This month Ed plays tour guide, leading us around the haphazard mix of urban sprawl, French colonial relics, enchanting temples and stilt villages that is Cambodia, straight into the path of an angry, machine gun-toting security guard. Enjoy.

In late 2006, I spent close to a month in Thailand and Cambodia, squeezing through the urban warrens of Bangkok, slow boating up the serpentine Ping River in Chiang Mai, clambering over ancient stone monuments in Siem Reap and attempting to keep my breakfast down on a 2-hour boat ride through a cyclone swept Gulf of Thailand. Whilst Thailand was beautiful, confronting, serene and yet maddening, it was Cambodia that left me truly intrigued. 

When the Khmer Rouge was ousted from power in 1979 by neighbouring Vietnam, an estimated 1.5 million people had been murdered by the regime over a four-year period, roughly a fifth of the population. Crimes for which one could expect to be ‘executed’ (although execution implies legality, I employ this term loosely) with a pickaxe or similar (bullets were expensive) included being a teacher, wearing glasses, living in an urban area or generally having any affiliation with anything capitalist in nature, however this list is not exhaustive. Thus, Cambodia has some considerable baggage that it continues to deal with, including an often tense relationship with Thailand, which often makes outrageously unfounded claims of ownership of Cambodian territory. In fact, the town of Siem Reap translates to ‘Thailand Defeated’.

My foray into Cambodia began after two weeks crisscrossing Thailand with a group of friends. I was used to the throngs of taxi and tuk-tuk drivers that greeted us upon alighting from the airport terminal – I knew who would give me the best deal and who the rip off merchants were.  By now, given my immense travel experience, having been a veteran of an incredible two countries other than Australia, including a trip to our seventh state, New Zealand and now Thailand, I was convinced Cambodia would be a cinch. I was incorrect.

As our rickety, no frills brand propeller plane winged its way to the east, toward Cambodia, the sun was dipping below the horizon; I could see the rivers of light streaming through the pockets of urban sprawl. As darkness set in, the artificial glow of the cities and towns, swathing the surrounding countryside below was familiar, reminiscent of anywhere modern man had made his mark. Halfway into our journey, the rivers of light did not peter out, they merely ceased to be. Apart from the flickering of the navigation lights on our clunky winged brick, the earth was dark. Upon landing at Siem Reap International Airport, and having paid surly faced guards our visa fees, my friends and I emerged into the humid night to the calls of scores of taxi drivers. Well used to this from Thailand, we pushed through the masses, hoping to get out onto the main road and find a taxi driver without a captive audience. As we crossed the car park however, a guard loomed from the darkness, casually swung his enormous machine gun in our general direction and made a cut throat gesture, before pointing us back to the crowd from which we had come. We were happy to comply, and paid through the nose for our 5-kilometre ride into town.

That was my introduction to Cambodia. As we rolled toward out hostel, despite the late hour, people milled about dingy stalls and streets, intermittently lit by car battery powered fluorescent tubes. In the centre of town however, the trees lining the Siem Reap River are lined with fairy lights, a beautiful scene contrasting oddly with the relatively little light emanating from the buildings. After our airport adventure, we were relieved to arrive at out hostel and meet our hosts, a couple of middle-aged English hippies. After recovering though, we went out for a walk and sourced good places for beers.

In the morning, Siem Reap was cast in a different light. The French colonial influence is strikingly evident. Our hostel faced the tree-lined Siem Reap River, looking out across a busy road crammed with mopeds and the rare car, obeying traffic rules completely unfathomable to western eyes. Whilst the urban mass of Siem Reap is a shantytown like sprawl, there are also manicured gardens, green lawns and striking French era buildings and facades, such as the Grand Hotel d’Angkor, opened in 1929.

Siem Reap is most famous for the Angkor region 6 kilometres out of town, which was formerly the seat of the Khmer empire. The Khmers, whose empire lasted froth the 9th to 15th centuries AD, built numerous temples, including Ta Prohm, now thoroughly intertwined with the forest surrounds, the Bayon, an enigmatic structure covered a multitude of carved faces said to represent King Jayavarman VII, and the most famous of all, Angkor Wat, an enormous stone monolith rising high above the steamy jungle plain.

Our visit coincide with thousands upon thousands of Chinese, Japanese and western tourists, although we were accompanied by our brilliant Cambodian guide Chad. Thus, we avoided temples at their particularly high traffic times, and Chad was able to rescue us from the hordes of locals selling their wares. It was a sad fact that most locals selling their wares were 5 to 10 years old whilst older kids acting effectively as pimps skulked in the background. It would seem that kids do the best trade because of the cuteness factor. I was bewildered as they all spoke perfectly passable English – one boy, Sam asked “Meester, where you from” to which we replied “Australia”. Then the barrage began – “Ah Austraahlia, you prime meenister John Howard, capital is Canbewa, you have kang-aroos and koalas – So buy my postcard for your girlfriend...” To which he had an answer either way – if you didn’t have a girlfriend, it was because you didn’t buy his postcards. When I finally bought a book from him, after haggling down to US$5 (My mate later got the same – for US$2. Not happy.), he ran off to his new target, a Japanese couple to whom he began to speak to in their native language. 

It was also noticeable how many beggars and people in general were missing limbs – courtesy of the Khmer Rouge’s indiscriminate landmining of rice paddies and roads. However, this has not dampened some people’s resolve – as we witnessed and band of disabled traditional musicians still finding a way to earn for themselves by playing to tourists. 

Despite these hardships, the people of Cambodia are a cheerful people, likeable and friendly despite what horrendous events they have endured. They seemed genuinely interested in where we were from and our haggling and bargain hunting was always done with a smile, even if we were being robbed blind.  They have an interesting and extensive cuisine, primarily coconut and fish based and willing to experiment with a large variety of animal meats. We sampled snake, which had a rubbery calamari like consistency I wasn’t too fond of, and alligator, which was fish like in flavour and consistency. There were other more exotic foods on offer, so I was surprised our eccentric English hosts allowed their Labrador to wander about outside their hostel.

In addition to the Angkor complex, we managed to go boating on Tonle Sap, an enormous freshwater lake to the south of Siem Reap. Here, stilt villages and ramshackle houseboats dot the fringes of what is in essence the Cambodian interior’s lifeblood, filled with fish and nutrient rich water for rice cropping.

By no means was this the entirety of what Cambodia has to offer. There is much I would like to return to and see, from Phnom Penh, to Sihanoukville, to the mysterious eastern provinces. Given the chaos, turmoil and rampant destruction this nation has endured in the past I would hope that the surge in economic growth since the late 90s (averaging 9% per annum) bears fruit for its people. This is not assured given massive infrastructural problems, environmental degradation, graft, corruption, and endemic unsavoury western influences, (particularly sex tourism/people smuggling) involving children that still grip the country. Nevertheless, economic growth offers an opportunity, which I hope, comes to fruition. The sights of Cambodia are at once haunting, beautiful, tragic, compelling and hopeful. I would strongly recommend getting there at least once in your life.

~ Edward Dent