Wat Is The Wat

Ladies and gentlemen, the truly scary beautiful magnificent ruins of Angkor Wat, Cambodia:

 

The magnificent talents of Magnificent Arepa.

 

Maybe I should let you entertain the fantasy of lonely and daring exploration a la National Geographic.  In truth, in a good moment, before hordes of groups of different nationalities and cameras arrived, it looked something like this:

Still, it is breathtaking. So much so, that I forgot I wanted to see the ruins that Dean Tavoularis designed and built for Apocalypse Now, that apparently are still around. They were going to use the original, but because there were explosions involved, they sensibly decided to build a replica they could blow up in peace.

 Tavoularis at the Cinematheque Francaise with one of his sketches for Apocalypse Now.