 | | | | | | by wayne_robertson on
| The temple complex of Angkor and the nearby town of Siem Reap were very different places the last time I visited. That was in 1996 on assignment for The Sunday Telegraph to cover the kidnapping of a Briton by the Khmer Rouge, the murderous Maoist movement that had inflicted the horrors of the Killing Fields on Cambodia. Sadly but predictably, Christopher Howes, who had been working with a British organisation clearing landmines, was murdered by his captors. | |  | | The temples of Angkor Wat are still one of the wonders of the world, despite the tourist crowds | Siem Reap in those days was a dusty backwater, its potholed streets best negotiated on the back of spluttering motorbike taxis that rarely got up enough speed to pose any danger of bodily harm. Angkor was being rediscovered by the first intrepid visitors after nearly two decades in Khmer Rouge hands. By early 1996, the main cluster of temples was safe, but outlying sites remained off-limits unless one wanted to risk being blown up by mines or suffering the sad fate of Mr Howes. In delightful solitude one early morning, I set off to explore the remarkable main temple of Angkor Wat, followed by the glorious bas-reliefs of Bayon and the barely touched remains of Ta Prohm, then the ultimate in Indiana Jones adventures. How things change. Siem Reap is now a boisterous hive of activity, while the marvels of Angkor are thoroughly on the tourist track. The temples are still one of the wonders of the world, no less stunning for the crowds, but I hankered after the glorious loneliness of my previous visit. So I headed 50 miles north, past paddy fields and villages of wooden huts on stilts little changed by the rapid development that has swept Siem Reap. Eleven years ago, this would have been a suicidal journey into Khmer Rouge territory, but my return offered new possibilities: outlying temples, cut off back then by minefields, were now accessible. My destination was Beng Melea, a 12th-century temple built to the same design as Angkor Wat. For visitors disappointed by the busloads of camera-toting tourists at Ta Prohm, these largely undiscovered jungle ruins are a treat. With the help of a young guide, I scrambled through the site to the chirupping chorus of cicadas in the same stunned reverie I felt when I first wandered around Angkor Wat. First he showed me a sign on a mound next to the overgrown moat enumerating the 21,000-plus mines cleared from this site alone. Inside the compound, thick, gnarled trunks and roots thrust through the masonry with such abandon that the stone and wood seemed indivisible; branches and vines stretched, embraced and bent around the ancient masonry like tentacles. Back in Siem Reap, I found another compelling reason to embrace rather than bemoan the changes of the past 11 years - the award-winning glories of the chic new Hôtel de la Paix. Its art deco façade - think South Beach Miami transported to South-East Asia - graced the cover of Architectural Digest magazine last year. The original hotel served as a rice storage depot during the era of genocidal communist purdah under Pol Pot. The elegant new structure is a mix of traditional Khmer, art deco and contemporary influences. The rooms have polished Makha-wood floors, woven rugs, platform beds and terrazzo tubs. Fountains and ponds fill the open spaces. But although La Paix is an enticing oasis, the last thing the hotel wants is for you to insulate yourself from your surroundings. It offers guests the chance to support community-based activities and good causes and the revival of Cambodian arts and culture. Options include a sewing training centre, rice sponsorship, educational support, hospitals and children's centres. | | | | | | | |
| | | | |  | | Angkor under ‘serious’ threat from development | | | by wayne_robertson on
| Uncontrolled development around Cambodia’s Angkor temples poses a serious threat to one of the region’s great wonders, said the archaeologists who this week revealed the full extent of the site.
Angkor was a “vast and populous network ... stretching far beyond the well known temples of the central archaeological park,” said the Greater Angkor Project (GAP) at the University of Sydney on its website. “Delicate traces of that network ... remain on the surface even today and are of great archaeological significance, but are under serious threat from uncontrolled development in the Siem Reap area,” the group warned.
The group published a paper saying that during its height of power between the ninth and 14th centuries, Angkor — covering about 1,000 square-kilometres (400 square-miles) — was ‘the most extensive city of its kind in the pre-industrial world.’
Angkor was at least three times larger than archaeologists had previously suspected, eclipsing comparable developments such as Tikal, a Classic Maya ‘city’ on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
Using digital mapping to detail some 3,000 square-kilometres around the temples, the group found evidence of an urban centre supported by a complex series of canals and waterways that became too vast to manage.
Deforestation and erosion caused as the city extended its rice fields to feed its bloated population led to a collapse in infrastructure, and Angkor was eventually abandoned. The temples today remain Cambodia’s largest tourist draw, attracting almost one million visitors last year and bringing more than a billion dollars to the impoverished country.
But along with the tourists has come a massive building boom in and around the Siem Reap town — the gateway to the temple complex.
Most seriously, huge hotels, along with dozens of smaller guesthouses have begun to suck the area’s water supply dry and have raised fears that the temples could collapse as the earth beneath them is destabilised | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Poipet Border Crossing Thai/Cambodia | | | by wayne_robertson on
|  A young boy waits patiently for travelers to finish with their plastic drinking bottles. As far as land border crossings go, the most interesting, and certainly the strangest one I’ve ever been to is the Thailand/Cambodia land border at Aranyaprathet/Poipet. There seem to be a number of scams running at this border as well. For a complete listing of scams to date, I’d recommend visiting Tales of Asia for a current update of road conditions and scams to be aware of. Or, you can read all about our experience at this border here. Whatever your reason for traveling overland, this border crossing is definitely a travel tale you can write about, if you can put up with the constant headaches for 24 hours. It is certainly the most eye-popping border I’ve been to with loads of people, trucks and other oddities to feast your peepers on. It’s very Wild West and if you’re looking for a crazy Asian adventure to write home about, I guarantee you’ll find it here. 
A heavily-loaded truck of scrap metal meanders through the crowded street with a load of scrap metal bound for Thailand. Poipet is a smorgasbord of sights that constantly assaults the senses. My head was swiveling every which way. I could hardly wait to sit down and people watch. As we waited for our visas to be processed people were crossing back and forth the border in every style imaginable. There were overloaded trucks, donkey carts, bicycles, and scooters. Mothers walked with babies in their arms. Children carried heavy bags. Old men and women shuffled by and smiled toothless grins. And every single one of them had some sort of job. We watched kids picking up trash, vendors transporting vegetables and men sneaking very poorly disguised smuggled goods. Although we got sucked into a scam bus, I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. It was a most memorable day in terms of the choatic, daily lifestyles of so many people who live near this wild and crazy border. 
Fresh coconuts being hauled from Thailand to Cambodia by cart. 
This is a common sight in Asia. Most people use scooters and motorcycles for their primary means of transportation. It’s not uncommon to see families of four or five on a bike. Helmets are not used often in Cambodia. 
Cambodia is a land of superlatives. This truck could be the most overloaded truck I’ve ever seen. 
A young girl transports her goods in a bag on her head. 
Another huge truck hauling cardboard into Thailand. 
Most families use hand-drawn carts to transport their belongings and goods into and out of Cambodia. 
These carts are used for hauling goods. The bottoms of the carts and covered and usually have false bottoms for smuggling. | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Cambodia Leases islands to Foriegn Tourism Investors | | | by wayne_robertson on
| | Cambodia has agreed to lease five islands in the Gulf of Thailand for $627 million to local and foreign investors who plan to build tourist resorts, the state investment agency said on Monday. 'The projects will become a magnet for tourism. These projects will create natural resorts which are popular with foreign tourists,' Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said in a statement. Cham Prasidh, who is also deputy chairman of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC), said the six Cambodian companies that signed the long-term leases will have one year to submit detailed plans for the resorts. It named the six firms, but did not disclose their foreign investors. Cambodia's fast-growing tourism industry is seen as another sign of the former French colony's recovery from the destruction wrought by the Khmer Rouge during their four years in power from 1975 to 1979. Cambodia attracted more than 1.7 million tourists last year, most of them drawn to the 800-year-old Angkor Wat temple complex. But it wants to lure beachgoers as well. In September last year, a group of Russian investors received approval to build a $300 million tourist resort on Koh Pos (Snake Island) in the Gulf of Thailand. | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | Raffles Hotel Cambodia Bought | | | by wayne_robertson on
| Kingdom Hotel Investments (KHI) in the Middle East has purchased the historic Raffles Hotel Le Royal in the Cambodian capital and Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor in Siem Reap for a total of $35 million, the media said Wednesday. The two landmark hotels, built more than 70 years ago, will retain their names and continue to be managed by Raffles Hotels and Resorts, Beddy Suryana, the front office manager, was quoted by the Cambodia Daily as saying. 'Cambodia is an exciting new market for KHI. Demand for hotel accommodation in the region has grown significantly in recent years, and Cambodia has benefited from increasing tourism,' Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, who controls KHI, said in a statement. Cambodia's tourism sector is among the fastest growing in the world with the number of tourists arriving over the last eight years growing at an average of 19 percent. | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | by wayne_robertson on
| As Tourists Flock to Cambodia's Angkor Temples, Preservations Fear for Its Survival  Tourists inside the Angkor Wat temple complex during sunset in Siem Reap province, 217 miles northwest of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. After years of neglect threatened to destroy the temples of Angkor during the brutal regime of the Khmer Rouge, this wonder of the world is now at threat for a different reason — too much interest. The temples were built between the ninth and 15th centuries and now face the modern threat of tourism, as millions of visitors arrive to see the more than 100 Hindu and Buddhist monuments spread across 50 square miles in Cambodia. | | | | | | | |
| | | | | | by wayne_robertson on
| In the fifteenth century, Cambodia’s conventional capital at Angkor was under unvarying threat from the growing might of neighbouring Siam. The Khmers were enforced to lift up and move south, first to Longvek, later to Udong, and lastly to Phnom Penh. This position better allowed Cambodia to take advantage of the country’s vast watercourses. Located at the convergence of three rivers, ships could sail southeast from Phnom Penh on either the Mekong or Bassac to Vietnam and the South China Sea, or north on the Mekong to Laos and China, or northwest on the Tonle Sap (the river) to the Tonle Sap (the lake) and the provinces bordering Thailand. This wonderful location allowed Phnom Penh to burgeon for some time as a major trading hub, but the threat from nearest Thailand and Vietnam never abated. It was to argue against this threat, especially from the Vietnamese, that another strange power, France, was welcomed into the Kingdom. Fearing Vietnamese violent behavior, King Norodom signed a treaty of protectorate with France in the 1860s. This granted Cambodia some gauge of defense from its neighbors, but it eventually led to Cambodia becoming a colony in 1884. For the next eighty years, the French successfully ruled over the kingdom. Most agree that it left the Khmers with a insufficient inheritance. When the Japanese occupied Cambodia during W.W.II, the French gone. At the war’s end, Cambodia became an state under French regulation. In 1953, Cambodia lastly gained sovereignty from the French, guided by the wily King Sihanouk, who had been specially selected for the throne as a young man by French officials eager to have a accommodating monarch. Independence manifested the start of a brief Golden Age for Phnom Penh. As its neighbors began to swirl with revolt, Cambodia was calm and well-off. But at the start of the Vietnam War, King Sihanouk, who had subjugated politics in the country for almost two decades, estranged both the left and right with exploitive policies. He was ousted by General Lon Nol and went into exile in Beijing, China. The Vietnam War again brought disorder to Cambodia. Although the country was officially neutral, the Americans secretly bombed the country’s border regions in a misguided attempt to get at North Vietnamese fighters. The anguish of villagers affected by the bombing, along with the belief that Lon Nol’s government was prevalent with bribery, fuelled disaffection among the peasantry. The Khmer Rouge faction was born, and fighting stretch across the country. The capital finally fell to the Khmer Rouge on April 17th, 1975. Almost no one had foreseen what would happen next. The Khmer Rouge warned the city’s denizens of an impending American air strike and strained them to escape into the countryside. This was the commencement of a radical social experiment to turn Cambodia into an agrarian society by banishing all the city’s inhabitants. While Phnom Penh was basically a ghost town for the four years of Khmer Rouge rule, not all bustle in the capital came to an end. One school in central Phnom Penh became the most infamous prison, Toul Sleng, codenamed S-21. The Khmer Rouge was driven from control at the start of 1979 by the Vietnamese. This was precipitated by a number of Khmer Rouge border raids on Vietnam. The Vietnamese set up a new administration headed by Khmer Rouge members who had previously defected to Vietnam together with then Foreign Minister and current Prime Minister Hun Sen. The country’s first elections took place in 1993. The two main parties vying for power in this election were Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and the royalist National United Front for an Independent, Neutral, Peaceful, and Co-operative Cambodia (FUNCINPEC), which had been formed in 1982 by the exiled King Sihanouk and was headed by his son Prince Ranariddh. The frontrunner of this election by a contracted periphery was FUNCINPEC, but Hun Sen refused to turn down muscle. The king had returned from exile, and he stepped in to negotiator a deal between the two sides. They would split control, and there would be a First and a Second Prime Minister. Yet, all this accord did was to holdup the predictable confrontation. Again, the Khmer Rouge came into play. While they had lost the country to the Vietnamese, they had managed to hold onto border regions such as Pailin and Anlong Veng with support from Thailand and China. Now that Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh were locked in a contest of wills, the Khmer Rouge suddenly became very important again. The Khmer Rouge in Pailin, led by Ieng Sary, cut amnesty for surrender deals for their territories. Those in the north entertained overtures from FUNCINPEC. Rumours of a coup d’etat swirled in the capital. Boats carrying arms destined for supporters of Prince Ranariddh were stopped by Hun Sen’s gunships en route to Sihanoukville. Fearing that the remaining Khmer Rouge in the north could be used as a counter to CPP power if allowed to ally themselves with Prince Ranariddh, forces loyal to Hun Sen led a bloody coup d’etat in July 1997. The prince fled the country. So too did Sam Rainsy, a former FUNCINPEC member kicked out of the party in 1995 for criticising the government, who had started a his own political party. Scores of opposition lawmakers were murdered in the struggle. Cambodia’s next elections were held in 1998. Both leaders of the opposition parties returned to enter the fray, but Hun Sen finally won control of the country. Yet, the fairness of these elections was questioned by many people, and so this was only the beginning of a messy political saga that continues to this day. | | | | | | | |
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