Banteay Srei - Citadel of the women

All that we can think first about was lunch at Banteay Srei Parvis Café after the tiring hiking (my previous write up on Kbal Spean). This restaurant was at the entrance of Banteay Srei Temple. They had many choices of Khmer food in their menu but we were too tired to even think what we should order. We ended up ordering fried rice, surprisingly. The portion of a plate of fried rice was too big for a person to finish up, so we took away my portion of food. Our lunch cost us $ 14 which is for 2 plates of fried rice, 1 water bottle and 1 can of soya beans drink. After our lunch we continued our tour to Banteay Srei Temple.

The main entrance

 

This temple was primarily dedicated to Lord Shiva and it was originally called as Tribhuvanamaheswara which means “great lord of the threefold world”. Now, it is called as “The Lady Temple” by the locals. The temple is so beautifully built with huge red sandstones and the carvings are very in detailed. This is a must visit place by art and architecture lovers as the Khmer architecture and sculptural art is such an amazing thing to experience directly than just seeing through the internet.

 

At the back of the temple

 

 

The best time to visit this temple is in the morning and do not go during the noon if you cannot take the afternoon sun above your head, that is what we went through. Also, it is better to visit early if you want to explore and capture photographs without being disturbed by other visitors. The temple is small and the crowd is big, so we have to be patiently waited to capture good photographs. Whatever said and done, I feel that noon is a good time to visit the temple because the lighting for photographing was too good and we got a few good photos.

The next day trip is to visit the Angkor Temples.