War with Cambodia

It is very poor though. Poverty like nowhere I had ever been before so that takes some getting used to.

Clearly you've never spent any time visiting the "impoverished" farmers of Northeastern Thailand.

[TrongpaiExpat]

I've read a few books on Angkor and then spent a week there. The best book is called "Angkor" and is available at Asia Books. No one has really been able to explain why so many temples were built all clustered around the same spot at different times. Were they only religious buildings or administrative too? What happen to the civilization? The last theory I read about was they simply expanded beyond the capacity of the land to support the population used up all the resources and declined.

Although the Eonommist is supposedly meant to be a quality read - a lot of stuff is just plain boring.

Too many long words for you, WhiteDesire?

... and too many short words for you to understand!

[Beachlover]

You should know that all of hummingturd's "wisdom" comes from one of three places: the Economist, Slate, or Stickman Weekly.

ROFL

[ceejay]

Fedssocr
Thank you for the trouble you took with your post. It is very helpful to me - I will definitely add a stop to Phnom Kulen to the trip out to Beng Melea. Thanks also for the photographs - I can't wait to see it all for myself.

All the best

You should know that all of hummingturd's "wisdom" comes from one of three places: the Economist, Slate, or Stickman Weekly.

ROFL

That is an outrageous slur on my character. I am an assiduous reader of Aunty's life's work, Nuclear Physics for the Under Fives

Did it just get abandoned and overgrown by forest?

No, it was sacked by the Thais in 1431

I hadn't known that! I only just suspected that after having read the book.

Did it just get abandoned and overgrown by forest?

No, it was sacked by the Thais in 1431

I hadn't known that! I only just suspected that after having read the book.

It was never actually "abandoned" totally, as in "deserted", although Angkor was abandoned as a city as fedssocr points out. Certainly talking to some of the predominantly Khmer Rouge locals some time before it became overgrown by tourists, they considered that its "discovery" by Henri Mouhot in 1861 was anything but news to the Khmer people.