Ta Nei Temple

This guide to Ta Nei Temple, reachable only on foot through the forest outside Siem Reap, opens with a question: why did carved stone fragments from this site end up handed over to police rather than sold off. It traces the temple's building under King Jayavarman the Seventh, its long neglect while restoration funds went to more photogenic ruins, and the Japanese-led team that finally began careful work here. You'll hear how their discovery of buried carvings was handled, and what that says about a site with no road and few visitors. Walk the crumbling galleries slowly, past devata figures and scenes from the Buddha's past lives still watching from the walls.