Banteay Chmar temple

This temple is a huge and beautiful pile of ruins.  It was built by the same great King who built Angkor Thom, to commemorate a decisive battle that was won here (against the Chams from what is now Viet Nam).  Four fallen warriors were honored here, each with a large dedicated stupa tower.  The largest central stupa, the fifth, was dedicated to the Kings son, who also died in battle.  

This temple has a large reservoir surrounding it that the villagers still use as their main water source.  But the history of this temple is tragic.  Abandoned as an active site of worship, and depopulated by centuries of border wars with Thailand, the temple was largely forgotten in this remote area of the country.  While trees grew on the temple buildings and walls crumbled, it was largely unlooted until the 1990s, when the Cambodian military actively looted the area to sell to wealthy Thais.  Walls were destroyed to carve out faces, statues were removed wholesale or beheaded, painted ceramic wall tiles were torn from the walls.  The temple  was literally destroyed by its own people.  Now there is a small scale restoration funded by the World Heritage Fund, and there are paths and a few sets of stairs to make it more accessible.  All of the stones have been logged and numbered and they are using a computer program  to piece walls back together.  Fortunately this style of building--where they carved the stones after they were in place--means that some of the carved Buddha heads and friezes will be salvageable.  They have already pieced together one of the long friezes on the main wall of the temple.  This scene records the great battle commemorated by the temple--weapons, battle scenes, elephant warriors, battleships, with the dead crushed or even being eaten by crocodiles in the water.  

It was a rough walk in the mud and 

Imperfect paths.  The heat began to rise again and the mud began to steam.  Real life "tomb-raiding" would be hot, dirty, sweaty work. Still worth it though.