Phrea Vihear temple was built at the end of 9^th century and at the beginning of 10^th century by four Khmer kings. Though officially a part of Cambodian territory, the temple can be visited from both the Thai and Cambodian sides of the border. The hilltop temple is reachable by a steep ascent from the Cambodian side but a more gently sloping ascent from the Thai side.

Access Point from Thailand
the temple is located about 630 kilometres from Bangkok and 95 kilometres from Si Sa Ket province. Visitors travel through the Khao Phra Viharn national park in Si Sa Ket and Ubon Ratchathani provinces. The park has numerous other natural attractions like waterfalls, caves and walking trails which are open to visitors.

Thai visitors have to pay 20 baht, and international visitors 200 baht to enter the national park, and a further 50 baht or 200 baht respectively to enter the Khao Phra Viharn area. Passports are not necessary for foreign visitors.

Access Point from Cambodia
There are two access points on the Cambodian side 405 kilometres from Phnom Penh or 108 kilometres from the provincial town of Phrea Vihear.

Phrea Vihear was the subject of a territorial dispute between Thailand and Cambodia for several years but was officially declared to be a part of Cambodia in 1962.

ANCIENT KHMER MONUMENTS IN NORTHEAST THAILAND (I-SAN)
From Asia's earliest bronze-age culture 4,000 years ago to present-day Thai nationhood, Thailand’s northeastern region or ‘I-san’ has played a role in virtually every key historical transition mainland Southeast Asia has seen. During the 10^th and 11^th centuries, the Khmers added Hinduism to the region.

Rising above the high plains of Isan (northeastern Thailand), man-made stone peaks today bear witness to the half a millennium reign of a powerful Khmer state which flourished in this region as well as northwestern Cambodia from the 9^th to 14^th centuries. Often erected on hilltops, these extraordinary towers comprise parts of a temple architecture meant to symbolise Mount Meru, the mythical peak at the centre of the Hindu-Buddhist universe.

Sometimes referred to as 'high Cambodia,' the provinces of Buriram, Surin, Nakhon Ratchasima, Surin and Sisaket became an choice locale for the development of these Meru microcosms. To the east of Isan's temple-dotted plateaus lay the river valleys of 'low Cambodia', the monarchical capital of the Angkor civilization.

Although Thai folk belief once held that the larger, cruciform-plan monuments served as 'palaces' for Angkor's all-powerful kings, in fact these buildings were designed as temporary abodes for Shiva, Vishnu, Maitreya and other Hindu or Buddhist deities called to earth via religious ritual.

A sacred 'superhighway' linked Prasat Phimai with 12^th-century Angkor Wat, the largest and most complex of the Khmer temples. Angkor rulers were at the time considered to be devaraja or 'god-kings', and to maintain that vaunted status they and their priests periodically travelled between key monuments to perform complex ceremonies involving fire, water, and linga (sanctified stone sculptures representing Shiva's phallus).

Monuments en route offered spiritual and temporal support along these potentially arduous journeys, including 102 'houses with fire' and 121 'hospitals' or 'healing stations'. These structures became so important to the sanctity of the Angkor empire that some 300 Khmer shrines were erected between the 7^th and 13^th centuries. Temple construction reached its zenith in the 12^th and 13^th centuries.

After a period of mixing the two religions, Hinduism prevailed and Buddhism declined. Mahayana Buddhism was revived during the reign of last great Angkor king, Jayavarman VII (1181-1219 AD).

Although often overlooked in favour of the famed Angkor city complex in Cambodia, the Khmer monuments of I-san represent key architectural milestones in the development of Angkor design and ritual. In fact virtually every Angkor-period monument played a role in an elaborate cosmology that linked the entire network, half of which lay in what is today Thailand.

A News Room Guide to Khmer Art & Architecture
Please click to view

Configuration & Construction
Khmer temple complexes either line up along a single axis or else are grouped in a square or rectangle around a central monument. Prasat Khao Phra Viharn is an example of sites which follow the axil plan, while Prasat Muang Tam and Prasat Phimai were built around a central plan. Some sites, such as the magnificent Prasat Phanom Rung, combine the two, placing a walled quadrangle complex at the end of an axil series of structures. Only Khmer monuments found in Thailand, in fact, exhibit this axil-central combination.

Click to expand Axil construction Prasat Khao Phra Viharn

Click to expand Central construction Prasat Hin Phimai

Click to expand Prasat Phanom Rung The combined "Axil" and "Central Plan" construction is unique to the Khmer structures in Thailand. In Cambodia, it is one or the other.

Contact information:
TAT NORTHEASTERN OFFICE - REGION 2
(Ubon Ratchthani, Amnat Charoen, Si Sa Ket and Yasothon)
Tel: +66 (0) 4524 3770, 4525 0714
Fax: +66 (0) 45243771
E-mail: tatubon@tat.or.th