Cambodia: Past, Present, and Future

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“When I first moved to Siem Reap, there were only four cars here.  One for the Sofitel, one for the Grand Hotel, one for the hospital, and one for the Governor,” explained Monmon as we dodged hundreds of cars, trucks, semis, motos, cows, horse-drawn carts, and car-swallowing potholes on our way out of town.  Monmon, the owner of our awesome guesthouse in Siem Reap — the Mandalay Inn — was driving us six hours to Phnom Penh in his own car after the bus company oversold our tickets.  This, to us, is an apt summation of Cambodia:  poor organization, worse infrastructure, incredibly kind people, and all of it changing rapidly.

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Independence Monument, Phnom Penh
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The Grand Palace, Phnom Penh. The picture is of former King Norodom Sihanouk, who died shortly before our visit.

 

We traveled Cambodia for three weeks.  At times, it seemed we were crossing decades and centuries instead of miles.  We started in Siem Reap and visited the majestic Angkor, representing the glories of the ancient Khmer empire.  The French left their mark in towns like Kampot, its dilipidated old buildings sagging into elegant disrepair along the river.  The capital, Phnom Penh, is still recovering from a ruinous civil war and the cruel hand of Khmer Rouge rule, which wiped out a quarter of Cambodia’s population just 40 years ago.  We visited the Tuol Sleng prison, a former high school where the Khmer Rouge systematically tortured, starved, interrogated, and executed 20,000 people.

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Bas-relief sculpture at the Bayon, Angkor Thom
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Tuol Sleng prison
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The Khmer Rouge, like the Nazis, kept meticulous records of its prisoners, photographing every one.

 

But there’s a lot more to Cambodia than its history.  Phnom Penh is a surprisingly fun place with bustling markets, a beautiful riverwalk and lots of great restaurants. It also had large groups of women doing aerobics to techno music in public places all over the city. Work it ladies!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1Y_1VplNfA]

And the remote island idyll of Koh Rong could be the future of Cambodian tourism, if developers succeed in turning it into a chic beach destination.  It seems feasible that given time and wise investment, Cambodian tourism could turn into more than a one-trick pony.

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Playtime on Koh Rong

 

Yet careless development of Cambodia’s tourism sector could do more harm than good.  As Monmon explained to us, the tourist crush has taxed Siem Reap’s water table to its limits, threatening to destabilize the foundations of the very temples all those people come to see.  The road between the country’s capital and its largest tourist attraction is in shambles.  Sihanoukville, what could be a charming beach town, is covered in garbage and known to attract pedophiles.

If the People’s Package Tourist Army comes to Kampot, naptime will be over

 

It’s exciting to visit a place so clearly at a crossroads.  Thailand’s the powerhouse, Vietnam is zooming forward, and Laos is sleepy, but Cambodia is the mystery.  One thing we know for certain is that if we visit in another 10 years, Cambodia will be a very different place than it is now.  Whether that change will be for the better or the worse is anyone’s guess.

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