It was just a short bus ride from Siem Reap, but vendors assaulted the windows the entire way. Their knuckles rapped on the glass to sell fruit, baguettes and newspapers — but I wasn’t there for food or news, I had come to see Angkor Wat — the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Angkor used to be the capital of the Khmer Empire. The city is believed to have once supported around 0.1 percent of the global population — and its temple complex remains the largest religious monument in the world.

There was a simultaneous gasp when Angkor Wat’s magnificent turrets appeared through the bus window. I’d seen many temples in the previous weeks — but Angkor was undeniably special. Its ruins rose out of the dust like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie.

I followed the umbrellas off the bus toward the complex — which grew in size and magnificence with each soggy step. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once wrote that “Architecture is frozen music.” And at Angkor it really is.

Etched into the crumbling walls were pictures from everyday Khmer life. I had seen these scenes before — not in books or history programs, but in the Cambodian villages I had just left behind. People danced beneath the sun; men fished in rivers; and children slept after a long day.

An elderly woman gestured to a scene on the wall,  “Wow monkeys!” Her guide looked at her with confusion. English tourists try so hard not to say the wrong thing but often do exactly that.

“Oh dear. I do apologise. They’re not monkeys, they’re people. I beg your pardon,” said the woman — as she shuffled off in embarrassment.

The tourists’ luminous umbrellas enriched the ruins with dazzling colour. The rain drove down upon us, the smell of hot soil filled the air — everyone was soaked but no-one seemed to care.

An elderly American, his bones as brittle as the ruins, skipped along the rocks.

“This is worth a million dollars!” he shouted, “Look how they built the roof!”

His wife just nodded. “You will help me get down, won’t you? I’m OK getting up; it’s the getting down I don’t like.”

“Yeah of course,” he shot back, still looking through his viewfinder.

European sites of historical interest are protected with rope — but at Angkor you can walk wherever you like. A monk clambered over the stones and took photos as if his life (lives?) depended on it.

“Hello?” he said, “Can I speak with you to practice my English?”

“Sure,” I replied, already wishing I’d said no because a crowd had stopped to watch.

“My English is very bad, so don’t mind if it is impolite or incorrect.”

“It’s fine.”

“Thank you for your understanding. Now, what is your name?”

“Tom.”

“Good. And Tom, how many people in your family?”

As we talked, the other tourists desperately tried to find a shot of the monk without me in it.

It turned out this was the monk’s first visit to Angkor. We agreed the temples were amazing and that speaking English is hard.

Then he wanted to take a photo with me.

“You come here! Now! Get up!”

He was bossy for a monk.

“Alright, I’m coming.”

“Quickly!” he urged. “Come on! Hurry up!”

Why the rush? I thought we all get reborn anyway?

With the photo shoot finished, I left the monk to it and went to search for a restaurant — which prompted a collective sigh of relief from the other tourists — followed by a flurry of camera flashes.

I had just sat down at the restaurant when an American arrived. She had greasy hair and must have been at least 400 pounds. Her Cambodian guide looked like a figurine in comparison.

The woman grabbed the wall to steady herself.

“Are you ok?” asked her guide.

“No! I’m having balance problems.”

He pretended to empathise and understand. But how could he? The woman might as well have been from another planet.

When I returned to the bus it was surrounded by vendors again. A smiling teenager followed me to the door.

“I have book, with map,” she said.

“I don’t need it, thank you.”

“Do you want cold drink? I have Coke.”

“No thank you. I don’t need it.”

“Do you want hot drink? I have tea.”

“No thank you. I don’t need it.”

“So tell me, what do you need?”

“Nothing.”

“Ok,” she said. “I will sell you nothing for two dollars.”

This girl seemed to have a response to every objection and refused to take no for an answer. I wondered whether this was how the Khmers conceived and built Angkor Wat — with intelligence and persistence. That was what I was thinking about … as I bought the overpriced coke.