Whatever this place had once been, nature had long since reclaimed it.
But then my sense of the landscape shifted.
The ground at our feet was busy with convoys of black ants marching decisively through the tinder-dry leaf litter.
From left: Stone animal carvings line a pond at Mahendraparvata; the summit of Rong Chen, a pyramid-temple on Phnom Kulen.Christopher Wise
Termite mounds rose from the sandy orange soil.
The temple I had just stepped down from was not some isolated relic.
It was the centerpiece of an overgrown city.
From left: The Prasat Bram temple at the 10th-century capital of Koh Ker is overgrown with strangler figs; Prasat Thom at Koh Ker is, at 118 feet, the tallest temple built by the Khmer empire.Christopher Wise
The job of digging there was left for another day.
Whatever this place had once been, nature had long since reclaimed it.
That day arrived in 2008, when the French archaeologist Jean-Baptiste Chevance began to excavate Kulen in earnest.
From left: Offerings left by visitors to the Preah Khan temple at Angkor; the cliffs of Phnom Kulen.Christopher Wise
But for now, hardly anyone goes there.
If Angkor Wat is Cambodias most visited tourist attraction, Kulen is its hidden kingdom.
What Kulens temples lack in scale they more than make up for in atmosphere.
From left: Commuters speed past Pre Rup, a 10th-century temple at Angkor; Preah Ang Thom, a 26-foot statue of a reclining Buddha housed in a pagoda on top of Phnom Kulen.Christopher Wise
The silence was broken only by a chorus of cicadas.
Varathana, a rake-thin man in his mid-thirties with a delicate, singsong voice, explained why.
Pyramids symbolized royal power, he said.
From left: A suite at the Bill Bensley–designed Shinta Mani Angkor resort, in Siem Reap; the pool at Jaya House River Park, a hotel in Siem Reap.Christopher Wise
They were built for the worship of the king.
Until the ninth century, this region had been a patchwork of warring statelets.
Jayavarman subdued them into an empire under his control.
From left: Detailed carvings on a linga, a sacred object devoted to Shiva, at Koh Ker; a guide at Koh Ker.Christopher Wise
So this is where Angkor started, Varathana continued.
It was here, with this temple, that Jayavarman said, I am in charge.
It was only just beginning to reawaken from two years of COVID-related somnolence.
Without tourism, there had been no work for many of the residents, and thousands had left.
Varathana was one of them.
Until COVID struck, he had worked in the hotel business.
But during the pandemic, he says, he didnt have a lot to do.
Archaeology turned from a hobby into an obsession.
Cambodians have historically been less involved in archaeological research than foreigners.
Their knowledge died with them.
Today Cambodians continue to pray and refresh themselves in the rivers and waterfalls.
Lingas are stone fertility symbols representing the god Shiva, carved in the form of priapic domes.
Usually they are found in temples, where water is sanctified by being poured over the top.
But here the entire riverbed is lined with them.
We all know this as a godly place, Varathana said.
My grandmother used to come here and bring the water back to our house.
It is said that the water can give us good luck.
At a nearby village we picked up motorbikes.
Then we turned off and disappeared into the trees.
The going was rough.
To me, our route was an impenetrable mystery.
Every path, every thicket, every orchard looked the same.
In 1979, as they were being driven from power, the Khmer Rouge retreated to Kulen.
To defend themselves further they laid thousands of land mines all over the mountain.
We stopped briefly to talk to the elderly guard, who offered us lychees cut from the surrounding trees.
Then we dipped our heads under the doorway and stepped into the dark, dusty interior.
Above us nesting bats flapped in the shadows.
Fortunately, some pieces were taken to the National Museum of Cambodia in Phnom Penh.
But where the statues from Damrei Krap ended up, nobody knows.
Varathana was a font of architectural arcana.
Other models came from as far away as Java, in modern-day Indonesia.
There were single structures, as well as clusters of smaller shrines.
Both were apt destinations for a trip steeped in Cambodian architecture.
From there I ventured out to see how Kulens architecture evolved.
Closer to home, one evening I took atuk-tukfrom my villa and headed into the Angkor Archaeological Park.
The stumps of the candles were still there, mounted in small foil holders.
The hermits who carved it out left hundreds of years ago.
But for its modern pilgrims, the magic remains.
Standing on its upper platform are five tower temples similar to those at Damrei Krap.
It was as though the architects had built it to re-create Kulen itself.
I walked along the high walls at the foot of the pyramid, then climbed the staircase.
Situated in a deep gully, the cave was hollowed out of a boulder the size of a house.
The high plateau of Phnom.
Kulen is the site of Mahendraparvata, a complex of temples now being uncovered from jungle overgrowth.
