Ever since Angkor Wat was “rediscovered” by French naturalist Henri Mouhot in the 1860s, the area has captured the imagination of adventurers. In the last 15 years, however, it has also taken off as a premier destination for tourists from around the world and now attracts 2 million visitors annually. Nevertheless, opportunities still exist to get off the beaten path there and play at being Indiana Jones for a day.

A good place to start is to visit two temple complexes located close to Angkor Wat known as Ta Prohm and Preah Khan. Both were built by King Jayavarman VII in the early 1200s and dedicated to his mother and father respectively. Preah Khan served as a Buddhist monastery and university for several hundred years, and stone pillars discovered there report that thousands of priests, teachers, servants and workers were required to run the temple.

Ta Prohm is only semi-intact but it became quite popular when it was used as the setting for the movie “Tomb Raider” and for several other Asian films. At Ta Prohm, there are dark chambers to peak into along with some huge silk cotton trees growing right through the buildings. In places, the weight of these stonelike trees and their vinelike trunks have cracked open the roofs and walls.

As you walk through both of these sites, or along the wide causeways leading to them, it is ironic to see that some of the original Buddhist shrines and carvings have been either destroyed by nature or smashed during a brief revival of Hinduism that took place under a later ruler of Angkor.

For the more adventurous, it is worthwhile to drive through some villages and rice fields for 90 minutes to another city built by Jayavarmin VII known as Beng Mealea. These ruins were only opened to the public a few years ago when the government cleared away land mines planted on the trails by the Khmer Rouge. Although now safe, visitors are required in places to walk on staircases and wooden platforms built along or over the uncleared ruins.

Beng Mealea eventually was abandoned. The reservoirs that once surrounded the city largely dried up, and many of the stone arches and columns that once held up the buildings collapsed and were swallowed by the jungle. Restoration of the site will likely take years, but in the meantime Beng Mealea provides a glimpse of what explorers saw when they first visited these ruins.

Glenn Carberry of Norwich is a local attorney who practices in New London. A frequent world traveler, he has visited more than 50 countries and more than 100 World Heritage sites. This series shows some of the sites he and his wife Kimberly visited on a recent trip that included India, Singapore and Cambodia.