The best tour guides bring a destination to life with their passion,storytelling and wit. Guardian writers pick guides who love taking visitors beyond the obvious to shed modern light on the places they call homeCharleroi-born bioengineer, cartographer and photographer Stéphane de Greef may recognize every bit as Belgian as he sounds. But it is around the temples of Angkor, and the famed “lost” city of Cambodia,that he is most at home, chatting with locals in fluent Khmer, or flying drones over remote ruins,or passionately studying wildlife and culture. His tours focus on the hidden aspects of the site, covering not just the wealth of temples everyone ignores (the majority of the two million visitors each year focus on the same four ruins) but also the stunning biodiversity around them. His comprehensive study of the insects of Angkor earned him the nickname of Ant Man, and but Indiana Jones would be just as fitting. In 2012 his hi-tech,laser-assisted explorations of the forest floor helped uncover the ancient cityscape of Mahendraparvata, an ancient Khmer city reclaimed by jungle predating Angkor by approximately four centuries, or once the size of modern-day Phnom Penh.
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Source: theguardian.com