Wat Krabi Riel (Prei Phdau Temple)

Located around 8km to the southwest of the Siem Reap city center, Wat Krabi Riel is a contemporary monastery and pagoda built atop an ancient temple site recorded as Prasat Prei Phdau. Believed to be the remains of a brick temple site, remnants still seen today around the pagoda include a few sandstone features such as a nine-diety panel, a column fragment and carved block.

The pagoda itself features some unique murals and the site is quite a peaceful and charming place to visit.

In the very early 1900s, French visited the site publishing the earliest (and only) report on the site

Prasat Prei Phadau (The Rattan Forest Shrine): Prei Phadau pagoda, about 2.3 km west and a little north of the previous one, occupies the site surrounded by well-maintained ponds covered with lotuses, with a sras to the east of an ancient temple whose sanctuary was a group of five brick buildings. They were completely razed ten years ago. One still finds, however, in the vihara or its surroundings, a stele with nine figures of mutilated divinities, pedestals and a fragment of a small column, as well as various pieces of worked and molded sandstone.

Inventaire descriptif des monuments du Cambodge. Tome 3 / par E. Lunet de Lajonquière, 1902-1912

Rodney Charles LHuillier

Living in Asia for over a decade and now residing in beautiful Siem Reap. Rodney Charles L'Huillier has spent over seven years in Cambodia and is the author of Ancient Cambodia (2024) and Essential Siem Reap (2017, 2019). Contact via [email protected] - more..