Cambodia

Angkor

April 2010 • Avoided most of the tourist crush by visiting during the hottest month of the year. When my shirt finally dried at the end of each day, there'd be white streaks all over it from the salt I'd lost. The Khmer people were way more durable when they quarried sandstone at a site 50 km away and transported it to Angkor using elephants, rafts, and a system of canals. They stacked the huge blocks into homes for the gods and carved the stone to intricate perfection. The town of Siem Reap has similarly mushroomed during the past couple of decades and now hosts 2 million tourists annually. They drag themselves through the boomtown ruins, usually during morning hours when the heat is more bearable, and afterward their discomforts are sanded down by a surplus of luxury hotels, bistros, bars, and spas. At what point, I wonder, will these newer buildings become the stuff of package tours and bucket lists?