It’s well neigh impossible to capture this place on a photo. In the middle, the giant, mountainlike central stupa, the peak soaring above the rest of the temple. The sides of the stupa are crumbling, large blocks of stone missing and the reliefs that used to depict faces have withered away during hundreds of years of neglect. Around it there are four smaller towers, one in each direction of the compass, the tops of which consist of four faces, facing four different directions. Lower down, on the sides of both the main stupa and the surrounding towers are  dark openings leading in to the shrines within, their door frames decorated with intricate carvings. And then there are the tourists, hundreds of them milling about under the blazing mid day sun, gawking at the wondrous buildings around them, taking photos and getting in the way of each other. I am one of them, I join the stream of bodies that moves through the temple complex, jostling my way forward in order to see the most of these incredible ruins.