This was a short day trip out of Siem Reap on the moto to find out if the two ancient bridges still existed north of the “firehouse” known as Seman Teng, but like any trip, there’s always a bit more than you expect. It’s not so easy to follow the ancient road in its entirety but this stretch is passable, somewhat preserved from becoming farmland leaving options open for future generations.
First stop was Nokor Pheas, heading out of Siem Reap on the National Road 6 to the city of Pouk then turning right onto road 202 and following that for around 16 km until reaching a red dirt road that heads almost directly north to the southeast corner of the basin at Nokor Pheas. At the time, this road was mostly OK.
The basin here is large measuring some 600m x 390m and tightly surrounded by dwellings backing up to the water’s edge. Just north of the northeast corner of the basin, there is a monastery and ancient moated temple site, Wat Angkor Pheas, featuring a collection of remains belonging to the ancient temple that once occupied the site.
From there, following a dirt road in great condition that leads east-northeast direction for about 5 km, and with Prasat Seman Teng directly to the north, there’s a moto trail that in a round-about way, and through deep sand in parts, leads to the ancient temple/firehouse. Google maps shows a trail leading to Seman Teng that is kind of correct, but like any trail in Cambodia, it changes after every flooding.
The temple itself has mostly collapsed but a few interesting features can still be made out, more about that on its page here.
Heading northwest from Seman Teng and following the old ancient route through barrelled tree cover and plowing through deep sand, there is Spean Phneak Dai, a small 20 m laterite bridge. This is another surviving section of the ancient royal road that would have once connected Angkor all the way to Phimai.
Continuing ahead and then taking a side trail to the east and crossing a field to a cluster of trees that hides a mostly dry moat and the remains of Prasat Smonh. Not much remains of the brick temple bar some partially excavated base structures and rubble.
Back onto the ancient road, and a little more plowing through deep sand, to eventually reach Spean Thma which is a small but oddly charming little laterite bridge seemingly home to a family of chickens with a couple of adjacent shacks although nobody home at the time of visiting.
From here it’s pretty easy to get back onto a nice red laterite road and head into the village of Kcha where there is Wat Khca, an old pagoda perhaps 40 or more years old, acting as a time-vault for a collection of beautiful wooden statuary and interesting murals.
For me, it was time to head back and an easy ride home to Siem Reap following a dirt road past the eastern side of Nokor Pheas basin and then back onto sealed roads the rest of the way.
Map for this trip
You can see more of the ancient road in the list of posts that follow or the see full map (so far) here.