrine of the quartet, it's more compact, it has a strangler fig tree doing its worst and embracing the central tower in a fatal stranglehold, it houses a series of pediments where the iconoclastic furore of the 13th century is clearly demonstrated and it boasts a stele 'kiosk' rarely seen in Angkorean architecture. The track on top of the walled embankment from the Victory Gate to the northeast corner was straightforward and I found the corner temple to be surrounded by trees and in shade. The first thing I noticed was the unusual kiosk at the eastern end of the shrine, with a series of half pediments-cum-lintels that had their Buddha image reworked into a linga, most likely defaced in the 13th century when many of Jayavarman VII's temples were altered. I wasn't clear whether each of the corner shrines, identical in most aspects, originally had such a kiosk, but only the northeast one has it today. The roots of the fig tree have pushed into the sandstone blocks of the main shrine and are slowly splitting the temple apart in numerous places. The devata on the walls are smaller than the other shrines and overall it looks like the temple has been reduced in size. A couple of pediments have been reassembled on the leaf-strewn ground but only one has a recognisable narrative. Continuing my cycle ride along the city walls, I headed for the North Gate.

The shaded track leading to the northeast corner of Angkor Thom. At the base of the wall the moat had turned into rice fields.

The strangler fig tree has the central tower in its vice-like grip

One of the pediment-lintels on the kiosk has had its Buddha image altered to a linga

Another defaced pediment-lintel on the kiosk with a linga flanked by two acolytes

This reassembled pediment on the ground has various figures surrounding a small linga on a plinth, where Buddha would've been sat originally

The northern entrance to the central shrine, which is open, unlike the other shrines

A defaced devata figure on the temple's outer wall

The best of the rest

This devata at Prasat Chrung is in danger of being strangled by a fig tree sometime soon

Coming soon... continuing my cycle ride along the walls of the immense city of Angkor Thom, I came to my favourite of the four shrines that occupy the four corners of this ancient city. The northeast Prasat Chrung is well worth a visit, even if you are not thinking of copying my 4 hour cycle ride along the whole length of the city walls. It's in a lovely quiet spot, with just birdcalls for company, and the presence of a fig tree strangling the life out of the temple with its all enveloping roots. There are carvings galore to explore and this is a temple where you will definitely be alone. More soon.

One of four

The southeast corner shrine, Prasat Chrung, at Angkor Thom

Very few visitors to Angkor Thom take the time to visit, literally, the four corners of this giant ancient walled city. Situated at each corner is a shrine temple, Prasat Chrung, that used to contain a stele with important information about the life and times of the city's builder Jayavarman VII, though they are now long gone and held under lock and key at Angkor Conservation. The four Prasat Chrung's are all similar in style, in a cruciform shape with two open porches at the east and west and two false doors at the other cardinal points. The outside walls are decorated with devatas and with false windows with balusters and blinds. Each temple has remains of standing Lokeshvaras in varying degrees of ruin, as are the temples themselves. Starting at the South Gate, I hauled my cycle onto the earth embankment that runs along the inner side of the eight metre high laterite wall and headed for the Prasat Chrung that occupies the southeast corner. The leafy track was under tree cover for much of the straight route and bouncing over tree roots I reached the corner in less than ten minutes. On my right side was a sheer drop down to the 100 metre wide moat, where locals were busy with their fishing nets. In front of me, a few trees gave the shrine some shade, whilst the remains of broken pediments had been reassembled on the ground, though there was little visible carving. A broken Lokeshvara pediment sat on top of a doorframe in front of the terrace leading to the temple itself, where aside from a few devata, some of which had been hacked at and their faces removed, there was little iconography to see. The large Lokeshvara on the east door pediment is now obscured by wooden beams keeping the doorframe from collapsing. With the sun getting hotter and much more of my Angkor Thom cycle ride to complete, I carried on in an anti-clockwise direction and headed along the shady track for my next discovery, the East Gate, aka The Gate of the Dead.

The shaded cycle track along the top of Angkor Thom's walls

Locals use their fishing nets to catch their lunch in the moat surrounding Angkor Thom

The track on the earth embankment and on the left, the edge of the outside wall

The ruined Lokeshvara and worshippers pediment on the solitary doorframe

Another Lokeshvara (top right) with acolytes but much of the carving is missing

One of the few devata to escape the temple robbers

This pediment with a large Lokeshvara in situ is obscured by large wooden beams supporting the east entrance in place

The temple doorjamb with some tapestry carvings for decoration