The Temples of Angkor, Cambodia

Have flown into Siem Reap and donned our Indiana Jones hats to search, not for the Temple of Doom, but the awesome Temples of Angkor. Using Cambodia's top tourist destination as a base to explore, among other sacred sites, Angkor Wat, the eighth wonder of the world and the largest religious structure on Planet Earth - a completely realised microcosm of the Hindu universe. Find ourselves a sweet little French-run family guesthouse Le Tigre de Papier which sits on a red dirt track road - a veritable dustbowl - away from the beating heart of the city itself. Owner is a delightful laidback guy from Toulouse and his local Cambodian staff utterly charming. Nothing is too much trouble for them. Picked up at the airport by a tuk-tuk driver who charges us a very reasonable five dollars for a 15-minute ride to hotel. Introduces himself as Lacky, and asks us whether we would be prepared to let him be our driver over the next few days. Like most Cambodians we come across, Lacky has a winning smile and easy-going nature, so we strike up a deal with him to take us Indiana-style into the network of stupendous ancient monuments built by the mighty Khmers between the 8th and 13th Centuries. Angkor Wat, constructed 1113-1150 during the reign of King Suryavarman II, is the stuff of legend - and we see it in all its glory at sunrise, Lacky having spirited us there in his tuk-tuk after 5am (Aaaargh) pick-up. It is the grandest and most sublime of all the Khmer temples. Dedicated to Hindu god Vishnu, it is an architectural masterpiece, the magical five tower structure surrounded by an enormous 190-metre wide water-filled moat. After crossing a broad causeway we enter the temple - its galleries, mysterious corridors and terraces climbing skywards take our breath away. The sheer size and scale - total area of almost 200 hectares - defies belief. While the moat represents the mythical oceans surrounding the earth, the succession of galleries symbolise the ranges that surround Mount Meru, the home of the gods, and its five staggering towers (now we know where Manhattan's roots lie) the peaks. The wow factor is undeniable, but strangely, and despite its total and absolute majesty - it may be something to do with the swarms of visitors who throng to it (okay, we were there too) - Angkor Wat, we feel, has pretenders to its throne. Lacky is proving lucky for us and knows his way around some of the lesser-known sites built by a succession of Hindu and Buddhist kings. Among them are the enigmatic and complex Bayon, its 54 towers decorated with more than 200 huge smiling faces; the amazing Ta Prohm. which has been left as it was discovered in a jungle-like state (its pink and green-hued walls are covered in lichen and moss, while centuries-old trees wrap their branches like tentacles around its walls); and, last but not least - and our particular favourite - the tumbledown grace of Preah Khan, a maze of coal black corridors illuminated by glorious bursts of dazzling light at journey's end. Staring down them is like looking into a hundred mirrors - infinity perhaps. Linger long enough and you become aware of an almost hypnotic effect. Did the phrase light at the end of the tunnel originate here perhaps? It would not surprise us if it did. These were just some of the several highlights - the sublime Banteay Srei, boasting some of the best preserved stone carvings, is another unmissable gem. There are so many temples, both large and small, it's like an assault on the senses (in the best possible way, of course). We scratched the surface - tip of the iceberg - over three days, but to really get into the underbelly of this labyrinthine world would take months and months, if not years. All we can say is that in our short time here we gave the temples - as many as you could pack into any given day - our best shot (aching limbs surely the testament). We loved exploring this wonder world of stone - and learning about a civilization which created such spellbinding images and intricate and elaborate carvings. The good, unfortunately, has to be tempered with a little bad and the one downside comes with, what is in all essence, the begging of small children, pleading with us to buy some little trinkets from them ''for a dolla''. It's hard to say no to them - they are full of smiles and mean well. But there is also a sense of desperation about their persistency. We feel - rightly or wrongly - that they are being exploited by adults, sent to the entrances of temples to bring home the tourist dollar. Chris handles it well. John, while sympathetic to the plight of these poor (and they are truly poor) kids, finds the constant hassle hard work (maybe it's a guilt factor thing). Believe us, though, when you have heard ''Where you from, buy from me, give me dolla'' repeated constantly over a 10-12 hour spell your patience starts to wear thin. Being much the nicer person, Chris buys a few items from them at various temple sites. The problem is that two cheeky young ones can quickly multiply to 20 once your wallet comes out - all insisting that you buy something from them.

Also, while most are appealing, there are hints of aggression from others. A plague of locusts (albeit it without the destruction) springs to mind. but it's tough to refuse. Here we are Westerners with money in our pockets in a land where poverty has no margins. However much as we want to help, giving money to these kids is not the answer. We can't escape the feeling that this use of young people to sell knick-knacks and postcards is wrong and are not fooled into thinking that they get to keep any money handed over to them. Oliver Twist is hard at work in the heart of Cambodia, while Fagin waits in the murky shadows to count his fistfull of 'dollas'. Preachy? Maybe. It's just that we feel strongly about it - plain and simple. Over to Bob or Bono. Live Aid 2012? Anyway (rant over) after exhausting, but truly exhilarating, days climbing terraces and towers, clambering through ruins and remains, discovering hidden and secret corners - and fending off the unwanted attention of the, by and large, rather lovely local 'locusts' - our evenings are mostly spent recovering slowly in the bars and restaurants that make Siem Reap a lively place to stay. It was on the very aptly-named Pub Street (yup, believe it or not, it has a very Wind Street feel about it) that we enjoyed a reunion with young London couple Sam and Polly, who we first met in Fiji some seven months ago. Like ourselves, Sam and Polly are travelling the world (they are going at it full on for a year with an incredible itinerary that makes ours look like a two-week holiday in Barry Island). We struck up a great friendship in Fiji, so we were just so pleased to catch up with them all this time later here in, of all places, Cambodia. Several Ankor beers later (what can the brew be possibly named after?), some hearty nosh and comparing travel adventures - theirs are mind-blowing - we say our farewells and wonder whether we will meet again in Vietnam, next destination in South-East Asia for both the Walters and the Masons. They start the latest leg of their journey in the south, while we begin in the north. It would not surprise us were our paths to cross again somewhere in the middle.