A visit at Khao Phra Vihaan

This map of the historical place was copied out from th Internet to show the area as a view from above.

This helicopter crash site was up there on my trip up back in the 90's. It was a Thai army copter that crashed while bringing up some friend of either the Thai King or the Prime Minister, thats was local people say.

The temple ruins here are not in the best of shape. There has been little restoration of the ruins themselves here over the years, actually, none at all. The Cambodians are very poor and do not spend any money toward upkeeping the ruins. Conversely at another Khmer ruin inside of Thailand, the Khao Phanom Rung temple complex, the Thais have restored the ruins with the help of the French archaeologists and the grounds are well kept, beautiful even, and very clean and pleasant.

The debris of a crashed Thai chopper still lie beside the ancient place. People tell different stories about the cause of the crash.

As you can see a Cambodian flag now flies over the entrance to the ruins where a Thai flag once flew. There are many bitter feelings toward the Thai from the Cambodian people due to the amount of time the Thais held onto these ruins.

In a Cambodian legend, the Nāga were a reptilian race of beings who possessed a large empire or kingdom in the Pacific Ocean region. The Nāga King's daughter married an Indian Brahmana named Kaundinya, and from their union sprang the Cambodian people. Therefore still Cambodians say that they are "Born from the Nāga".

In modern times, the temple's location on the border between Cambodia and Thailand led to a dispute over ownership. In 1954, Thailand formally occupied the temple. In 1959, Cambodia applied to the International Court of Justice in the Hague to rule that the temple lay in Cambodian territory. In subsequent proceedings before the court, Cambodia based much of its case on a map drawn up in 1907 by French officers, some of whom had been part of a 1904 joint border demarcation commission formed by Thailand, then known as Siam, and the French colonial authorities then ruling Cambodia. The map showed the temple as being in Cambodia and was sent to the Siamese authorities as part of formal border demarcation activities. Over the subsequent five decades, in various other international forums, according to Cambodia, the Siamese/Thai authorities did not formally object to the map’s depiction of the temple’s location. Nor did the Siamese object when a French official from the colonial administration received the Siamese scholar and government figure Prince Damrong at the temple in 1930. Thailand counter-argued that the map was not an official document of the 1904 border commission. It also noted that the mutually accepted principle governing demarcation by that commission was that the border would follow the watershed line along the Dângrêk mountain range, which the Thais said would put the temple in Thailand. Thai authorities never felt the need to formally object to the map, the court was told, because they had practical ownership of the temple. Any acceptance of the map, the court was informed, was based on a false understanding that it followed the watershed line. On June 15, 1962, the court ruled that through its long lack of objection and its accepting and benefiting from other parts of a border treaty that grew from the 1904 commission's work, Thailand had in effect accepted the 1907 map, overriding any question of the watershed line, and that the temple belonged to Cambodia. The court declined to take up the question of whether the border as mapped in the vicinity of the temple corresponded to the watershed line. Thailand accepted the court's decision, but many Thais continue to believe that the decision was unfair. The accepted border line now passes just a few meters from the base of the southern steps.

In January 2000 this ancient place on Cambodian territory was opened for visitors a short time. My home place in Bangkok is opposite of the Thai Forest Department and we've very good connections to the officers who immediately informed us that this place we could have to visit. Due the permanent conflict between the local Cambodian and Thai officers about making the tourist business this very interesting and amazing place is closed for the public most of the time. Several attempts were made after 1991 to open Khao Phra Vihaan to visitors. This was intermittently successfully but the complex tended to close frequently due to the propensity of Khmer Rouge guerilla units to reoccupy the complex at will. This caused numerous clashes between Cambodian Government and Khmer Rouge forces between 1993 and 1997. After the death of the Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in 1998 and the eradication of the last Khmer Rouge bases in the area, Khao Phra Vihaan finally reopened to visitors. From that time the only hiccups tended to be bureaucratic, caused by disputes between Thai and Cambodian Officials over dividing up the admission fees to the Complex. For people interested in Khmer monuments together with contemporary history, a place to see is Khao Phra Vihaan in the Isaan province of Sisaket . The monument on the Thai/Cambodia border sits astride a sheer drop mountain ridge on the Dangrek mountain range with sweeping views across North-West Cambodia. Although the monument appears to be on Thai territory, the Temple complex itself actually belongs to Cambodia. This was due to a World Court decision in 1963 recognising in practical terms that the complex was on Thai soil due to its general inaccessibility from Cambodia, but in the end still declared in Cambodia's favour because of its strong connection to the Angkor period of temple construction. Although the complex slumbered out of world view for centuries Khao Phra Vihaan has not escaped the consequences of modern times. After the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia in 1975 and its subsequent defeat by the Vietnamese in 1978, remnants of the Khmer Rouge occupied the complex and surrounding forests. In doing this they seeded the local area and the complex itself with land mines, constructed bomb shelters and even installed some artillery pieces. 1998 I made my first attempt to visit Khao Phra Vihaan. After passing through several Thai Army checkpoints, I reached the border, but couldn't enter the complex due to the reoccupation of the monument by a Khmer Rouge Unit. In 2000, my wife and I tried another visit; we were successful and the following is what happened on our one day visit to Khao Phra Vihaan. Together with my wife Salama, we traveled from the village of Ban Puthsa in Korat province. Like the Khmer Temple at Phanom Rung Hill in Buriram province, the structure of Khao Phra Vihaan is long and narrow with steep stone staircases leading to long/narrow boulevards which in turn lead to further staircases up to the next level of the complex. After years of sloth and overeating, Salama and I looked up at the staircase with trepidation but commenced to climb. The broken and uneven stones made ascending difficult but we finally made it. Once we had made it to the top of the staircase, we came across a long narrow paved walkway which lead up to the next part of the complex. Again we were confronted by another modern reality in post war Cambodia - landmines. Although the walkway was safe, roped off areas on both sides with skull and crossbones warning signs were an appropriate warning that landmines and other unexploded ordnance still awaited the unwary. Teams of engineers were in the roped off areas and were painstakingly searching every square centimetre of earth. The further we walked and climbed into the complex we were entranced by the atmosphere of the place. Because we had arrived early there were only a handful of tourists. The tumbledown nature of the place with most of the stone structures in disrepair did nothing to distract from the magic that is Khao Phra Vihaan. Even amongst the ruins one could only marvel at the vision and patience that would have been required to build such a place. Our walk now was drawing us up to the top of the complex, and it felt like walking along the back of a stone serpent sitting flush against the mountain ridge. We again found further evidence of the previous occupancy by the Khmer Rouge - two bomb shelters, a crashed down chopper and an old artillery piece of either Chinese or Soviet make. At the the top of the complex we stopped and looked out at across Cambodia. Down we could see a still green terrain, dirt roads and at the sides a sheer rocky drop right down to Cambodia. Sitting on a rocky outcrop with my wife I rediscovered my fear of heights but nothing could take away the magic of the moment. By the time of opening the ancient place the number of visitors had markedly increased, including a party of Buddhist Monks who posed for a Photograph. I would certainly suggest any visitor to Isaan to make a visit to Khao Phra Vihaan if their will be further opportunities to step on Cambodian territories and the senseless conflict between the Thai/Cambodian local officers will find an end. Money shouldn't be the reason to detain culture interested visitors this value historical treasure, this should get soon in their mind. If any place can be called as a "must" destination, Khao Phra Vihaan it is.

Gopura of the Third Level is the biggest and the most completed gopura; the building is similar to gopura of the first and second level. Beyond, there is a wall or a pa-rapet round a palace which archeologists calls prasat.