Our tuk tuk driver, Sam, told us about a cool unrestored temple 40km from Siem Reap that you can explore "Indiana Jones style"… we were sold. So, for our second day of temple adventures, he picked us up in a car and took us to check out Beng Mealea (Temple 4 of 16).
On arrival, we climbed through the crumbled gate and encountered some local kids who started warning us where it was / wasn't safe to climb. They started to lead us through the wreckage: Jen with a group of girls who showed her the "easy route", and Dom with the boys who jumped archways and went into... sketchier areas. Shortly after our journeys through the rubble, they re-united us at the entrance... and demanded payment. By following them, we sorta knew that we had entered into an invisible agreement that they were our "guides". Normally, we refuse to encourage this behaviour and avoid giving money to, or buying from children (they should be in school rather than trying to make money off of tourists), but they did help us build up some confidence in navigating the rubble so we gave them a buck or two to share amongst themselves.
Since we didn't yet have our fill, we re-entered the temple for further exploration. Looking at the pictures, it's hard to get a sense of the temple size and all the climbing / scrambling we did, but imagine crawling into alcoves, on top of them, walking through boulders, and on walls… it was awesome. You could really feel like an explorer.
This temple made our top 3 list because it was so much fun to explore. One factor that played a big role in our appreciation is that we arrived super early (before the rush of tourist buses). After an hour of exploring, we started seeing tourists arriving by the busload and the temple walkways started to clog up. By the time we left, the temple was so crowded that it lost its charm.
