The tourists, who once fired the local economy, drawn by the awe-inspiring temples of Angkor Wat, have mostly stopped coming.

ECONOMIST: Seeing is believing

So are two Cambodian investments by Raffles's present owners: Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh and Grand Hotel Angkor in Siem Reap, a splendid colonial relic which will have a new life as a luxury hotel for visitors to the sublime temples of Angkor Wat.

ECONOMIST: Pukkah hotels

The loss of Cambodia's artists spurred efforts to find survivors who could instruct future generations about the country's ancient arts, some of the instruments of which can be seen carved on the temples of Angkor Wat, which are up to 1, 200 years old, in Siem Reap.

CNN: Cambodia's first rock opera hopes its stage will be a bridge

With its comparably haunting scenery, including rice fields in the south and misty mountains in the north, its temples, some of which predate Angkor Wat, and its relative lack of crowds, Laos, ready or not, may just be it.

FORBES: Asian Beauty

At Ta Prohm, to the northeast of Angkor Wat, strangler figs spill like liquid over 39 temples in various stages of ruination, creating a tangle of tipsy roofs and dark hallways.

BBC: The perfect trip: Cambodia

Unlike other temples at Angkor, Ta Prohm has been left as it was found, preserved as an example of what a tropical forest will do to an architectural monument when the protective hands of humans are withdrawn.

UNESCO: Culture