Most people come to Angkor for the giants, Angkor Wat and the Bayon, but the temple that many remember best is small, pink and astonishingly intricate. Banteay Srei, the "citadel of the women", stands about twenty-five kilometres northeast of the main Angkor group, and it was consecrated in 967, earlier than the great royal temples. It was built not by a king but by a high-ranking courtier, the Brahmin Yajnavaraha, and dedicated to Shiva. Its reddish sandstone is fine-grained and easy to carve, and the result is decoration so delicate it looks almost like woodwork: lintels with scenes from Hindu epics, female guardian deities in niches, and foliage spiralling across every surface.
The temple is surrounded by moats and enclosures, and its scale is intimate, with doorways so low you have to stoop. French archaeologists restored it in the 1930s using a technique called anastylosis, rebuilding with original stones, and it became the first temple at Angkor to be restored this way. The temple was also the scene of a famous theft in 1923, when the young French writer André Malraux tried to remove carved figures and was arrested, an episode that later fed into his novel.
The ride from Siem Reap is a pleasure, at least once you leave the town traffic behind. The road heads northeast through flat countryside of rice paddies, sugar palms and stilt houses, with villages selling palm sugar along the roadside. The surface is generally good, the gradients nil, and the main hazards are cows, dogs, scooters and children on bicycles. Beyond Banteay Srei, the road continues toward the Phnom Kulen hills and the riverbed carvings of Kbal Spean. The dry season, from November to March, is the best time to visit; the rainy season brings humidity and downpours, and the hot season is fierce.
Fuel is easily found in Siem Reap, and roadside stalls in the villages sell petrol in bottles. There are food stalls and restaurants near the temple entrance, serving Khmer dishes such as amok, a fish curry steamed in banana leaves, and fresh coconuts. You will need an Angkor pass to enter. Arrive early, when the light makes the pink stone glow and the crowds are thin, and take your time with the carvings. The detail repays patience.