Stone causeway
Lotus-bud posts.
Leelaryonkul — CC BY-SA 4.0 · กสิณธร ราชโอรส — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Z3144228 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · กสิณธร ราชโอรส — CC BY-SA 4.0 · กสิณธร ราชโอรส — CC BY-SA 4.0
Phanom Rung Historical Park is an archaeological site in Buriram Province in the Isan region of northeast Thailand, covering the ruins of a Khmer Empire temple on the rim of an extinct volcano at 402 metres, about 54 km south of Buriram town and 277 km east of Bangkok in a straight line. The temple was built of sandstone and laterite between the 10th and 13th centuries in several phases. King Suryavarman II built the central sanctuary in the 12th century, and two libraries were added in the 13th. The site began as a Hindu temple and later became Buddhist. Visitors approach along a long stone causeway lined with small lotus-bud posts, then cross bridges guarded by many-headed stone serpents and climb a broad stairway to the gate. The pinkish central tower rises above a courtyard ringed by stone galleries, with green forest on the hillside all around. On a few days a year, around April and September, the sun rises or sets through all fifteen of the temple's doorways in a single line, and a festival marks the event in April. The nearby Muang Tam temple makes a good pairing.
Lotus-bud posts.
Pink stone.
April and September.
Buriram Province, Isan, northeast Thailand
Muang Tam temple, about 6 km away.
November to February.