Fortunately, the visit to Preah Vihear nowadays is all a matter of arranging a driver and suffering through a bit of a rickety road from time to time. The worst of the border tensions are over and though you will pass posts with armed guards on your way the steep slope in the back of a 4x4, the overall ambience is chill, even though the weather is anything but.

We arrived around noon, having already seen Beng Mealea and Koh Ker that day. We bought tickets to enter the site and also paid for a return trip by a four-wheel-drive car to the entrance of the actual site which is up the mountain road. The ride is okay, the road is paved all the way up to the top and only the last two hundred metres where the trucks park is very uneven and full of potholes. The route that pointed us to the naga stairs actually lead through some kind of camp - some restoration works were still ongoing, so it was quite a curious walk. At least there was a viewing platform and some info on reconsntruction of the site at the end.

We followed the way up the Naga stairs, then another set of stairs to the different levels of temple structures. The most-preserved part of the temple is at the top of the complex, there is a working shrine inside. Actually one of the local boys was showing a monk that was there some funny video and they both laughed; it was quite a humanizing moment in the centre of such an impressive site. Some more steps up the hill and we were at the cliff with magnificent views of the surrounding country. And, to Ivan's great delight, finally some monkeys! 

An anecdote from the way down, in case similar thing happens again: on your car ticket, you get the car number and are advised you should look for the same car on the way down. However, in our case, our car was missing. We went to the guards by the ramp and they learned that our car was called down for some reason and we were assigned another, so we took that number and drove down. Nan said the ride down felt quite risky. I don't know, after living in Russia and experiencing Iranian driving, it was quite okay...