Cambodia — Arriving to Ta Prohm Temple

The next temple on our tour this Thursday, 6 November 2025, was the Buddhist temple of Ta Prohm. If Ta Prohm looks cinematically familiar, here’s a clue as to why: it also goes by two other names — Tomb Raider Temple and Angelina Jolie Temple. Yes, that means this was indeed a location for the 2001 film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. And looking at the eerie shot above, it’s easy to see why the location was chosen. Portions of the temple is overrun with spung trees (Tetrameles nudiflora). These massive trees can grow to 145 feet/45 meters in height and spread out some 33 feet/10 meters at the base.

All in all, it gives off a creepy (pun intended) vibe as you can see in this shot:

Spung trees have “sprung” up at Ta Prohm

The temple itself is as intriguing as it is spooky, and it takes a short while to explore it.

For one thing, this is a pretty popular location that does draw a crowd:

But it is not so crowded that you won’t be able to get some people-free photos, as long as you’re willing to wait a few moments:

Ta Prohm Temple was completed in 1186, which makes it 840 years old this year, but the site was surrendered to the jungle at the end of the Khmer Empire in the early 15th century. In the early 20th century, when the decision was made to begin restoring the temples of Angkor, Ta Prohm was left mostly alone by the French School of the Far East (EFEO — the organization charged with preserving and restoring Angkor since 1907) because it was, “one of the most imposing [temples] and the one which had best merged with the jungle, but not yet to the point of becoming a part of it.”