As a writer, I find it frustrating that sometimes words are just not enough. Though the power of language is such that it can evoke images of the most exalted, devastating, joyous or tragic occurrence, sometimes the monumental nature of a thing defies adequate description. It is because, when we are faced with something truly exceptional, the only word that can sum it up is "Wow!"

A picture, though intrinsically more descriptive than words, also does not offer us true depth and understanding. A photograph may capture a moment in time, but it cannot recall the sounds and atmosphere of that imprisoned point eight of a second; the texture of a rock, the warmth or coolness that it emits; the damp liveliness of a morning at the edge of dawn, or the dank solitude of a silent corner forgotten by the rising sun.

Words and pictures together can go some way to explain a natural wonder, but there is so much more to a moment that cannot - will not - offer itself to description, and, once that moment has passed, much that will never be regained.

So it is with Angkor Wat. You have undoubtedly seen the pictures and read the words of a dozen or so people who have made the trek beyond Siem Reap and marveled at the grandiosity of these monuments to long-gone greatness. The photographs - of enigmatic stone faces, towering edifices and shaded passageways, the ruined and restored - will offer you one element of Angkor's scope and scale, while detailed descriptions will explain the importance of these temples in Khmer history, how they were rediscovered by the French naturalist and explorer Henri Mouhot in 1861, how disastrous renovation attempts nearly destroyed the temples' original beauty, why the Cambodian people still revere the great empire that has been dead for almost five hundred years.

The information is endless - and has been repeated, almost verbatim, ad infinitum. The pictures have all been taken, who knows how many times, and every aspect of every temple has been painstakingly reproduced again and again.

Even the personal accounts of first, second and third visits to the remains of the great Khmer capital of eight hundred years past, start to take on a very similar appearance. The writers use words like "majestic" and "stunning" and "spectacular," as they stumble through the language trying to piece together sentences that adequately define their feelings, and struggle for bigger and better superlatives to describe the enormity and grandeur of what surrounds them. The harder we try, the more frustrating it becomes - and, when you have read all these words and seen all the pictures, you will have thought, "Hmm, that sounds nice." It is at that point that our failure is most obvious.

If we were really able to communicate how and what and why this place is so "stunning" and "spectacular," then you would sell your cars and mortgage your homes to make the pilgrimage to Siem Reap, you would arrive in your thousands to drink of Angkor's majesty and pay homage to its atmosphere. But, in doing so, you would destroy the very thing that we labour so hard to describe, so perhaps it is not such a bad thing that we continually fail to do justice to this ancient monument. Already hundreds of tourists have found their way back to Angkor Wat and - now that the political situation in Cambodia is settling - more are on the way.

So what is it that allows us to wax so lyrically and face the frustration of inadequate description when we write of Angkor? I arrived at Angkor national park, six kilometres outside of Siem Reap, on a chilly pre-dawn morning in early March. Despite the hour, there were others already waiting patiently for the sun to rise over the silhouette of the grand temple. Even though only hazily defined against the jungle and faintly glimmering sky Angkor was already impressive and, while others waited at the very perimetre of the compound for the first flash of sunlight to illuminate their lenses, I hurried forth to explore the inner sanctuary.

It's a long walk down the vast stone pathway to the temple's entrance. One half, leading up to the first of many sets of steps, had been restored but the other half remained ragged and time-worn in honour of how well it had stood the test of the ages. As I approached, the sun finally crested the treeline and before me Angkor loomed dark, cool and silent.

By modern standards the temple itself isn't that big - there are certainly complexes being built today that would dwarf this aged cousin - but when you consider that it was once the imposing centre of a busy metropolis, a grand jewel in the South-East Asia of a millennium ago, the technological feat of constructing something this big, this intricately designed, defies comprehension. No pre-cast concrete or steel supports were used; no computers were employed to crunch the numbers needed to calculate angles and arches. The giant engines required today to put up even a modest building were not available for another thousand years or so back then. It took thirty years and the strength of man alone to complete this "spectacular" achievement, and it has survived countless wars, untold storms and droughts, and a great many tourists. And now it was mine.

At least, it felt that way. I had stepped off the path and wandered around the south side of the main complex. The sun was, by now, heating the air rapidly and the early chill was giving way to a humid breeze that carried the scents of the forest - only a few yards away - across Angkor's eastern exposure. As I climbed the steps into the lower level of the temple, the sun hard on my back, I felt the first beads of perspiration speckle my forehead. Inside, however, the morning was still as far away as all the other visitors.

Remarkable as Angkor is, it is even more remarkable when you are alone. Surrounded by this colossal structure, the stone breathing the coolness of the night into the brightening day, I felt entirely isolated and yet wrapped, comfortingly, in a cloak weaved from over a thousand years of memories. The age and agelessness of Angkor made me feel like a callow youth invading the privacy of a respected elder. How much there had been before me! How many times had the world turned - had destiny become history - before I was conceived? And Angkor had seen it all, and will see much more, I hope, long after I am gone.

I was not entirely alone, for the Wat teemed with life; birds sang, ants busied themselves with morning chores, and a swarm of bees clung perilously to each other from a point up high, warming in the sun and buzzing lazily. In fact, I probably wasn't the only person scrambling from room to stairway, passage to apex, but the complex is so big there was no fear of being discovered just yet.

I found a cool corner, sat down, and tried to still my thoughts - allowing the images of Angkor to sink in, trying to be objective while dazzled by my surroundings. It is hard not to become emotional about Angkor Wat, and that, perhaps, is why we have so many problems describing it adequately. But now I tried to pinpoint exactly what it was about this ancient pile of stone that moved me so. I leaned my head against the cool boulder, so big it would have taken dozens to get it to that position, and - just for that moment - I saw all that was and all that might yet be. I saw the Bayon temple - its many faces stern yet happy and all different - in the midst of a grand restoration, and I saw Tha Prohm in its centuries long battle with the forest - a battle it will eventually lose - left unrestored by the archaeologists, thanks to an ancient note left behind by its builder, Jayavarman VII, which basically read, "Please, do not touch."

And then, the future and ten thousand visitors a month enriching the province of Siem Reap and trampling the stones beneath their shoes, until the erosion either destroys Angkor or no one is allowed to visit anymore. And I saw Angkor on a moonlit night, many years from now, finally rediscovering the peace that had once been all its own, when the tourists have all gone and the jungle has edged up close again. It was a happy and sad sort of feeling and I breathed in deeply of the stillness and history around me and let out a sigh which may have been satisfaction, but was more likely melancholy.

The sigh disappeared into history, the moment passed, and I went, reluctantly, to rejoin the other tourists who had now also penetrated the heart of the temple. Some, I noticed, had a faraway look in their eye. It was a look I recognised, a look which said that - for a moment that was now lost to them - they too had been alone at Angkor.