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-Siem Reap, ruins of
varying types
Siem Reap is the town next door to
Angkor Wat,
one of the many new hotels that have sprung up there recently
and that look like pagodas crossed with mirrored sunglasses, was
draped with a banner announcing a conference in Siem Reap: Gender Analysis in
Farmers' Water Management.
This was strong evidence, I think, that the aid agencies were in
town, for the conference (it seemed to me) was unlikely to have
been arranged on purely Cambodian initiative. The aid agencies
are one means by which our current fads, fancies, and obsessions
are transmitted to, or should I say imposed upon, small and poor
countries, usually with disastrous results.
The last thing Cambodia needs,
after all, is more deconstruction. But aid is not the only
means of transmission of our obsessions. It is curious how
tourism, the constant search for exotic destinations by people
disillusioned with their daily lives, always ends up by reducing
the difference between the exotic destinations and the places
from which tourists seek to escape.
A brochure in my luxurious,
French-run hotel informed me that Siem Reap was no
longer the sleepy little place it once was (when, of course, it
wasn't in the throes of massacre and civil war). It was
developing quite a nightlife. Its not as vibrant as
Phuket nightlife or
Thailand nightlife in general
but it can be hot either.
When it comes to partying in
Siem Reap's bars and nightlife bars, the old favorites are
holding their own . . . Among the most popular [is] . . . le
Tigre de Papier, a sophisticated little spot in the
up-and-coming bar strip of Siem Reap. Granddaddy of this strip is the
Angkor What?
and it is still going strong after four years. |
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-Siem Reap and Angkor
are Cambodia's greatest economic hope.
At
Siem Reap hotels are being constructed at
a furious rate, in the expectation of a million visitors annually to
Angkor within a year or two. The visa fee and airport departure tax
alone will add 1 percent to the country's GDP, and all in U.S. dollars.
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Never has a country been so dependent upon the visible remains of its
ancestral civilization. It is as if Italy depended upon visitors to
Pompeii for its prosperity.
But the temples at Siem Reap
Angkor, spread over 30 square miles, are so spectacular that familiarity
cannot stale them, nor will they ever disappoint those lucky enough to
see them for the first time.
Even a million tourists a year in
Cambodia will not
vitiate their overwhelming effect, though perhaps it will be difficult
henceforth to visit them in the kind of solitude necessary to enjoy any
ruins to the full.
It is difficult, though, even in solitude, to completely exclude
reflections about
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Siem Reap
Angkor |
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Cambodia's recent past
from one's romantic reaction to the Khmer temples. At the entrance to each of them, hopeful young salesmen
tout books in English, mainly pirated editions, about the Khmer Rouge
regime. "You want Pol Pot book, mister?" is a common refrain. It was as
if Pol Pot had become a tourist attraction too.
There is indeed a connection between Pol Pot and
Angkor: The
grandeur of the site (first appreciated by the French colonialists) fed
Pol Pot's megalomania. He once said, and meant, that the people who
built Angkor could do anything, a kind of racial-nationalist version of
Mao's thesis about people as blank sheets of paper upon whom the most
beautiful characters could be written.
People who can do anything have
no need to take reality into account.
They can decree how much rice is to be produced by forcibly
collectivized workers, whether farmers or not, a failure to meet the
target therefore indicating counter-revolutionary sabotage rather than
physical impossibility. People who can do anything can attack much
stronger neighbors, such as Vietnam, and prevail. This Angkor-induced
voluntarism led to the overthrow of Pol Pot's regime.
You can't help wondering
what kind of labor produced the exquisite Khmer
monuments of Angkor, with their serene and
sublime sculptures. |
Khmer Temples |
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Were the
armies of laborers necessary for the erection of the Khmer temples so devout
that they were happy to toil for the glory of the Hindu gods and their
avatars on earth, the Cambodian kings? Or were they wretched slaves? No
one knows, but one ancient stone inscription in Cambodia describes how a
worker called Viruna tried to escape from his temple and had his eyes
gouged out and his nose cut off: not exactly a testament to labor's
freedom of movement.
The contrast between the captivating charm and physical grace of the
Cambodians, and the inhuman cruelty of the Khmer Rouge, is a source
of puzzlement to all visitors to the country. I caught a glimpse of the
less attractive side of the Cambodian character at one of the temples. A
deaf and dumb girl approached me when I reached the top of the temple
and offered me a ring she had woven of palm leaf, obviously in the hope
of a tip. |
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One of the female temple guards (and guards are necessary, to
prevent people from taking carvings home, a tradition joined if not
started by Andre Malraux in the 1920s, when he tried to steal several
carved Apsaras) shouted at the girl to go away and then used a switch to
beat her, which she did with evident sadistic relish.
My wife and I
intervened to protect the
Cambodia child from further beating, which was horrible
in its heartlessness. If the guard was prepared to do this in front of
foreigners, what would she have been prepared to do when not observed?
We took the girl, crying, away.
But had we done the right thing? The girl, after all, was a
Siem Reap local and would have to stay where she was. Perhaps the guard, also
local, would take her revenge upon her for being thus humiliated by our
intervention. When you don't know the culture, when you can't read the
script or speak a single word of the language, it isn't easy to know
whether you're doing good or harm.
It isn't easy to understand
Cambodia in which Sihanouk could still be
head of state. He has had more incarnations than a Hindu god. He has
been a playboy prince, a colonial front-man/king, a Japanese puppet, a
fighter for independence, a populist prime minister with elitist tastes,
a persecutor of Communists, a neutralist with anti-American and
pro- |
Apsaras, Siem Reap Phnom
Penh, Siem Reap restaurant, Siem Reap river, Siem Reap
Siem Reap, Siem Reap temple, Siem Reap the. |
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Communist leanings,
an exile in Peking, a head of state under palace
arrest of a mass-murdering regime, a deposed
head of state once more, a leader of an exiled
opposition coalition including the party of the
mass murderers who deposed him, and finally a
figurehead king. But it seems to me probable
that he is still widely revered. I think I could
study Cambodia for many years, and still not
understand.
Mr. Daniels is the author of, among other books, Utopias Elsewhere:
Journeys in a Vanishing World.
COPYRIGHT National Review, Inc. & Gale Group. |
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-Around Siem Reap are some
floating village on Tonle Sap Lake.
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One of them is Kompong Phluk, it is located
about an hour's boat ride from the boat harbor of Chong Khneas. There
is a crocodile and snake farm nearby. Everything is floating in
this part of Cambodia, there are floating homes, floating schools,
boat makers, fishermen and even floating spirit houses. Flooded forest
and houses on stilts indicate the dependence onto the water.
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Angkor Village Siem Reap Cambodia
A new
hotel seems to open every day in Siem Reap, one of Asia's tourist boom towns, thriving thanks to the
nearby remains of the extraordinary temple of Angkor Wat. You'd be
forgiven, though, on arrival at the Angkor Village Resort, for thinking
that Monet's garden had been transported from Giverny to Indochina.
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Floating village |
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This Angkor hotel has two ponds covered in water lilies, crossed by wooden
walkways, and fan palms, shrubs and trees at every turn. Fittingly, the
designer and owner is a French architect. A wonderful wooden affair, the
Angkor Village comprises several traditional Khmer bungalows built
around a tropical garden, with colonial verandas, creating a restful
atmosphere. There is a swimming-pool, for refreshment in the midday heat
between visits to the nearby temples of Angkor.
The staff are young Cambodians fluent in English and French, who giggle
at every opportunity and cannot do too much for you.
The handicrafts shop is
better than the average hotel effort,
and the restaurant |
Angkor hotel -
Angkor Village Resort |
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restaurant. |
serves both traditional French and Cambodian food, along
with top-notch wines, at fair prices.
The Angkor Village Resort lobby bar,
beautifully lit up at night, is a pleasant place to knock
back a bottle of Angkor beer to the backdrop of cicadas and fireflies,
and read the coffee-table books on Angkor provided. Nearby is the
excellent Apsara theatre, where dancers and musicians perform
traditional plays depicting scenes from everyday life.
Angkor Village Resort,
Wat Bo Road, Siem Reap (00 855 63 963 561; www.Angkorvillage.com).
The Angkor Village is in the south-east of town and five
minutes' walk across the Siem Reap river from the town's hub,
which comprises Psar Chas (the old market) banks, post office and some
popular restaurants. The entrance to the temples of Angkor is 10
minutes' drive away.
Siem Reap airport is three miles west
of town. The resort can organizes mini-van for $5 return per
person. A taxi to the airport will cost $5-$8 (pounds 3- pounds 5). A
taxi for the day to take you around the temples costs $20 (pounds 12).
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Angkor Village has 14 standard and 32 deluxe rooms, which all have fans
and air-con, as well as French windows that open on to verandas or offer
leafy views. Rooms are decorated with local crafts, and the beds are
comfortable.
Freebies: none, apart from a welcome stock of mineral water.
Keeping in touch at this
Cambodian hotel: rooms have international direct-dialing, but calling
abroad is expensive. Internet costs $5 an hour. No TV.
Standard doubles from $72, to $121,- for deluxe.
Breakfast $7.-.
I'm not paying that: try Mom's Guesthouse on Wat Bo Street (00 855 63
964037; www.sampantour. com/moms.html), across from the Royal residence.
Singles from pounds 2.80.
Author Anthony Daniels
Copyright Independent Newspapers UK Limited
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights
Reserved. |
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