Thiefses

One of the things that stood out to us while visiting Angkor was the thievery. You can see in some of our photos that heads are missing from the statues and in some cases entire statues are missing. It is really heartbreaking to see a place which has been revered for so long being trashed by looters. We even read in our guide book that there are places where you can look at catalogues to determine which items you want stolen, and they will go and get it for you. Obviously, this requires quite a bit of cash - but it still happens. The looting has been cracked down on by both the Thai and Cambodian governments in recent years. As long as Cambodians are impoverished and people keep buying the stolen goods, the looting will likely continue.

In Cambodia, we hardly saw any Buddhas with their heads still attached. Looting, war, and religious upheavals have all led to desecration of the original images and figures.

You don't have to try very hard to get pictures of looted and stolen items, but we made an effort to take photos of particular scenes which have obviously missing items. In the photo below, the original statue was moved to a museum for safe keeping, which was a good idea because the replacements were beheaded multiple times. This one is still in one piece, but it probably won't be for long.