Prasat Preah Pithu Group

This guide to the Prasat Preah Pithu Group in Siem Reap opens with a hard question: how did a man who spent nine years clearing jungle from Angkor's temples end up dead on a dirt road. It follows Jean Commaille, a painter turned conservator who arrived in 1898, invented his own methods for stabilizing these ruins, and eventually turned his attention to this cluster of five towers behind the Terrace of the Leper King. You'll hear about the Hindu and Buddhist sanctuaries built here across two centuries, and see the carved lintels still standing above their doorways, gods and demons churning the ocean, Krishna cutting down a demon. Look for his successor's name too, Henri Marchal, who picked up the same tools a few years later.