The next morning, over coffee in the GHF courtyard, Sarun told me he had first visited the main Banteay Chhmar ruin in 1997.

BBC: Piecing together puzzles in Cambodia

This, it turned out, was Sarun Kousum, the assistant director of the GHF project and the man I was supposed to meet the following day.

BBC: Piecing together puzzles in Cambodia

Even a well-functioning state, be it democratic or authoritarian, will fail to conserve monuments unless local people see an interest in maintaining their heritage and using it rationally, says Vincent Michael, new chairman of the Global Heritage Fund (GHF), based in California.

ECONOMIST: UNESCO is better at naming enemies than finding friends