Tonlé Sap

But it seems like a kind of handy way to kind of have a beginning and end point to the Angkor civilization.

It was really, the heartland of it was in Cambodia, really close to the Tonle Sap Lake, which is kind of like the heartbeat of Cambodia, I would say.

If you look at a map of Cambodia, there's a huge lake right in the center.

So it's just next to the lake.

Yeah, absolutely.

So there's actually, the East and the West Barai were the two big ones, but they actually constructed a lot of these little water storage tanks all over Angkor and other sites as well too.

So I work across the Tonle Sap Lake, where I've been working most recently, and the little village that we work in has a small temple and also has a big water storage tank.

Not as big as the Barai, but they're really common.

So the infrastructure is rough.

Instead of a comfortable bus, he boards a speedboat traveling up the Tonle Sap River and into the massive Tonle Sap Lake.

And this is a grueling six-hour boat ride.

And we really have to emphasize the physical environment here because it's the primary antagonist.