Phnom Bakheng

Listen to the sound under your feet first. It is the soft crunch of a red dirt path, worn smooth by many visitors. On either side, tall trees close in, and the air holds the smell of dry leaves and warm earth. Somewhere above, through the branches, a pale grey stone shape rises. You are climbing a hill in a land that is almost completely flat. That alone tells you something. Here, height was precious, and the Khmer kings knew exactly what to do with it.

This is Phnom Bakheng. The word phnom simply means hill in Khmer, the language of Cambodia. The hill is a natural rise of rock, one of only a few in the plain around Siem Reap. At the top stands a temple built around the end of the ninth century. That makes it roughly two centuries older than Angkor Wat, the great temple you may have visited this morning. When this temple was new, Angkor Wat did not yet exist.

The temple was built by King Yasovarman the First. Before his reign, the royal centre stood further to the southeast, in an area now called Roluos. Yasovarman moved the capital here and named his new city Yasodharapura. Phnom Bakheng was its heart. Imagine it — a royal city spread across the plain, with houses of wood and thatch, and in the middle, this stone mountain on a real mountain. The wooden city is gone. The stone stays.

As you reach the top, you will see the temple's shape clearly. It is a stepped pyramid with five levels, each one a little smaller than the one below. On the summit stand five towers, arranged like the five dots on a dice — one in the centre and one at each corner. Steep stairways climb the middle of each side. Stone lions sit beside the stairs. Many of them are worn or broken now, but their outlines are still easy to see.

Why a mountain? In Hindu belief, the centre of the universe is a sacred peak called Mount Meru, the home of the gods. Khmer kings built temples in the shape of this mountain to show that their capital stood at the centre of the world. Phnom Bakheng is one of the earliest great examples of this idea in Angkor. The temple was dedicated to Shiva, one of the main Hindu gods. So every level you climb is, in a sense, a step closer to the gods.

Here is a detail that most visitors walk straight past. The temple once had 108 towers in total. Small towers stood all around the levels and around the base. The number 108 is sacred in Hindu and Buddhist traditions. Scholars have also noticed something clever. If you stand in the middle of any one side and look up, you can see 33 towers. Thirty-three is the number of gods in an important Hindu heaven. Whether every visitor of the time noticed this, we cannot know. But the builders clearly planned it.

Now look closely at the stone itself. Parts of the temple were carved directly from the rock of the hill, and then covered with cut sandstone blocks. Sandstone is soft enough to carve but strong enough to last. On the towers, you may still find carved female figures called devatas — protective goddesses — standing in small niches. Their faces are often soft and worn by rain and wind. Look at the fine patterns of their clothing and jewellery. Some lines are still sharp after more than a thousand years.

You may notice that the temple looks unfinished or patched in places. Over the centuries, Angkor changed. Buddhism slowly replaced Hinduism as the main faith, and some temples were adapted for Buddhist use. At Phnom Bakheng, later builders took stones from the temple to create a large Buddha figure on the upper level. Much of that later addition is now gone or hard to read. Today, the temple carries traces of both faiths, layered one on top of the other.

The hill also has a more recent and darker history. During the wars that divided Cambodia in the late twentieth century, the high ground here had military value. Its long view over the plain made it a useful position for armed forces. Some damage from that time remains. In recent decades, conservation teams have worked hard to stabilise the structure. Water was a major problem. Rain had been seeping into the hill and pushing stones out of place, so engineers worked to repair the drainage and rebuild weak sections.

Now turn around and look out. This is why many people climb the hill. To the southeast, through the trees, you may see the towers of Angkor Wat rising above the forest. To the west, a long flat line of water shines in the light. That is the West Baray, a huge reservoir built by the Khmer. On a very clear day, you may even see far to the south, towards the great lake called Tonle Sap. The forest spreads out green in every direction.

Sunset is the most famous time to be here, and the summit can be very crowded in the late afternoon. To protect the old stone, the number of people allowed on the top level at one time is limited. So you may need to wait in line. If you prefer a quieter visit, the early morning is often calmer. The light is softer, the air is cooler, and you can hear birds in the forest below instead of voices.

A few practical words. The upper level is a sacred site, so cover your shoulders and knees before you climb. The stairs are steep, but modern wooden steps help on the main route. Bring water, because the walk up the hill takes some effort in the heat. And take a moment on each level. The temple was designed to be climbed slowly, step by step, as a journey upward — not rushed for a photograph.

Before you go, stand still for a moment. Feel the warm stone under your hand. Listen to the wind moving through the trees below. More than a thousand years ago, priests climbed these same steps toward a shrine to Shiva, high above a royal city. That city has returned to forest. But the mountain at its centre is still here. As you walk back down the red path, look up once more through the branches, and watch the grey towers slowly disappear behind the leaves.