Day 75, in which we visit the source of Pol Pot's inspiration

Today we visited Cambodia's National Museum, an institution with a dubious history as it is said that Pol Pot grew up nearby and was so inspired by tales of the great Khmer Empire that he grew up and tried to emulate its success – admittedly by marching the middle classes out of the cities for execution, rather than planting rice in the alluvial waters of the Tonle Sap lake as the Khmers had done. The guide book reports however that the National Museum was not rewarded for its role in Cambodian history. Under the Khmer Rouge, treasures were looted, the roof collapsed and a colony of bats colonised the rafters, their guano destroying much of what was left.

Given this dark past, it's perhaps not surprising that the museum is still dragging itself to its feet and contains only durable stonework The main complex is a square of corridors around a single courtyard, and the galleries within contain a seemingly endless parade of statues looted from the Angkor temples in the north. Dozens of identical Buddha statues jostle for space among a score of statues of Rama, with elephant gods, monkeys and horseheaded young men filling the gaps in between. It was less a museum, more a holding bay for artefacts. There was no real explanation of how these items fitted together, nor any examination of their historical context or variances across the region. The tour guides we overheard spend most of their time simply introducing each deity and explaining how they fit into the country's current religion, and it was rather surprising to come across several active shrines in the museum, with incense burning and flowers for sale to make as offerings. I guess I'm just used to the gods in museums being long dead.

Having studied archaeology for three years I suppose I've had quite enough of understanding historical context anyway, and even in a good museum I don't really spend much time reading the footnotes. The museum made for a pleasant afternoon's diversion, and it was nice to see the sort of statues which had once graced the long empty temples we saw in the north.

It is currently too hot to do anything for more than a few hours at a time, so we returned to the hotel for cold water and air conditioning.