“One of these temples – a rival to that of Solomon and erected by some ancient Michelangelo might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings,” he wrote. “It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome, and presents a sad contrast to the state of barbarism in which the nation is now plunged.”

It seemed inconceivable to Mouhout that the “barbaric” Khmers could have built Angkor Wat, let alone the other temples and palaces spread around it across some 500 acres (2 sq km). But, the Khmers did build Angkor Wat at the zenith of their once dynamic empire that, founded in 802, fell in 1431 when the rival Ayutthaya (Thai) kingdom to the north sacked Angkor. The seat of the remnant Khmer kingdom moved to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital today.

Stranded in the jungle

Although Angkor Wat and its attendant cities, temples, reservoirs, terraces, pools and palaces have been a magnetic 21st Century tourist attraction – when I came here in the mid-1990s I would have been one of around 7,500 annual visitors; last year there were 2.5 million, very many from China.