Wat kesararam

This guide to Wat Kesararam, a lively neighborhood pagoda outside Siem Reap, opens during Pchum Ben, the festival when Cambodians believe the dead walk among the living, with picnics, Apsara dancers and rice balls pressed into the earth for ancestors. It then turns to the pagoda's other history: built in the early 1970s and, soon after, turned into a Khmer Rouge security office and prison on the very ground where children now chase each other between festival stalls. Listen for the chanting that carries out from the prayer hall as you walk the courtyard.