A year ago today, I was here in Phimai, home of a grand Angkorian-Khmer temple and the end of the Dhammasala Route. Ringing in my birthday on a street corner bar’s table full of old British expats and their Thai wifes, this little little town was described to me as nice and charming and boring as all hell.
The modern town is built around a park containing the central monument, Prasat Hin Phimai. A curious fact about the Phimai temple is that it is one of only 2 temples whose main entrances do not to face east toward the rising sun. One is Angkor Wat, facing west toward the setting sun as it served as a funerary temple.
Phimai’s temple entrance and main gate face neither east nor west, but instead face southeast in the direction of the the Khmer masterpieces at Angkor in modern-day Siem Reap, Cambodia.
