Cambodia: Full Moon Over Angkor

Under the glimmering Cambodian sky, I found myself working in a country poised delicately between recovery and renewal. It was 1997, barely two decades after the devastation of the Khmer Rouge, and only a few years after the UN-brokered peace accords. Siem Reap was still a quiet provincial town—dusty roads, wooden houses, and a rhythm of life shaped more by rice cycles than visitor itineraries. Tourism, as the world now knows it, had not yet arrived. Angkor Wat loomed nearby not as a global icon but as a constant, almost intimate presence—ancient stone rising from jungle and memory.

Riding a borrowed motorcycle along narrow dirt trails, my headlight cutting through early morning mist, I travelled between scattered schools, small health clinics, and modest local government offices tucked into the countryside surrounding the Angkor complex. It was impossible not to feel the weight of history here: in the 13th century, this region had supported the largest city the world had ever known, home to roughly one million people—an urban and hydraulic marvel centuries ahead of its time.

I was there on behalf of the United Nations Capital Development Fund, documenting the impact of development interventions aimed at alleviating poverty and strengthening local governance. Our work focused on empowering district and commune authorities—helping them plan, budget, and deliver basic services that people could see and trust. I spent my days listening: to teachers describing classrooms rebuilt with local funds, to nurses explaining how small investments transformed access to care, to village leaders learning, often for the first time, that they had both responsibility and agency.

Travel between sites was slow and often solitary. As I rode deeper into the forest, ruins would suddenly appear—collapsed walls swallowed by vines, massive trees growing straight out of centuries-old stone. These encounters felt almost accidental, as if the jungle were quietly reclaiming its secrets.

Among my most lasting memories is the Bayon, its serene stone faces watching over Angkor Thom, a reminder of King Jayavarman VII’s Buddhist vision of compassion and order. Long before the crowds, the souvenir stalls, and the sunrise queues, Cambodia revealed itself to me as a place of resilience—where ancient grandeur, recent trauma, and cautious hope coexisted along the same winding paths.

As daylight faded, the practical rhythms of my work—meetings, interviews, long rides between villages—gave way to something quieter and more contemplative. Evenings in Siem Reap were unhurried then, untouched by nightlife or tour buses, and the ancient temples seemed to reclaim the landscape once the sun slipped below the trees. After days spent documenting budgets, classrooms, and clinics—modern acts of rebuilding layered atop centuries of rise and collapse—I felt drawn back to Angkor itself.

These stones had seen empires flourish and fade, wars rage, and forests advance and retreat. They offered perspective in a country relearning how to imagine its own future.

On the evening of a full moon, the landscape bathed in a soft silver glow, I traveled into the ruins and stood alone before the awe-inspiring Bayon temple. As if drawn by some unseen force, I climbed higher and higher until I found myself in a spot where I could witness the grandeur of the carved faces on the temple's exterior walls and the majestic rise of the full moon above the jungle canopy.

As the full moon ascended, casting its ethereal light over the temple, a moment of pure magic unfolded. The celestial glow kissed the massive stone faces, giving them an eerie semblance of life. The profound serenity was interrupted only by the occasional whisper of the wind, rustling through the ancient trees and stones, carrying with it tales of a glorious past.

In the silence of the night, there I was, standing before a monument that bore witness to centuries of change, its stone faces now illuminated by the moon, almost smiling down at me. The awe-inspiring sight left an indelible imprint on my heart. This was not just a temple; it was a testament to the resilience of a civilization, a beacon of faith amidst the ruins of time, its faces forever watching over the land they've guarded for centuries.

As the moon continued its ascent, casting long, dappled shadows over the temple complex, an uncanny phenomenon unfolded. Though physically alone in the sanctity of the temple, I could distinctly hear the hushed murmurs and faint echoes of movement resonating from the narrow labyrinthine corridors beneath. A chill ran down my spine as I realized these were not voices of the present, but echoes from a time long past. They did not belong to the living, yet, in that mystical moment, they were as real as the stones under my feet.

In that moment, the stone face on the temple wall seemed to shift ever so slightly into a sardonic grin. Its omniscient gaze seemed privy to secrets of the city that I would never uncover, knowing things about the ethereal visitors that I could only surmise. The colossal faces, basking in the moonlight, seemed to come alive, their smiles cryptic yet inviting, revealing and concealing secrets of the ancient city in equal measure.

Under the moon's ethereal light, the whole cityscape of Angkor appeared to stir, stirring awake the echoes of a time when this was the thriving center of an empire, the largest city in the world. Between the 13th-century stone walls and the moon-dappled canopy, I was granted a rare glimpse into the past, when nearly a million people thronged the bustling Angkor region. The sight was nothing short of awe-inspiring, the magnitude of the city's past grandeur mirrored in its quiet present.

In the silence of the moonlit night, amid the enigmatic faces of Bayon Temple and the murmurs of a spectral past, I found a profound connection with a civilization long lost to history. A timeless tale of human endeavor was laid bare before me, narrated by the mute stones, illuminated by the moon, and echoed in the whispers of spectral inhabitants. In that fleeting window, I was a transient guest in the grand narrative of Angkor, a silent observer of its past glory, present peace, and eternal resilience.

As I sat there, perched precariously on the edge of a temple ledge, the stone beneath me cold and unyielding, I found myself transported eight centuries back in time. I observed the life around me, not as it was in that moment of solitude, but as it might have been in the vibrant era of the Angkor Empire. In my mind's eye, I could see artisans and stonemasons, their hands deftly carving intricate designs into the stones around me. Women, with woven baskets balanced on their backs and children trailing behind, moved about, their laughter ringing through the air.

Monks, clad in their distinct saffron robes, wandered in thoughtful clusters, engrossed in philosophical discourses, perhaps deliberating on the profound intricacies of Dharma. I watched this unfolding tableau, like a silent spectator perched unnoticed on the wall of a grand theater, fully absorbed in the spectacle, the moon steadily charting its path across the expansive night sky.

As the moon neared the horizon, the first rays of the rising sun pierced the curtain of night. As if awakened by dawn, the phantom inhabitants around me began to fade, their forms dissolving into the morning mist. The echoes of their laughter, the hum of their conversations, all began to dissolve into the morning breeze. I was desperate for the spectral scene not to end, for the phantom city to remain alive, but to no avail.

The world around me gradually returned to its present state, the spectral city and its inhabitants slowly dissolving into the ether. The stone faces around me regained their stoic stillness, their smiles forever frozen in stone. As the sun spread its golden light across the ancient city, I was once again alone, seated on the cold stones of a temple built centuries ago.

The experience was surreal, yet poignant. As I sat there, the lone observer in an ancient, once-bustling city, I was reminded of the transient nature of time and our place within it. It was a stark reminder that while we may strive to carve our stories into the stone of history, like the spectral city before me, we too, eventually fade away, leaving behind only the echoes of our existence.

Return to Reap

A quarter-century later, in 2022, my path again meandered back to the captivating expanse of Angkor. However, this time, the serene solitude of the temples gave way to a bustling tide of tourists. What was once a secluded sanctum had become a popular destination on the global travel map, marked by air-conditioned buses, rented SUVs, and an ever-watchful security presence. Yet, despite these shifts in the backdrop, the heart of Angkor remained unaltered, its essence ensconced within the labyrinthine corridors and intricate carvings of the ancient temples.

The closest echo of the mystical night I had spent all those years ago came during a sunrise visit to the main Angkor Wat complex. Picked up from my hotel in Siem Reap at the still-dark hour of 4:45 am, I joined a legion of like-minded travelers all eagerly anticipating the same spectacle: the first light of dawn illuminating the grandeur of Angkor Wat.

The sunrise tour, now one of the most coveted experiences at Angkor Wat, draws in crowds by the thousands. As I arrived, the silhouette of the temple complex was already thronging with visitors, their hushed conversations merging with the dawn chorus of the jungle. In the vast expanse, it was a challenge to find a spot where the horizon wasn't punctuated by the heads of fellow spectators.

As the darkness of the night gave way to the first hues of dawn, the spectral city I had once encountered in the moonlight was nowhere to be found. The air was thick with the hum of modernity, the ancient temples serving as a picturesque backdrop for the throngs of Western visitors and their Cambodian guides. The sublime beauty of Angkor was ever-present, but the scene was unmistakably one of the present, a vibrant tableau of cultural exchange amidst the immovable stones of history.

Angkor's magic, while still palpable, was now tightly woven with the threads of the present. The ancient stone temples stand as an enduring testament to the past, silently watching over the comings and goings of the modern world, just as they had watched over the spectral city of my moonlit memory. Their message was clear: times change, but the essence of places and the memories they evoke remain, as constant as the stones from which they are carved.