The majesty of the crumbling palaces

IN Cambodia, we met our son and his girlfriend, fresh from their two-day voyage on a slow boat down the Mekong from north Thailand into Laos, and cheerful despite their 20-hour bus journey to meet us at Siem Reap.

Angkor Wat, with its once-upon-a-time cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces, lies just outside the town.

Together with other palaces and temples, some cloaked in jungle — and Angkor Thom, a large, moated town — it draws two million visitors annually. It is a wonder of the world, the testament to a once-powerful medieval Khymer dynasty, its towers now tumbled, its walls crumbling, the serene expressions of the bare-breasted maidens depicted in the stone-carved friezes now, in many cases, defaced. These friezes tell stories of wars and conquest and of the daily life of farmers, fishermen and merchants, as in a picture book.