On 16th June, my guide was waiting for me at the front door of the hotel at 8 am to take me to Ta Keo – a pyramidal Hindu temple build on a slight hill. There was nobody else there apart from the security guard – that is if you can call a 13 year old with an AK47 a security guard…

More scary that this, was that from the distant hills there was the distinct sound of gunfire. “Khmer Rouge still fighting,” said my guide, with a shrug of his shoulders. I don’t think he or I expected this 13 year old to do anything other than run away – however proudly he carried his Kalashnikov – should the gunfire get closer. From Ta Keo, we carried on to Ta Phrom.

Ta Phrom was one of those places that you wouldn’t believe could exist in real life, or if it did exist, it was because it was an Indiana Jones movie set, created by someone with an excessively fertile imagination. It has been left as apparently most of the smaller temples of Angkor Wat were, when they were “discovered” by European historians in the 1860s.

It wasn’t so much “overgrown”, as providing a very graphic demonstration of the process by which trees will literally rip buildings apart, when given the chance…

We have to assume that trees will ultimately outlast humans, and that even the most magnificent creations of mankind will eventually be reduced to rubble by this perfectly natural process. In one place the “hands” of a tree seemed to be reaching out, searching for bits of building to pull apart…

I couldn’t understand why so many trees decided that it was a good idea to start growing on the stone roofs of the buildings.

Compared with the last guard, the guard at this temple was quite elderly – 18 years old! Note how the root of the tree above is forcing the stonework apart…

We headed back to Siem Reap for lunch, with me somewhat relieved when the the distant gunfire was out of earshot.

The French diplomats were at the restaurant, meaning that half the visitors to Siem Reap were present… There was a wedding going on at a large table outside the restaurant – there are only a handful of places to eat in Siem Reap and the best one clearly doubles as a reception venue.

My guide earlier told me that under the Khmer Rouge there were mass forced marriages – boys would line up randomly on one side of an official, girls would line up on the other side, and couples would be formed one by one, and whoever happened to be opposite you when you reached the front of the queue was your spouse. Children were forcibly taken away from couples at an early age to be “educated” in the ways of the revolution.

Mid afternoon saw us back at the temples, admiring the towers of Prasat Krawan, where a lot of young children were playing. Some had shoes and clothes – others weren’t so lucky…

From there my guide took me to Banteay Kdei which he said was used as a hideout by the Khmer Rouge when they were still occupying this area.

The carvings had survived, but there were bullet holes in evidence all over the place – clearly the guerillas had not departed willingly. I found an AK-47 cartridge case on the ground nearby and figured that I’d keep it as a rather grim souvenir.

The final stop of the afternoon was Srah Srang, a rectangular artificial lake with small temples on the edge – it made a welcome change from the thick gloomy destructive forest. I sat there for a while just chatting to my guide. He says he is studying to be a doctor… he certain is smart and knowledgeable, and his English is good.

I made the mistake of complaining to him about the cost of the hotel which, at $18 per night, is the most expensive place I’ve stayed all trip… this, in what is otherwise a very cheap and very poor country. He immediately took me through a cash flow analysis of the hotel, and he proved with mathematics that once the cost of the fuel for the generator was taken into account, and considering the small number of people staying there, the cost was quite reasonable.

I had a rice meal at the same restaurant where I had lunch earlier. I was just leaving to walk back to the hotel, when a young lady walked up alongside and shyly asked in broken English, and with total astonishment, “Are you tourist??”. I said: “Yes – I am,” and told her I was from England and was travelling round the world.

Her face lit up on hearing this and she said: “Tourists coming back to Cambodia now – this so good! Thank you, thank you!”. I smiled back happily. Then I noticed she was smiling only with her mouth. Her eyes had the “thousand yard stare” of one who has suffered far too much. She was still smiling when I suddenly waved goodbye and turned towards the hotel before she could see my eyes fill with tears.

The evening was spend writing a few postcards. I attempted to describe the impact Cambodia is having on me so far – and I failed miserably…