WATER WAYS

The rainy season in Siem Reap lasts from May to November, with the wettest months being September and October – though even then there is an average of five or six hours of sunshine a day. Audley Travel (01993 838160, audleytravel.com/ Cambodia) offers 10 days in Cambodia and Thailand, with six nights at Anantara Angkor (anantara.com) in Siem Reap and three nights at Anantara Siam Bangkok, from £2,115 per person (based on two sharing), including flights, transfers, B&B and guided excursions. Apopo Visitor Centre (apopo.org) is at Trapeang SES Village,

Kouk Chauk Commune, Siem Reap Koumai Road. It is open 8.30am-5.30pm Mon-Sat, admission $5 (£3.90) or $15 for a guided tour. Book by emailing visitor.center@apopo.org not the old stones that draw my eye but a memorial to the people murdered here in the late Seventies, when the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, its genocidal leader, were responsible for the deaths of at least two million of their fellow countrymen. Lolei was one of the many “killing fields” and the ashes of the Cambodians executed here rest behind glass in a simple shrine. It is while we contemplate this that Mr Paul finally stops smiling.

His father, he says, was among the first to be “disappeared”. The Khmer Rouge then subjected his family to an animal existence: “For three years, eight months and twenty days, all we ate was three spoons of rice a day.” A spoon was the only personal property a person was allowed. “It hung around your neck on a string,” he adds.

Cambodia is still not free of the terrible legacy of Pol Pot and decades of conflict, along with American bombing during the Vietnam War. The countryside is contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance