The Temples of Angkor (including Angkor Wat) are the written history of the Khmer people in the sandstone of time, set upon by gold-leafed banyan trees and discovered anew but us. The temples rise with the sun, breathtaking lotus flowers arching high into the air, monuments to a proud people once the largest city in the world with one million inhabitants, now the lively hood of several thousand. The spirited people who live here need these temples less as a source for enlightenment than as a source for food. Climbing narrow treacherous steps -- for it is said it should not be any easy thing to reach the hand of God -- one gazes out upon the fertile valleys and Tonlé Sap lake and can't help but wonder what it must be like to be king.

Or at least those were my thoughts in a heat induced stupor at Ta Prohm temple, much like Coleridge's Opium Dream of Xanadu. (Not to even suggest there is a literal comparison. As if.)

The many doorways and passages offer a glimpse through time making a nice focal point to the photo essay starting below.

A week is not enough time to capture the true essence of these many temples and palaces. While the bulk of the tourists leave for a hotel to eat lunch, stay behind and eat a picnic in the cool, musty corridors that smell of time itself.

A short history of a long churning

Angkor, in northwestern Cambodia, is the site where Khmer kings established their capitals from the ninth to the twelfth century. Angkor was a highly developed civilization, as demonstrated by its temples, sculpture and bas-reliefs, as well as its elaborate irrigation system. Today, Angkor is an extensive archaeological site covering more than 400-square kilometers. More than 100 temples can be seen there. However, civil houses, including palaces, which were built with wood, no longer exist. Up to the twelfth century, kings were Hindu. At the end of this century, a Buddhist king built a number of temple complexes.

The archaeological site includes many treasures, the most beautiful of which is the Hindu temple of Angkor Wat, constructed during the first half of twelfth century. The last capital was Angkor Thom, a city of nine-square kilometers, in the middle of which was built the Bayon, around 1200. It's remarkable for the 40 faces carved into sand stone blocks. It underwent important changes until the end of the century. At this time, Angkor kings were the masters of the most important empire in Southeast Asia.

The power of the Khmer kings gradually decreased, and after the middle of fifteenth century, Angkor was just the center of a small kingdom until the end of sixteenth century. Threats to the archaeological site of Angkor include looting, vandalism and natural forces. In 1860, French explorer Henri Mouhot encountered Angkor and drew the attention of the western world to the site. Soon after, there were several expeditions which occasionally removed sculptures from Angkor and other sites in Cambodia, and brought them back to Paris, along with many mouldings shown presently in Musée Guimet. From 1908 to 1970, the Conservation d'Angkor protected Angkor. During the genocide and years after, Angkor was inaccessible and the site suffered from neglect.