khmer sources

CULTURE-CAMBODIA: Pre-War Khmer Music Making a Comback

2008-08-18T01:18:00.000-07:00

By Andrew Nette - Newsmekong*

PHNOM PENH, Aug 17 (IPS) - Grainy black and white newsreel footage of B-52 bombing raids and fierce fighting are the images most frequently associated with Cambodia in the sixties and early seventies -- not rock and roll, hot pants and wild dancing. But when the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975, emptying the cities and systematically eradicating the so-called old culture as corrupt and decadent, they almost completely destroyed what was probably, for its time, the most unique and vibrant rock and roll scene in South-east Asia.

"Cambodia definitely had one of the most advanced music scenes in Asia at the time," agrees Greg Cahill, who is currently seeking finance to turn his 30-minute film on the most famous of the era’s female singers, Ros Sereysothea, ‘The Golden Voice’, into a fully-fledged biopic. "It is amazing that a lot of it survived at all," says Cahill, who was recently in Phnom Penh to scout for locations.

"The Khmer Rouge destroyed everything related to the music scene they could get their hands on, including trashing all the recording studios and destroying all the musical recordings they could find." All the major singers, many of them still household names today such as Sin Sisamouth and Sereysothea, were killed.

Not only has the music survived. Its legacy of thousands of songs ranging over musical styles as diverse as psychodelia and Latin, is garnering increasing international attention. ‘The Golden Voice’ is one of two films on Cambodia’s pre-war music scene in the works. The other, Los Angeles-based cinematographer John Pirozzi’s ‘Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten’, a history of the scene, is currently in production. Songs from the period featured on the soundtrack of the 2002 crime thriller shot in Cambodia, ‘City of Ghosts’.

It has also been given significant exposure by the six-piece Los Angeles-based band ‘Dengue Fever’, whose lead singer, Cambodian-born Chhom Nimol, covers many of the classic hits from the period. While the music’s domestic popularity is mostly restricted to older Khmers, the pre-war artists are being sampled and mixed in hip hop and rap music tracks, slowly exposing it to a new, younger audience. "When I first heard this music, I did not think much of it," says Sok ‘Cream’ Visal. "I thought it was just the style back then."

"The more I listened, the more I realised just how different and edgy this music was," says Visal, art director at a local advertising company who, for the past few years, has been experimenting with remixing pre-war music with more modern sounds. "Thailand, Vietnam and Laos did not have this scene. It was unique to Cambodia."

Two factors are credited with kickstarting Cambodia’s pre-war music industry. The first was the patronage of then King Norodom Sihanouk. As part of his post-independence nation-building efforts, Sihanouk encouraged royal court musicians to experiment with new styles. This influenced people like Sisamouth, whose career started as a ballad singer in the royal court and by the end of the sixties had become the ‘King of Cambodian rock and roll’.

In the sixties, Sihanouk began importing Western music into Cambodia. Local record labels sprung up and by the seventies, these were being supported by a well-developed network of distributors and clubs. The other major influence was the R and B, country and rock music that was blared into Cambodia by the U.S. Armed Forces radio in Vietnam.

"This exposed Cambodian musicians to Jimi Hendrix, Phil Spector, the Doors," says Visal. "Meanwhile, from Europe we got Latin styles such as cha cha, rumba and flamenco.’ These sounds, as well as influences as diverse as do-wop, psychodelic and Motown, can clearly be heard in the pre-war music, often mixed with traditional Cambodian instruments.

From the royal court, Sisamouth became a popular radio singer in the late fifties, before branching into film and TV. Although he did many rock and Latin tunes, he is better known for his more silky crooner numbers and is often compared to singers like Nat King Cole. Although Sisamouth was the bigger star, it is Sereysothea who had the greatest mystique and exercises the strongest contemporary interest.

Born into poverty in a small village in Battambang province, Sereysothea spent her teens performing with her family in a traditional peasant band touring Cambodia’s rural backwaters of the north-west. Her reputation slowly grew and she moved to Phnom Penh and started performing at local clubs. By the late sixties she was a major star, producing a number of albums and starring in films. It was during this time hat she started performing with Sisamouth.

She was married for a time to another singer, Suos Mat, who was incredibly jealous of her success and is said to have beaten her regularly. Sereysothea was subsequently involved with a paratrooper in the Lon Nol army who was killed fighting the Khmer Rouge. When the Khmer Rouge marched into Phnom Penh on Apr. 17, 1975, Sereysothea joined the rest of the city’s residents in being marched at gunpoint to the countryside. Sereysothea and Sisamouth in particular were very creative, says Cahill, who has extensively researched the era.

Over the seven to eight years leading to the Khmer Rouge takeover, they wrote, sang and produced about 2,000 songs, often at a rate of one or two songs a day. They also recorded a wide array of covers in English and Khmer. Under the Khmer Rouge, even the slightest western influence such as speaking a second language, having long hair or wearing flares was enough to invite a death sentence.

Sisamouth was reportedly shot. Sereysothea successfully hid her identity for some time until she was finally discovered and made to perform revolutionary songs celebrating the regime. According to Cahill’s research, Sereysothea was in a camp in central Cambodia when her real identity was discovered. She was forced to marry one of Pol Pot’s commanders who eventually had her murdered. The music of the sixties and early seventies is currently available on CD and cassette in markets throughout Phnom Penh.

That it survived the destruction of Cambodian culture wrought by the Khmer Rouge is due to Cambodians who took it with them when they fled the country. "In the Khmer community in Long Beach, California you cannot go down the street without hearing this music," says Cahill. Visal remembers his parents taking music with them when they fled Cambodia to France. "Music was a part of their everyday lives," he recalls. "For them it was about memories of Cambodia in the good times."

A compilation CD of Khmer pre-war music was released in the U.S. in 1999. Called ‘Cambodian Rocks’, it was put together from cassettes bought by a U.S. tourist during a trip to Cambodia. The CD, which contained no information about the singers or names of their songs, became a cult favourite among college students. However, it was not until the music was released as part of the soundtrack for ‘City of Ghosts’, written and directed by U.S. actor Matt Dillon, that it started to get serious international exposure.

Visal’s own path back to Cambodia’s pre-war music involved a long detour through the rap and hip that he listened to in the housing projects of suburban Paris. "I remember seeing the tapes of artists like Sisamouth and Sereysothea for sale in the Phnom Penh in the nineties," says Visal, who returned to Cambodia in 1993. "I did not really pay any attention to the music until I bought a computer to learn design. I stumbled on music editing software and started messing around with sampling Khmer music."

"Soon, I was started going out and combing the markets, listening to every song I could find from this period and I started to mix and sample them," Visal continues. "The first reaction I had from people was shock. They thought it was blasphemy and did not understand why I wanted to do it." Visal recently started up his own label, Klapyahandz, promoting young Khmer hip hop and rap bands and is keen to release a CD of his mixed songs.

"I started remixing old music for fun but now it has become a real mission, trying to remind people now just how creative people were back then." "In the next five years we are going to see a real explosion of the arts in Cambodia, particularly in music," predicts Visal. "I hope the pre-war songs will be part of that."

(*This story was written for the Imaging Our Mekong Programme coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific)

(END/2008)

U.S. scientists one step closer to cloaking device

2008-08-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- U.S. scientists are getting closer to engineering material that could make three-dimensional objects invisible to the human eye, though they're nowhere close to duplicating the "cloaking device" used by alien Klingons in "Star Trek," according to media reports Monday.

Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.
The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.

Cloaking uses metamaterials to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object.
Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don't. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don't create reflections or shadows.

World largest, heaviest emerald displayed in HK

2008-08-07T20:47:00.000-07:00

A staff member shows an emerald on display to the public in Hong Kong, southern China, June 13, 2008. This 536-kg emerald, which is 125 cm in length, 55 cm in height and 78 cm in depth, is believed to be one of the largest and heaviest emeralds in the world. (Xinhua Photo)

This 536-kg emerald, which is 125 cm in length, 55 cm in height and 78 cm in depth, is believed to be one of the largest and heaviest emeralds in the world.(Xinhua Photo)

Leopard hunts crocodile

2008-08-07T19:44:00.000-07:00

BEIJING, July 22 (Xinhuanet) -- In the past, crocodiles have long been known to kill leopards, but this time, onlookers at South African game park observed the reverse scenario -- a leopard snatched a crocodile from the water.

American wildlife photographer Hal Brindley snapped the amazing moment as he was photographing hippos from his car at a waterhole in Kruger National Park.
"It happened in about five minutes, then the leopard was gone. I drove away elated - it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen," the photographer said, adding that "I asked many rangers in South Africa if they had ever heard of anything like this and they all said no."
On the foottage, the big cat just emerged with the croc in its mouth and began to suffocate its prey, who gave in to the leopard after a fearsome fight.
(Agencies)

Clash of the Titans: The leopard attacks a crocodile in Kruger National Park(Photo: China.com.cn) Predator vs. Predator: The wily cat slams full force into the crocodile.(Photo: China.com.cn) Predator vs. Predator: The wily cat slams full force into the crocodile.((Photo: China.com.cn)
Tussle: The leopard begins dragging the crocodile away from the water.(Photo: China.com.cn)

Tussle: The leopard begins dragging the crocodile away from the water(Photo: China.com.cn)
Defeat: The croc hangs lifeless and limp from the leopard's jaws.(Photo: China.com.cn) Defeat: The croc hangs lifeless and limp from the leopard's jaws(Photo: China.com.cn)

Victory: The leopard gains control and gets on top of it, suffocating it(Photo: China.com.cn)

Dinner's ready: The big cat drags its prey off into the bush.(Photo: China.com.cn)

British man catches monster crab

2008-08-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

British diver Paul Worsley shows off the giant crab he caught in Lyme Bay, off the Dorset coast. The crab weighed 63.82kilograms (141 pounds) and had a shell width of 30.48 centimeters (12 inches) while each of its claws was as big as a man's hand. (Source: CRIonline)

The crab weighed 63.82kilograms (141 pounds) and had a shell width of 30.48 centimeters (12 inches) while each of its claws was as big as a man's hand. (Source: CRIonline)

Many Evictees Can't Vote: Monitors

2008-07-16T00:09:00.000-07:00

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh, 11 June 2008

[Editor's note: In the weeks leading into national polls, VOA Khmer will explore a wide number of election issues. The "Election Issues 2008" series will air stories on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a related "Hello VOA" guest on Thursday. This is the second in a two-part series examining the worries of the urban displaced.]

Although politicians and officials say they are seeking votes from the urban displaced, they may face one problem: many displaced are no longer eligible to vote. As many as 150,000 residents of Phnom Penh could face eviction in the path of development in Phnom Penh. But many of them will not be among the 720,000 voters registered in Phnom Penh.

But the Committee for Free and Fair Elections and the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections both say the displacement has put voting out of reach this year for many. Some who were registered at their old neighborhoods in Phnom Penh have not been able to register in their new locations, officials from both organizations said.

Nevertheless, parties hope they can convince those who do vote that they will act to solve many of the problems the evictees face. Cambodian People's Party lawmaker Chiem Yeap said his party's candidates will seek to explain to resettled residents reasons they were moved. "Some people say the rich put pressure on the poor," he told VOA Khmer. "

It is not like that. The CPP always wants achievement and winning in a valuable manner, and we want our citizens to understand that and vote for us." Many forced evictions have led to displaced communities far from the capital and its jobs, schools and infrastructure. Critics say eviction plans rarely compensate people fairly, but city officials maintain the evictees are squatters on state land.

CPP candidates for Phnom Penh will seek to inform potential voters of the party's future measures, to help build houses, roads, schools and hospitals, and provide them with clean water and electricity, Chiem Yeap said. The displaced could receive help from the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, which seeks to raise the living conditions in these settlements to the standards enjoyed by city dwellers, Phnom Penh candidate Yim Sovann said.

Lu Laysreng, first deputy president of Funcinpec and Minister of Rural Development, called the urban displaced the patient in the hospital that needed treatment soonest. No matter the policies, the urban displaced are looking for leadership to bring them out of poverty, voters like Chim Rem, who was ousted from his Sparrow's Nest home on the Tonle Bassac and now lives in a resettlement village 20 kilometers from the capital.

"I will go to vote, to choose the prime minister, so that he sees all kinds of people and knows someone who has difficulty or lives under suppression," he said.

For Workers, Special Obstacles to Voting

2008-07-16T00:05:00.000-07:00

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh17 June 2008

[Editor's note: In the weeks leading into national polls, VOA Khmer will explore a wide number of election issues. The "Election Issues 2008" series will air stories on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a related "Hello VOA" guest on Thursday. This is the first in a two-part series examining the role of workers in the election.]

The increasing price of gas may be one deterrent for voters this year, but workers say they will also have to overcome the policies of their bosses. Many garment workers live in Phnom Penh but hail from rural provinces, where they are registered to vote. This can make travel for voting expensive, and requires time off for work.

Independent groups have worked hard to encourage factories to give their workers time off for Election Day, July 27, but workers say they worry individual factory owners have little incentive to do so. Workers say in the 2007 commune elections, they were forced to work overtime during the elections, but they were not given time off.

They are worried the same will happen in July. The July election was very important, said Nov Sokheoun, 25, a garment worker at the Teratec factory, who is registered in Kampot province. "I wish to attend to vote, although my province is 120 kilometers far away from Phnom Penh."
Some workers representatives say there should be no problem. Chuon Mom Thol, president of the Cambodian Union Federation, said there should be no problem, and he plans to make a request to the Ministry of Labor to allow workers time off to vote.

Om Mean, undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Labor, said on Monday the ministry issued an official letter to all unions and factory owners to allow garment workers to vote. When the factory owners receive the letter, they will respect the ruling of the government, he said.
There are 394 factories in Phnom Penh, employing 340,000 people, according to the president of the Free Trade Union, Chea Mony.

Tribunal Struggles With Civil Party Role

2008-07-15T23:55:00.000-07:00

By Mean Veasna, VOA Khmer Original report from Phnom Penh, 04 July 2008

As the pre-trial detention hearing of jailed Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary came to a close this week, participants found themselves at odds over how much victim participation through civil parties was too much.

Chum Mey, one of the few survivors of Tuol Sleng prison, is also one of the civil parties participating in Khmer Rouge tribunal proceedings.

Prior to one session of the hearings, the Pre-Trial Chamber judges ruled that one individual, Seng Theary, a Cambodian-American lawyer whose parents died under the Khmer Rouge, would not be allowed to participate directly. Pre-trial judges ruled that for the Ieng Sary hearings, civil party victims of the regime would only be allowed to express themselves through lawyers. That ruling has raised questions over how much participation should be allowed in the future.

The UN-Cambodia tribunal was designed with a unique element: the presence of civil parties, who participate alongside prosecutors and the defense, representing their own cases but also speaking as a voice of the victims. But following the hearings Thursday, lawyers told reporters there was a limit.

"In some ways, it was really a bad week from the perspective of the civil parties," said lawyer for the civil parties Silke Studzinsky. "We received this week a ruling by the Pre-Trial Chamber saying that civil parties are not allowed to speak personally if they are not represented." Under the tribunal's internal rules, civil parties are not obligated to have a lawyer, Studzinsky said. Seng Theary called the ruling "a prevention of the civil parties' rights." Michael Karnavas, co-defense for Ieng Sary, disagreed.

"We still have not set up the modality, how far can [civil parties] go, what should they do?" he said Thursday. "Half the time they are just repeating the arguments that the prosecutors made, rather than say, 'I concur,' and then adding one or two points."

However, Studzinsky said Karnavas was used to working with courts in a system of common law, unlike the system used to set-up the tribunal. William Smith, co-deputy prosecutor, called civil parties very important for the tribunal. They play a watchdog role, he said, and stand up for the interest of all victims. Tribunal spokesman Reach Sambath said the role of the civil parties was important to the courts, but in some cases, testimony such as Seng Theary's is not crucial.

"Seng Theary's case is not the same," he said. "The expression of the victims in person will be more interesting in the trials."

Cambodia says further Thai troops trespass in temple feud

2008-07-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

PHNOM PENH (AFP) — Tensions flared Tuesday on Cambodia's border with Thailand, as a Thai soldier was injured by a landmine and about 100 Thai troops were held near an ancient temple in a territorial dispute.

Officials in both countries called the incident a misunderstanding that occurred after the soldiers went to fetch three Thai protesters arrested earlier in the day for jumping an immigration checkpoint to reach the Preah Vihear temple. But later a Cambodian government spokesman said the Thai troops were being held until further talks could resolve the stand-off. "We have not allowed the Thai troops to go back yet, and now more have arrived," spokesman Khieu Kanharith said.

The Thai army ranger who stepped on a landmine was released for treatment after the blast ripped off his leg, Khieu Kanharith said. A Thai military official told AFP that the ranger's leg was amputated after he stepped on the landmine close to the 900-year-old temple, but insisted that the troops had not crossed into Cambodia.

Khieu Kanharith said Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered troops to withhold firing unless fired upon first. "There's no tension. No one is yelling at each other. We have asked them to stay there for a while," the spokesman said. "We need to find out more and let them know how they got the border wrong. If they had intended to invade, we would have used our weapons."

The governor of the Thai province across from the temple, Seni Chittakasem, said he had led a delegation into Cambodia to secure the release of the three protesters, insisting the soldiers had remained nearby but on Thai territory. "All three detainees have been released and now are on the Thai side," he added.

The protesters -- one man, one woman and a Buddhist monk -- are part of a group calling themselves Dharmayatra. They had placed wooden planks over barbed wire on the border to get across, vowing to reclaim the temple, which the World Court handed over to Cambodia in a 1962 ruling. But the temple's most accessible entrance is at the foot of a mountain in Thailand.

Cambodia closed the main border crossing leading to that entrance after about 100 Thai protesters tried to march to the site on June 23. The temple has provoked a political firestorm in Thailand, where a constitutional court overruled the government's support for Cambodia's bid to win World Heritage status for the ruins.

Foreign minister Noppadon Pattama was forced to resign in the ensuing scandal and the entire cabinet is now threatened with possible impeachment motions. Despite the controversy, last week the UN's cultural agency UNESCO awarded the temple World Heritage status in recognition of its importance as an example of ancient Khmer architecture.

Cambodian Official: Thai Troops Cross Border in Temple Dispute

2008-07-15T20:31:00.000-07:00

By VOA News 15 July 2008

A Cambodian official says 40 troops from Thailand entered Cambodia Tuesday in the latest flare-up of a territorial dispute over an 11th century Hindu temple.Hang Soth, the Cambodian official who manages the Preah Vihear temple, said the troops crossed the border hours after three Thai activists were arrested for illegally entering Cambodia to reach the ruins.

The activists have since been released to Thai authorities.Thai military officials deny their troops crossed the border into Cambodia. They say their troops have been deployed to the nearby area.

They also say one Thai soldier lost his leg to a landmine while on patrol near the temple. The temple sits along the Thai-Cambodian border, and each side has long claimed the site as its own. The International Court of Justice granted sovereignty of the temple to Cambodia in 1962.

Thailand's foreign minister, Noppadon Pattama, resigned last week, following a controversial decision he made to endorse Cambodia's bid to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to designate the temple as a World Heritage Site.

Thailand's Constitutional Court ruled last week that the endorsement should have first been approved by the legislature. The decision also had opposition lawmakers calling for Noppadon's impeachment.

Thai troops cross Cambodian border as temple dispute flares

2008-07-15T19:19:00.000-07:00

· Phnom Penh
· July 16, 2008 - 12:00AM

ABOUT 40 Thai troops entered Cambodia last night in the latest flare-up of a territorial dispute over a 900-year-old Hindu temple, Cambodian officials said.
The soldiers crossed the border hours after three Thai protesters were arrested for jumping an immigration checkpoint in a bid to reach the ruins of the Preah Vihear temple, said Hang Soth, the Cambodian official who manages the site.

"At first about 20 troops entered a pagoda in Cambodian territory. Later they increased their numbers to about 40," he said. "We don't understand yet why they came."
The Thai soldiers have positioned themselves at a Buddhist pagoda located on the slope of a mountain, underneath Preah Vihear temple, he said, and the troops and Cambodian border authorities are in discussions.

The governor of the Thai province across from the temple, however, denied that the soldiers were on Cambodian soil. "It's a misunderstanding (Siam you know the border Law or not? "Funman said"). There is no trespassing by our soldiers," Governor Seni Chittakasem said.

Mr Seni said he had led a delegation into Cambodia to secure the release of the three protesters, insisting that the soldiers had remained nearby but on Thai territory. "All three detainees have been released and now are on the Thai side," he added.

The temple was recently declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO, despite objections from Thai groups. The two countries have a long-standing dispute over the land that surrounds the temple, and Thai activists have recently revived nationalist sentiment over the issue.

You See,

How Beautiful For Preah Vihear Temple is? and how Siam want to pillage?

Thai army enter Cambodia, Thai protesters arrested at disputed temple

2008-07-15T19:15:00.001-07:00

BANGKOK (AFP)

About 40 Thai troops on Tuesday entered Cambodia in the latest flare-up of a territorial dispute over a 900-year-old Hindu temple, Cambodian officials at the border have told AFP.
The military deployment comes as three Thai protesters were detained by Cambodian soldiers early on Tuesday for illegally entering the temple site, which is closed to the public, a Thai provincial governor said.

The 11th-century Preah Vihear temple is at the centre of a long-running territorial dispute as the main compound lies inside Cambodia but the most accessible entrance to the site is at the foot of a mountain in Thailand."We are negotiating to secure their release through local officials," Seni Chitkasem, governor of the border province Si Sa Ket, told local television.

"They are being detained for interrogation and haven't yet made any demands," he said.
Cambodia sealed off the temple last month after about 100 Thai protesters attempted to march on the ruins on June 23. One man, one woman and a Buddhist monk slipped through Cambodia's military fence Tuesday, vowing to reclaim the temple which the World Court handed over to Cambodia in a 1962 ruling.

The protesters are part of a group calling themselves Dharmayatra, which has been camped at the foot of Preah Vihear for the past few weeks. The temple has provoked a political firestorm in Thailand, after Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej's government agreed last month to support Cambodia's bid to win World Heritage status for the ruins.

A Thai court invalidated the agreement, and foreign minister Noppadon Pattama was forced to resign in the ensuing scandal. The parliamentary opposition is mulling impeachment motions against the entire cabinet.

Despite the controversy, last week the UN's cultural agency UNESCO awarded the temple World Heritage status in recognition of its importance as an example of ancient Khmer architecture.

Prime spot for a bit of people-watching

2008-07-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

PHNOM PENH : When once there was a trickle, now nearly 100 tourists a day visit the border temple of Preah Vihear, first viewing the magnificent millenium-old ruins, and then heading over to gawk at Thai protesters on the other side of the border. Armed with cameras and video devices, Cambodian tourists get their photos taken, smiling, next to the shuttered border gate, with angry Thai demonstrators heckling and chanting as a distant backdrop.

''For the past two weeks, more and more people have come to visit, firstly to see the temple, and then to watch the Thais,'' the secretary-general of the government's Preah Vihear authority said.

Visitors to the temple, known as Khao Phra Viharn by Thais, have risen from around 20 a day to up to about 90 recently, mainly because it was named a World Heritage site, but also to picnic and watch the firmly contained protests, he said.

The ancient Hindu temple, perched on a 525-metre-high cliff on the Dongrek mountain range that defines the Thai-Cambodian border, has been the source of a sovereignty dispute for decades, and some Thais fiercely objected to its heritage listing. But border police, military and tourists at the site agreed _ it passes the time watching protests, and it's quite good for business.

''More and more people visit,'' said Cham Sokhom, a motorbike taxi driver who has worked the temple's ragged road on the Cambodian side for three years. ''Before I earned US$5 [about 150 baht] a day. Lately I can earn up to $17.50.''

Of almost all the Cambodians who brave the bumpy road to the temple, there is no malice, just a simple curiosity value. ''I love the temple, and I also want to see Thais,'' one woman said.

Cambodian Information Minister: No tension at border with Thailand

2008-07-15T19:07:00.000-07:00

PHNOM PENH, July 15 (Xinhua)

There is no tension currently at the border between Cambodia and Thailand, although both sides stationed more troops there over a territorial dispute around the Preah Vihear Temple, said Information Minister and government spokesman Khieu Kanharith here Tuesday.

Three Thai protesters were arrested earlier in the day for jumping an immigration checkpoint to reach the temple. Thai troops then came to fetch them and the number of soldiers gradually built up to around 100.

Kanharith confirmed the increase of Thai troops and said that negotiation is going on to quiet the situation.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has ordered troops to withhold firing unless being fired upon first, he said. Cambodia needs to find out more and let Thailand know how they got the border wrong, he said. "If they had intended to invade, we would have used our weapons," he said.

Meanwhile, a Thai army ranger was released for treatment after he stepped on a landmine and made his leg ripped off, he added. Provincial authority of Preah Vihear earlier told reporters that the Thai troops entered the Cambodian territory.

However, the Thai side said that a delegation was sent into Cambodia to secure the release of the three protesters, insisting the soldiers had remained nearby but on Thai territory.
The protesters trespassed the border with intention to reclaim the 11-century classic Khmer-style temple, which the International Court of Justice awarded, together with the land it occupies, to Cambodia in 1962, a decision that rankled the Thais.

The temple straddles the Thai-Cambodian border atop the Dangrek Mountain and was listed as a World Heritage Site on July 7 by UNESCO's World Heritage Committee. Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama resigned last Thursday after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had overstepped his authority in supporting Cambodia's application to have the temple classified as a World Heritage Site.

Political tensions driving temple row

2008-07-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

By Jonathan Head BBC News, Bangkok

A week after the controversial listing of the ancient Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site, the dispute that has flared up between Thailand and Cambodia is still causing tension. The 11th-Century Hindu temple lies along the border between the two countries, but in 1962 the International Court of Justice judged that it belonged to Cambodia.

However the land surrounding the temple is still disputed, and the only practical access is from Thailand. The issue has stirred up nationalist emotions in an already sensitive political climate in both countries. Early on Tuesday three Thai protesters crossed into the temple - which remains closed - and were detained for a short time by Cambodian troops.

The Cambodian authorities also say 40 Thai soldiers crossed into their territory briefly, although they are putting this down to confusion over the precise line of the border.
For both sides there is more at stake than a temple. Cambodia is preoccupied with a hard-fought general election campaign, in which Prime Minister Hun Sen aims to extend his more than two decades in power.

Last week he encouraged thousands of Cambodians to join a rowdy celebration of the temple's new international status in the capital, Phnom Penh.

In Thailand feelings are running even higher; the government elected last December was already floundering under a combined assault by street demonstrators, unfavourable court verdicts and the parliamentary opposition.

Its opponents have accused it of incompetence, and of being led by nominees of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed by a coup in September 2006.
Now the government is being attacked for selling out the country over Preah Vihear, because it initially supported Cambodia's bid to list the temple.

One of Thailand's top courts judged that decision to be unconstitutional, as it was in effect a treaty which needed parliamentary approval, and it has barred the government from offering any further co-operation with Cambodia. As a result Foreign Minister Noppodol Pattama was forced to resign last week, one of three ministers to lose his job over the past two months.

Opposition from elite

The volatile state of Thai politics is the principle reason the row has blown up. Thai society is still deeply polarised between those who support Mr Thaksin, and want him to stage a political comeback, and those who loathed his leadership style and mistrust the motives of the government, which is led by his party. The fact that before being appointed foreign minister, Mr Noppodol had been Mr Thaksin's chief lawyer made his position particularly vulnerable.

His critics accuse him of putting his former client's business interests in Cambodia before the country's interests over the temple, something he has strongly denied. That suspicion harks back to the five-and-a-half years Thaksin Shinawatra was in office. As an immensely wealthy and successful businessman himself, he promoted his can-do ethos around the country, especially in poorer rural areas.

He believed in the global marketplace, and in exposing Thais to its risks and opportunities. He pushed hard to privatise state-owned industries and get free trade agreements with as many countries as he could. Inevitably he provoked opposition from those who felt they would lose out, or from those who felt he cared more about making money than about Thailand's traditions and interests.

The most vehement opposition to the Preah Vihear World Heritage bid comes from the same groups who objected to many of Mr Thaksin's policies: the traditional, royalist and aristocratic elite and elements of the Bangkok middle class.

Historical rivalry

But there are also genuine historical grievances at play. The international court decision awarding Preah Vihear to Cambodia in 1962 was not unanimous. It rested largely on Thailand's failure to protest against the French-drawn border line in the decades before.
At the time it was mapped, a hundred years ago, Thailand had few skilled cartographers of its own.

The French colonial cartographers were supposed to draw the border along the forested edge of the Dangret Escarpment, but they veered in a few hundred meters to put the temple on the Cambodian side. It is not clear why the Thais did not object then. But it is worth remembering that in 1941 Thailand fought its only war of the 20th Century with French colonial forces over where the border with Cambodia should lie. A huge monument in the centre of Bangkok still commemorates that conflict.

At different periods in the past Thai and Khmer empires have vied for dominance in the region; the town next to the famous Khmer ruins at Angkor Wat is Siem Reap, which means "Siam [Thailand] flattened".

Khmer-style temples like Preah Vihear still dot much of Thailand's north-east. That historical rivalry still resonates today. Only five years ago the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh was burned down by an angry mob after a Thai actress was wrongly quoted as saying Angkor Wat should belong to Thailand. As it awaited news of the listing of Preah Vihear as a World Heritage site, the Cambodian government took the precaution of reinforcing security around the re-built Thai embassy.

King Calls on Cambodian Unity for Development

2008-07-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

King Norodom Sihamoni called for Cambodian unity to help develop the country, saying too that people living in the capital play a crucial role.

Speaking at the inauguration of a statue to honor Grandmother Penh, on whose legend the name of the capital rides, King Sihamoni said national unity, helped by citizens of Phnom Penh, was the key to raising Cambodia out of poverty.

The statue, he said, was a testament to the capital.

Phnom Penh was established as the capital of Cambodia relatively recently, but it has been central to the country’s economy and politics for nearly 600 years. It was established along with five pagodas after 1422, when King Ponhea Yat abandoned Angkor to the jungle.

Many tourists these days opt out of seeing Phnom Penh altogether, focusing instead on the rediscovered ancient capital and the temples of Angkor. Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema told VOA Khmer Friday he hoped the statue would help tourists reconsider.

Meanwhile, Meach Ponn, an advisor for the Institute of Buddhism, said the municipality should research the stories of other Khmer heroes, such as A Cha and Sva Krala Homkong, to build more statues in the name of Cambodia.

Voters Notice Development, and Its Absence

2008-07-15T01:50:00.000-07:00

Although voters are satisfied with foreign investment development in Cambodia, they are disappointed that the income does not benefit the poor. And as the election approaches, investment that has led to infrastructure could pay off for the ruling party, observers say.
Not all, however, are convinced they benefit.

Under a mango tree, in a poor neighborhood in the middle of Phnom Penh, Phan Na, 32, prepared a prahok dish for her family's lunch. She said she was happy for the overall development of projects like skyscrapers in Phnom Penh, but she was concerned about her own living conditions, as these developments had not reached her.

"The development is not for the poor, but for the powerful government officials and the millionaire businessmen," she said. "The poor Cambodian people have no one to help them. If someone gives the benefit to me, I will vote for them, especially any government who can help the poor Cambodian people."

Investment in the first quarter of this year has fallen compared to last year, but an overall development boom has benefited Cambodia's economic development over the past few years. But many Cambodians do not see the direct benefits. "I have no hope," Ou Soeun, 55, who lives in a slum area of Phnom Penh, told VOA Khmer. "

"Poverty controls my daily life." "I feel very happy for this development, but the result of the development has not benefited me," she said. "I am very disappointed for that. We are poor, and still poor, and have only disappointment, and nothing to do."

Human Rights Party Vice President Keo Remy said Cambodia's economic boom had served powerful officials and millionaires only. "The Cambodian people right now are focused on the election more and more, to change their living conditions, so the development of the big buildings, or modern, new buildings, is not connected with the people's vote for the ruling party," he said. "The people now think only of living and eating, for enough food, enough clothes, and sending their children to school."

Some officials of the ruling Cambodian People's Party say their party will win support from eligible voters through development and investment.
Puthea Hang, director of the Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia, agreed with this.

"The voters will focus on the construction of roads, bridges and all kinds of buildings, as well as modernized markets," he said. "All of these can attract voters, but this is a focus on the rich people." Sim Vibol, a teacher of law at a private Phnom Penh university, disagreed.

"The development of modern buildings and economic development are not very important factors for attracting people to vote for the CPP, but it is the style of how to rule, how to control the country to make progress," he said. "The CPP can have the support from the people in the rural areas where the ruling party constructs roads, schools and bridges, or sometimes gives gifts."

Election Year Investment Dips

2008-07-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

[Editor's note: In the weeks leading into national polls, VOA Khmer will explore a wide number of election issues. The "Election Issues 2008" series will air stories on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a related "Hello VOA" guest on Thursday. This is the first in a two-part series examining the impact of foreign investment on voters.]

Signs of investment in Cambodia now abound: from plans for skyscrapers, fresh paint on new villas and infrastructure projects across the countryside. Millions of dollars are coming in, but, as Cambodia enters an election year, those numbers are dipping. Political observers say little of this money gets to the people anyway, even as quality investment has shied away from the country thanks to corruption.

Still, voters are likely to start looking for leaders who can help bring them some of the millions of dollars of foreign investment coming in, with a government that will be in power until 2013.

Cambodia saw private investment drop from $503 million in the first quarter of 2007 to $253 million in the same period this year, according to the government's investment oversight body, the Council for Development of Cambodia. The top investors for the country include Singapore, China and South Korea.

A dip in investment capital will be felt by Cambodia's labor force, which comprises hundreds of thousands of young voters. This also affects Cambodia's overall economic development, said Sok Sina, an independent economic analyst, who blamed a decline in garment exports to the US and the overall struggling global economy for the dip.

Voters may not necessarily think of this immediately as an issue, but opposition leader Sam Rainsy said poor investment was a product of poor government, especially corruption, which keeps away quality investors.

Election observers say voters are not concerned with the fall of investment or slow economic growth, because their living conditions remain still poor. But voters could concentrate on leaders who can pull them out of poverty.

Like Cambodia's Elephants, Phnong Traditions in Jeopardy

2008-07-15T01:34:00.000-07:00

Cambodian elephants can be distinguished from their African counterparts by their smaller ears, Yun Mane, a young law student of the Phnong minority, explained recently from Mondulkiri province. These elephants are endangered, just as the traditions of the Phnong people are.

The Phnong's traditional use of elephants to clear forests and for transportation is declining, as the monetary value of elephants increase. Many Phnong, who are short of food and money, sell their elephants to companies in Siem Reap, where they are used transport tourists around Angkor Wat, Yun Mane told VOA Khmer recently.

"The elephant is the animal we love the most because it helps transport wood from the forests to help us build homes, and rice from the fields, and fruits and vegetables from farms," she said. "Our people do not rely on motorcycles or bicycles, because, in the forests and on the mud paths, when there is heavy rain and flooding, the elephant is the most reliable of all.''

As a child Yun Mane rode her elephant into Vietnam to bring back food and herbal medicine. But she sold her elephant several years ago to help her family and help pay for her education. Phnong are historically known as expert elephant captors. In their religion, the Phnong pray to elephant gods for good health, abundant harvests and safe journeys. The Phnong are forbidden to kill or eat the animals. A domestic elephant is honored in death with th same traditional funeral burial as a human.

''When an elephant dies, the Phnong do not eat the dead elephant," Yun Mane said. "A few Phnong might, but very few. The elephant is considered sacred, even in death. We bury a deceased elephant, especially the elephant that I personally love."

Melbourne scientists plan to run DNA tests on elephant dung sent from Cambodia to help work out numbers and monitor wild populations. Rangers have collected almost 600 samples of elephant dung from the Cardamom Mountains in the country's southwest. Elephant biologist Joe Hefferman said getting a more accurate picture of population size would help conservationists work out how many elephants were being poached.

Cambodian Blues Man Guest on 'Hello VOA'

2008-07-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

Neou Sarem, VOA Khmer, Washington: 02 July 2007

Kong Nay, the nearest thing Cambodia has to a Blues man, stopped by "Hello VOA" Monday, answering questions about his art and improvising several Chapei Dong Veng songs. Kong Nay, a blind singer who plays the long-necked, two-string guitar while singing heartwarming love songs or comedic improves, is in Washington as part of the Smithsonian's Folklife Festival.

The festival is an international exhibition of "living cultural heritage" that takes place each year in July on the National Mall in Washington. This year's festival saw a special dedication to the cultures of the Mekong River. "The Mekong region has been a cradle and crossroads of cultures for many centuries and more recently has become closely connected to the United States through the more than two million Americans who trace their ancestry to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the Chinese province of Yunnan," Folklife festival organizers said.

Visitors will experience the region's diversity firsthand through the presentations of artists, performers, craftspeople, cooks, ritual specialists and presenters," organizers said.

"The Mekong has many different meanings to the peoples of the region as well as to Americans who may know little of its complexity," organizers said.

The Mekong program of the festival included Vietnamese opera, Thai shadow puppetry, Cambodian classical dance, and Chinese gourd flute music. Lao textiles, Naxi calligraphy and mural paintings were also on display. The festival also showcases the musical stylings of Kong Nay.

Kong Nay's Chapei Dong Veng music, which includes ballads, stories and comedic improvisation, is dying as a tradition thanks to the invasion of karaoke into rural Cambodia.

One "Hello VOA" listener noted that many of the practitioners of the art were blind like Kong Nay, and wondered aloud if the art made a person so. Kong Nay said he'd been blind before he started to play.

Tribunal to Investigate More Former Leaders

2008-07-15T01:04:00.000-07:00

The Khmer Rouge tribunal is prepared to pursue investigation of additional regime cadre, a prosecutor said, but no decision has been made on whom.
Officials have said in the past as many as 12 former Khmer Rouge leaders could be arrested and charged with atrocity crimes, but so far the tribunal is only holding five of the senior-most leaders.

Robert Petit, co-prosecutor for the tribunal, confirmed Friday that the courts were evaluating the preliminary investigation of more suspects. "Regarding the nature of the crime committed here, and effectively based on the law and on evidence, [the tribunal] would have further investigations," he said. "We are now in the stage of preliminary investigation and the stage of the evaluation of evidence."

The investigations are being considered by the two prosecutors, but no decision has been made, he said. "I cannot answer because the decision has not yet been made," he said, when asked how many more might be charged. Petit said too the first trial of a Khmer Rouge suspect, for Kaing Khek Iev, alias Duch, would be held in September or October.

Youk Chhang, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, said the courts would be more likely to find suspects for further investigation once trials of jailed leaders begin. "We will see [more suspects] after the completion of the trials of the five first suspects," he said. "I think if they charge more people now, it could turn the citizens' confidence on the court, because they could be confused," he said.

Khieu Samphan Awaits Lawyer Confirmation

2008-07-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

Jailed Khmer Rouge president Khieu Samphan has selected a replacement defense lawyer from two likely candidates, but neither had confirmed a position Friday. A new candidate is likely to be approved by next week, tribunal officials said.

Khieu Samphan's former Cambodian lawyer, Say Bory, resigned early last week, leaving on opening in the defense team, which includes the French attorney Jacques Verges. "I went to meet Khieu Samphan this morning, and [he] gave me the name that he read in the directory of lawyers," Say Bory said.

He chose an experienced lawyer who can speak French, but Khieu Samphan must wait for final confirmation from the candidate, Say Bory said. Rupert Skilbeck, head of the tribunal's defense section, said it would take some time because of the importance of the decision.

Khieu Samphan must make sure he chooses a lawyer he is confident with and who can sustain a trial that could last two to three years, Skilbeck said. Family members of Khieu Samphan could not confirm his choice Friday. A source close to the tribunal said Khieu Samphan indicated interest in two names, Heng Chy, a former judge and former chief of the Appeals Court, and Sar Sovann, who holds a doctorate of law from France.

Heng Chy said Friday he had discussed the position with Say Bory, but at age 76, as old as his would-be client, sitting in long tribunal hearings and poring over thousands of pages of documents would be difficult. Sar Sovann said Friday he was likely to lose the job to Heng Chy, but would not comment further.

Cambodia's ex-king denounces Thai claims to temple

2008-07-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

On July 15, 2008

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Cambodia's former king dismissed any Thai claim to an 11th century temple on the border as baseless, weighing in on a dispute that has soured relations between the neighbors and fueled anti-government protests in Thailand.

Preah Vihear temple was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site this week, reopening a long-standing disagreement between Phnom Penh and Bangkok over which country owns the land that surrounds it.

Former King Norodom Sihanouk said in a handwritten note posted on his Web site Friday that any Thai claims to the temple were "absolutely false."He accused the Thais of causing "unmerited and anachronistic problems" for Cambodia "rather than concentrating on developing harmonious, friendly and fruitful relations" between the two countries.

Samdech Ta, Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk said that some Thais are ignoring historic facts that prove that the "mountain and the temple of Preah Vihear are 100 percent Cambodia and belong to Cambodia 100 percent."

In 1962, the International Court of Justice awarded the temple and the land it occupies to Cambodia, a decision that still rankles Thais even though the temple is culturally Cambodian, sharing the Hindu-influenced style of the more famous Angkor Wat in northwestern Cambodia."

Thanks to Khmer kings and the Khmer Empire -- the Angkorian Empire in particular -- Thailand is actually very rich in temples and other Khmer monuments in the style of Angkor," the former king said.Thailand's Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama resigned Thursday after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had overstepped his authority in supporting Cambodia's application to have the temple classified as a World Heritage Site.

UNESCO added the temple to its list of landmarks on Monday.Some political opponents have charged that the government of Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej deliberately bypassed Parliament and backed the bid in exchange for business concessions from Cambodia for toppled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and other Samak cronies.Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup, led a group of Thai, British and Dubai businessmen to Cambodia in late May to discuss several investment projects, including the construction of a new city.

But at a recent news conference, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong dismissed suggestions that the business trip was linked to the Preah Vihear issue.As Cambodians celebrate the recognition for the temple, a small group of Thais continue to protest, demanding the eviction of Cambodians living on land near the temple.

Cambodia´s King confirmed to attend opening ceremony

2008-07-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

Source: Xinhua 07-10-2008 09:48
Special Report : 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

King of Cambodia has confirmed to be present at the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games.

"Our King Norodom Sihamoni will attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games to share the joy of the Chinese people," said Hor Namhong, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
The FM also highly praised the preparation having been done for the Beijing Olympic Games in a recent written interview with Xinhua, saying it's impressive thanks to the utmost efforts of the whole Chinese nation.

"There is no doubt that the event will be a great achievement and success of the Chinese people, in spite of certain disruptive incidents in some areas and countries affecting the organization of the Olympic Games," he said.

The FM continued that a successful hosting of the Olympics this year will elevate the prestige of China worldwide and also give a sense of great pride not only to the Chinese people, but also other peoples of the whole East Asian region.

"Chinese athletes will certainly bring China many gold medals," he added.

Liu Qi (C), president of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the 29th Olympiad, confers the flag to theBeijing Olympics and Paralympics Volunteer Service Group atthe mobilization gathering of the volunteers for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, at the Workers' Gymnasium in Beijing,capital of China, May 4, 2008. (Xinhua Photo)

Meanwhile, he said in the interview that the Cambodian people are very happy that the Olympic Games in Beijing coincides with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cambodia and China.

According to an official statement, Cambodia will send a 15-member delegation to participate in the Beijing Olympics. Four Cambodian athletes will join races of marathon and swimming.

Cambodia Training mine-detecting Dogs

2008-07-09T00:29:00.000-07:00

A member of the Cambodian Mine Action Center walks with dog training to be a canine mine detector in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Puppies training to be landmine detectors play with their trainers.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia -- Five squirming puppies born in the outskirts of this capital city may hold the future to successful land mine eradication in Cambodia.As part of the first litter of 10 mine-detection dogs born in Southeast Asia, the puppies spend their time wrestling and napping in a silky-soft heap. The government hopes these snuffling pups will become the nation's next generation of heroes, sniffing out TNT and exposing lethal buried land mines.

"Of all trained working dogs, the most difficult job is being a mine detection dog. These dogs need to be at the top every day," said P.A. Bergstrom, a canine expert with Norwegian People's Aid who is developing the program for Cambodia Mine Action Center, a nongovernmental organization. Cambodia has one of the world's highest rates of unexploded munitions, according to the International Campaign to Ban Land mines. Hundreds of thousands of land mines, cluster bombs and artillery shells are buried throughout the nation's jungles and countryside - lethal reminders of three decades of past wars.

"Even when land mines and UXOs (unexploded ordnance) do not directly kill or hurt people, they are a major obstacle to the development of the country because the contaminated land cannot be used for agriculture or resettlement," Deputy Prime Minister Sok An has said. "People cannot travel or access basic social infrastructures. Getting rid of land mines is a prerequisite to lifting affected populations out of poverty."

Expensive dogs

Since 2000, canine mine-detection teams have been used in Cambodia in four of the worst hit provinces. Currently, there are 53 dogs in the field. Experts say the optimum canine is a fully trained German or Belgian shepherd from Europe, which generally costs about $30,000.

Purchasing such pricey foreign dogs has been an issue for impoverished Cambodia.After the mine action center was formed in 1996, the organization attempted to turn local dogs into mine detectors. They sent 10 prospects to Sweden for training. But even though the Cambodian canines learned how to detect mines, the effort eventually failed. The dogs had difficulty trusting their handlers upon return to Cambodia."

The life of a Cambodian dog is not like in Western culture," Bergstrom said. "Here, they're used for guarding the house and almost everyone knows the best way to get rid of one on the street is to bend down and pretend that you are picking up a stone, because that's normal treatment for local dogs."

So even though the Cambodian dogs learned how to find mines, they regressed once they returned to Southeast Asia, Bergstrom said. "They came back to their old behaviors. They began listening to their handlers less."

Training detectors

Since then, the center has imported dogs. But that could change if the current program's instructors can mold the puppies into full-fledged mine detectors."The dog is not easy to train," said Vim Lay Im, an instructor who handles Tess, a retired mine detector who has worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Angola and Cambodia. "The instructor needs to be strong and patient and get involved with the dog most of the time. ... It is hard at first, but it will be better once you grab the dog's heart."

The new trainees were born in March, the offspring of proven mine detectors. The parents, November and Frode, are Belgian shepherds from Bosnia.The training process began almost immediately after the puppies were born: Bergstrom and trainer Huot Vannara played games with them, encouraging them to investigate and retrieve with the hope that playful roughhousing and fetch would help develop brave, curious adults with a "high-sniff frequency."

Deaths a setback

Last month, however, five of the 10 dogs died from canine coronavirus, which affects the intestinal tract. Bergstrom said the deaths underscore the difficulties in raising dogs in Cambodia: The disease is rarely fatal in Western countries where vaccines and expert veterinary care are available.The setback, however, won't deter Cambodia from developing its dog mine-detector program, Bergstrom vows."If even a couple of puppies make it into the field, the fledgling program will be a huge success," he said.

Cambodia and land mines

Cambodia is cluttered with land mines and unexploded ordnance from past wars involving the Cambodian military, the former Khmer Rouge regime, Vietnam and the United States. It is one of the most contaminated countries in the world, affecting nearly half of the nation's rural villages.Between 1970 and 1975, an estimated 539,129 tons of bombs were dropped on Cambodia.

Conservative estimates show that the United States dropped more than 50,000 tons of unexploded general purpose bombs and 3.75 million unexploded bomblets.Since 1979, there have been more than 63,000 casualties from land mine and unexploded ordnance. One in every 250 Cambodians is disabled, and the proportion of amputees - 1 in every 384 people - is the highest in the world.In 1993, Cambodia began its program to eradicate the mines.

A 2002 survey identified 1,724 square miles of known or suspect areas. By 2006, 23 square miles had been cleared of 236,929 mines and other devices.As a result, deaths and injuries are decreasing. Land mines and ordnance killed or maimed 1,154 people in 1999 compared with 315 last year.The Cambodian government hopes to clear all land mines by 2012.

Sources: International Campaign to Ban Landmines; Cambodia Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority; Cambodian Red Cross/Handicap International Belgium; Cambodia Mine/UXO Victim Information System; HALO Trust; Rand; Mines Advisory Group; U.N. Development Program; U.N. Mine Action Service; World Bank.

Canine mine detectors

More than 750 dogs are used in detection programs in an estimated 23 countries, including Cambodia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Angola, Afghanistan and Iraq.In Cambodia, the 18-month training program begins soon after the puppies are born. Initially, teachers stimulate the dogs with playful roughhousing and loud noise recordings designed to develop hunting instincts and an unflappable demeanor.The dogs are then given a conical red rubber toy, which is used as a reward and as a teaching tool. By using increasingly smaller pieces of the toy, the trainers teach dogs to sniff out specific scents by putting the plaything into a carousel of stainless steel cans. Trainers also bury slivers of the toy in sand and teach dogs to sit once they have found it.After dogs are able to detect a small sliver of the toy, the same tactic is applied to smaller and smaller pieces of TNT. Eventually, they learn to smell even the slightest trace of explosives in the air or on the ground.A dog and his handler can clear at least 6,458 square feet a day. In contrast, a person with a metal detector can cover only a quarter of that area.

Sources: Norwegian People's Aid; Cambodia Mine Action Center; Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining; Cambodia Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority.

E-mail Katie Nelson at foreign@sfchronicle.com.

Ieng Thirith will remain in luxury behind bar

2008-07-09T00:21:00.000-07:00

Ex-Khmer Rouge minister loses appeal against detention

PHNOM PENH (AP) - A former female minister of the Khmer Rouge regime has lost her appeal against detention by Cambodia's genocide tribunal where she is being held on charges of crimes against humanity.

In their ruling, judges of the U.N.-assisted tribunal's pretrial chamber Wednesday upheld the current detention of 76-year-old Ieng Thirith, who served as the social affairs minister during the rule of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.

The "detention remains a necessary measure'' for Ieng Thirith, Prak Kimsan, the chairman of the five-judge panel, said, adding that her appeal was dismissed.The tribunal is seeking justice for atrocities committed by the ultra-communist Khmer Rouge when it ruled Cambodia from 1975-79, with some 1.7 million people dying from starvation, disease, overwork and execution.

Dancing in the Streets over Preah Vihear Victory

2008-07-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

Wednesday July-09, 2008

Cambodians were yesterday dancing in the streets over UNESCO’s decision to list Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site, despite Thailand’s last minute attempts to scupper the registration because of a long-running territorial squabble.Thousands danced, sang and waved Cambodian flags, chanting "Long live Preah Vihear temple!" in response to news that UNESCO had granted the temple World Heritage Site status, AP reported.

"This is a very auspicious day for us. We’re very delighted," said Ti Vansi, a medical student who joined his peers in skipping class to hold a celebration rally, according to AP.Prime Minister Hun Sen called the temple’s designation "a new pride for the people of Cambodia," in a statement.Hor Namhong, Cambodia’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, yesterday told reporters that the UNESCO decision had been unanimous, with all 21 members of the World Heritage Site Committee voting to register Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.

"This is a success of the Cambodian government … and also a success of Cambodian civilization and culture," he said.Hor Namhong emphasized that the listing of Preah Vihear does not affect sovereignty, with neither nation losing "even one centimeter" of territory. He criticized the politicization of the Preah Vihear issue, branding those raising allegations of encroachment "stupid politicians." Hor Namhong claimed relations between Cambodia and Thailand remain good, though he declined to say when the nearest border crossing to Preah Vihear will be reopened.

The border crossing was closed after Thai protestors gathered there demanding the "return" of Preah Vihear to Thailand, along with Siem Reap and Battambang provinces.The UNESCO draft decision obtained by The Mekong Times called Preah Vihear "an outstanding masterpiece of Khmer architecture in terms of plan, decoration and relationship to the spectacular landscape environment."Legal protection of the site was "adequate," UNESCO found, but further archaeological research currently underway "could result in new significant discoveries that might enable consideration of a new transboundary nomination, that would require the consent of both Cambodia and Thailand.

"The draft decision urged Thai-Cambodian cooperation to safeguard the site, as "the peoples of the surrounding region have long treasured the Temple of Preah Vihear."UNESCO noted that "the property proposed for inscription is reduced and comprises only the Temple of Preah Vihear and not the wider promontory with its cliffs and caves.

"This meant that "the integrity of the property has to a degree been compromised by the absence of part of the promontory from the perimeter of the property," because "the attributes of the property comprise the temple complex."Preah Vihear temple is the second World Heritage Site in Cambodia, after Angkor Wat, which was listed in 1992.

A Cambodian woman holds banner reading "Celebrate, the Preah Vihear temple is a World Heritage Site", as she waves a national flags at a central market in Phnom Penh July 8, 2008. The World Heritage committee meeting in Canada has approved Cambodia's application to list the 11th century Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site.

A market security guard plays a drum as Cambodians wave national flags at a central market in Phnom Penh July 8, 2008. The World Heritage committee meeting in Canada has approved Cambodia's application to list the 11th century Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site.

Cambodians celebrate Cambodia's famed Preah Vihear temple enlisted as a World Heritage site during a rally in the capital Phnom Penh, Tuesday, July 8, 2008. Many Cambodians took to the street Tuesday to celebrate their country's success to have the 11th-century Hindu temple enlisted as a world heritage site despite recent protest by opposition groups in neighboring Thailand. A market security guard plays a drum as Cambodians wave national flags at a central market in Phnom Penh July 8, 2008. The World Heritage committee meeting in Canada has approved Cambodia's application to list the 11th century Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site.

Cambodian medical students celebrate Cambodia's famed Preah Vihear temple enlisted as a World Heritage site during a rally in the capital Phnom Penh, Tuesday, July 8, 2008. Many Cambodians took to the street Tuesday to celebrate their country's success to have the 11th-century Hindu temple enlisted as a world heritage site despite recent protest by opposition groups in neighboring Thailand.

900-year-old temple on disputed Thai-Cambodia border named world heritage site

2008-07-08T19:48:00.000-07:00

MONTREAL — A 900-year-old temple, which sits in a disputed border zone between Thailand and Cambodia, has been named by UNESCO as a world heritage site.UNESCO spokeswoman Joanna Sullivan says Preah Vihear was designated Monday at a meeting in Quebec City.

"I can confirm to you that, yes, it was inscribed this afternoon," Sullivan said.In 1962, the International Court of Justice in the Hague ruled Preah Vihear was located inside Cambodia's border, a decision opposed by many in Thailand.Thai citizens were asked to donate money to help finance the country's push to defend the temple in the international court.

Cambodia has been trying to obtain the designation for the Khmer-style temple since 1992.However, Thailand has vetoed its neighbour's previous submissions, fearing the status would include nearly five square kilometres of disputed land along the border.

In June, Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama signed a joint communique with Cambodia, endorsing the country's bid to nominate the temple as a world heritage site.Tensions along the border boiled over last month when protesters threatened to evict Cambodians living in the disputed territory. Cambodia responded by closing access to the temple.

The temple's select status as a world heritage site will attract tourists and grants from the United Nations' World Heritage Fund.

Cambodia's Disputed Hindu Temple Joins Heritage List

2008-07-08T19:20:00.000-07:00

Cambodia's Disputed Hindu Temple Joins Heritage List

New York/Quebec - In one of the most controversial decisions of its eight-day meetings, UNESCO on Monday named a Hindu temple in Cambodia to the World Heritage list that has been under the cloud of a border dispute with Thailand for decades.

Preah Vihear is a stunning clifftop temple dedicated to the Hindu God Shiva perched on the cliff that defines the Thai-Cambodian border.Cambodia sought designation for the millennium-old temple, but Thailand has challenged the move over a border spat dating to a 1962 International Court of Justice ruling.

In a compromise in May, Cambodia agreed to redraw the inscription map, including only the temple, but the move would limit UNESCO's say over how Preah Vihear would be preserved, officials in Cambodia and Thailand have said.

Cambodia's compromise brought Thailand back on board, and the government signed a joint bid, but then withdrew its approval at the last minute in the face of massive public protests and an order by a Thai administrative Court.

At the last minute, Thai Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama travelled to Canada to plead against the designation, but without success.

Thailand successfully blocked Cambodia's efforts to list Preah Vihear in both 2006 and 2007 on the grounds that the inscription map included a 4.6-square-kilometre piece of land in the temple compound that is still subject to a border dispute.

3 More Sites on World Heritage ListQUEBEC CITY, July 7,2008

2008-07-08T19:05:00.000-07:00

3 More Sites on World Heritage ListQUEBEC CITY, July 7

--A Hindu temple in Cambodia,

--Historic Malaysian towns, and

--An agricultural site from Papua New Guinea

were added to UNESCO's World Heritage List on Monday.

Honored were the 11th century Preah Vihear Temple site, perched on a mountaintop on the Thai-Cambodia border, the cities of the Straits of Malacca, Melaka and George Town in Malaysia, and the Kuk Early Agricultural Site in Papua New Guinea, marking the country's first entry on the list.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Committee has been meeting in this oldest of Canadian cities from July 2-10 to consider adding to its coveted list of protected architectural and natural wonders. A total of 45 new sites are vying for inclusion on this list this year, but few more controversial than the Preah Vihear temple.Last week, Cambodia deployed riot police to protect the Thai embassy for fear that a border dispute over the temple could spark violent protests.

The move came after Thailand suspended its endorsement of Cambodia's bid for the UN cultural agency UNESCO to grant the long-disputed Preah Vihear temple World Heritage status.Security forces were also mobilized to protect Thai-owned businesses in the capital Phnom Penh.In 1962, the dispute over the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple went before the World Court, which ruled that the temple belonged to Cambodia, although the main entrance lies at the foot of a mountain in Thailand.

The long-standing row appeared resolved last month, after Thailand endorsed Cambodia's plan to seek World Heritage status at a UNESCO meeting in Canada this week.But the deal sparked a political controversy in Thailand, and last week Cambodia closed the mountaintop temple after more than 100 Thais marched to the compound to protest the deal.A Thai court then forced the government to suspend its endorsement of the plan.

Anniversary of Preah Vihear ruling to be held at in Cambodia

2008-07-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

PHNOM PENH, July 08,2008 -- The Khmer Civilization Support Association (KCSA) has announced its celebration of the International Court of Justice (ICJ)'s 1962 ruling that Preah Vihear belongs to Cambodia rather than Thailand, will be held Sunday at Wat Phnom in Phnom Penh, local newspaper the Mekong Times reported Thursday.

"The ceremony is being held in gratitude to our Cambodian ancestors who built Preah Vihear," said the KCSA statement, adding that it was also dedicated to former King Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodian head of state when the ICJ ruling was made.The ceremony is also being held to thank the Cambodian government for maintaining sovereignty and integrity until the Temple is registered as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site list, said the KSCA.The UN body will discuss the temple's listing at talks to be held early next month in Quebec.

The KSCA announcement comes as the Thai government studies in detail a new drawing of the temple grounds that Cambodia submitted last week.Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungwat told The Bangkok Post Wednesday that further talks between Thai and Cambodian officials are needed because the Cambodian map of the area slightly differs from the border map used by Thailand, the Mekong Times said.Pai Siphan, spokesman for the Cambodian Council of Ministers, said Wednesday that the term "map" as opposed to "drawing" was causing confusion.

"We use the word drawing, as it was a drawing submitted to UNESCO and Thailand. We have sent the drawing to the Thai side and they approved it," he said.He added that, according to Cambodian law, the legal premises of each temple are adjudged to be 30 meters starting from the base of its outer buildings."Currently Preah Vihear temple fences are too near the gate of the temple, which indicates that Thailand has moved its border markers into Cambodian territory," said the spokesman.

Hor Namhong: Thai comments over Preah Vihear Temple "stupid"

2008-07-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

Friday, January 25, 2008

Hor Namhong: Thai comments over Preah Vihear Temple "stupid"

By Mean Veasna, VOA KhmerOriginal report from Phnom Penh25 January 2008

The lawyers defending Cambodia at The Hague International Court of Justice in 1962 (Photo: NorodomSihanouk.info)

The Hague International Court of Justice which handed the ownership of Preah Vihear Temple to Cambodia (Photo: NorodomSihanouk.info)

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong condemned as "stupid" comments made by a Thai official Friday over a disputed border temple in the north.Preah Vihear temple, known to the Thais as Khao Phra Viharn, has become controversial in the unmarked border area, claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia.Thai Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Pichasanu Putchakarn told the Bangkok Post Friday that Cambodia’s recent unilateral request seeking UN World Heritage Site status for the temple could upset relations between the two neighbors. "Thailand has to think of its national interests.

We may protest to the Cambodian government through diplomatic channels and try to explain to other countries that Thailand has tried to cooperate with Cambodia in requesting the World Heritage listing of the sanctuary together," Pichasanu told the Post."That general is stupid, as he does not know anything," Hor Namhong said Friday, referring to Pichasanu. "Preah Vihear temple belongs to Cambodia.

That we want to put it into Unesco’s World Heritage is our right."Cambodia had shown a willingness to negotiate with Thailand "several times," Hor Namhong said. "More Thai experts than the international ones showed up in the negotiation. That is a stupid claim."Cambodia and Thailand both have troops stationed at the border near the temple, Pichasanu said."If Thailand still objects to Preah Vihear being listed as a World Heritgage Site, that is fine. We’ll still keep going," said government spokesman Khieu Kanharith.

"We have warned Thailand that if it blocks the entry to Preah Vihear from Thailand again, we will block it forever. Then it is Thailand that will totally suffer from the loss."

Preah Vihear: The border was already settled by The Hague International Court of Justice

2008-07-08T01:08:00.000-07:00

Near the end of June 2007, following Thailand’s reservations, UNESCO decided to “suspend” Cambodia’s request for the protection of the Preah Vihear Temple as a World Heritage site, and the UN body asked the two countries “to quickly resolve the issue of border demarcation at this location.”

In Bangkok, according to the news published on June 29, 2007, Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the following statement: “In principle, Thailand totally agrees that the Preah Vihear Temple should be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, under the reservation that the differences on the site’s joint management and the problems of border demarcation are resolved first.”

Immediately after this statement, Thailand sent its “black-clad uniformed” troops to prevent the access to the temple from the Thai side, and to close the border. These actions effectively created unease and excitation on Cambodia’s side. The action taken by the Thai troops is nothing new when it comes to the Cambodian Preah Vihear Temple. Two years ago, in May 2005, “black-clad” Thai soldiers undertook the same action towards the temple.

At the time, Thammarak Isarangura, the Thai Minister of Defense, declared that “Thai troops would remain (there) to assure that there will not be any crossings into the territories in conflict, until the two countries complete their demarcation work.” In Phnom Penh, Thailand’s ambassador to Cambodia declared that Thailand intends to respect the decision of The Hague International Court of Justice which gave the ownership of the Preah Vihear Temple to Cambodia in 1962.

“However, the decision concerned the temple only and it did not precise the border delineation … That’s why this problem persists until nowadays.” On July 06, 2007, Viraphand Vacharathit, Thailand’s ambassador in Phnom Penh, implicitly placed the blame on Hun Sen’s government when he declared to the news media that “Cambodia knew very well that UNESCO would suspend this decision on Preah Vihear … because of the absence of the border demarcation line…”

In 2005, Hun Sen’s government promised to “resolve this problem of border delineation as soon as possible.” Now, Khieu Kanharith, the Minister of Information and spokesman of the government, vaguely said that “some small technical problems still remain to be resolved, regarding the new housing constructions, radio [broadcast] towers, irrigation canals, etc…” On the other hand, Va Kim Hong, the government minister in charge of border issues who is even more confused that his ministry of information colleague, let it be known that there would not be “any problem left for anyone, (because) the local authorities, the Preah Vihear provincial authorities, and our local people just have to present to us their problems, and we will resolve them together.”

The issue questioned by UNESCO involves the resolution of the so-called “white zone” located in front of Preah Vihear, a zone which Hun Sen’s government admitted its existence in the past few years to the great satisfaction of Thailand, this in spite of the historical stipulations of treaties recognized by both countries since 1907, and in spite of the irrevocable decision rendered by The Hague International Court of Justice in 1962 regarding this temple.

In fact The Hague Court’s decision dated June 15, 1962, clearly indicated the prior existence of a border delineation between Thailand and Cambodia at this location, BEFORE the court issued its decision to hand the ownership of the temple to Cambodia (please read the court decision attached). There was no “white zone” and there is nothing to “negotiate” again on the border demarcation in front of the Preah Vihear temple. All that remain are the reference to the maps retained by The Hague International Court of Justice, and the building of the corresponding border demarcation posts. Such operation would be completed within a few weeks.

However, we recall that the existence of these “white zones” was adopted by Hun Sen and his party, the PRPK-CPP (PRPK is the acronym for the People's Revolutionary Party of Kampuchea which was later rechristened to the Cambodian People Party or CPP), following their conclusions on illegal treaties and agreements with Hanoi in the 80s on Cambodia’s new borders. These illegal treaties and agreements, which are perfidiously put into application, have de facto rejected or made obsolete all or part of other international treaties of Cambodia with respect to her territorial integrity.

For example, the agreement of the cession by the PRPK-CPP to Hanoi of the islands of Koh Tral and Koh Krachak Seh, and of the so-called “Historical Waters” (a maritime “white zone”) between Vietnam and the People’s Republic of Kampuchea in July 1982, changed the delimitation of the maritime border between Cambodia and Vietnam, and subsequently, the one between Cambodia and Thailand, and it created “white zones” at sea between the two latter countries also. Obviously, these “white zones” later became conflict zones, zones where the law of jungle and instability prevail, and where the first victims are the defenseless and unprotected Cambodian population, this in spite of the confused and irresponsible assurances given by Hun Sen’s government (1).

The note by UNESCO on the imprecision of the border in front of the Preah Vihear Temple – an imprecision based on Thailand’s reservations which completely ignores the decision handed by the International Court of Justice on June 15, 1962 – is a dangerous precedent on the historical rights of Cambodia’s territorial integrity: it is the UNESCO, a UN institution, which accepts, at this location, the existence of a so-called “white zone” between the two countries. What will become of the other “white zones” which were recognized by the Hun Sen’s regime and by his party with Cambodia’s neighbors? By following this path, the entire Cambodia will soon become a “white zone” for Thailand and Vietnam – if it is not one now already – just as it was 200 years ago.

----

(1) During the 1954 Geneva conference, a 1:100,000-scale map produced and kept in France (latest edition) was submitted to the International Control Commission (which was later presided by India under the leadership of Mr. K.L. Bindra), as well as a smaller scale map for ease of use under the circumstance.

On the other hand, between 1968 and 1971, France provided help to Cambodia to establish a 1:200,000-scale geologic map with the participation of 8 French geologists and engineers, as well as 20 other Khmer engineers who performed the works and the research under the direction Mr. Sean Pengse.
At the time, there was no “white zone”.

Paris, July 9, 2007
Vice-President, Cambodia's Border Committee
DY Kareth

Legend ; Churning Of The Milk Sea

2008-07-07T01:58:00.001-07:00

"Temple walls relate an ancient Hindu legend"

The widely known epic of Indian mythology, the Brahmanist legend of the Churning of the Sea of Milk, is as intrinsic to Khmer culture as it is on the subcontinent, and the mysterious but beautiful images of the story are commonly seen in Cambodian temples. In fact, Cambodia has adopted this religious epic, given it a distinctive flavor and made it the mother of those haunting Khmer icons, the Apsaras. Most temples in the kingdom will have some reference to the legend, whether it be a balustrade in the shape of a long snake held by dozens of gods and demons, a depiction of the three-headed elephant Ai Ravoan or a brightly painted scene of the churning pole balanced on the back of the god Vishnu's incarnation as a giant turtle. An entire gallery at Angkor Wat is dedicated to an incredibly intricate and beautiful rendition of the story, a work which has been called the greatest scene ever carved in stone.

The story is simple in its line and complex in its meanings. Several Brahmanist epics tell the story of Vishnu's second avatar, or incarnation, as Koromeak, the giant turtle, and how the goddess Lakshmi was born from the womb of the ocean. Why the gods began their churning is a matter for debate. Some say they
needed to recover precious jewels lost in a great deluge, some that they had grown weak and old and needed the elixir of life, amrita, to be churned from the sea to save them, and others that the sage Durvasa had given the god Indra a gift of a garland of ethereal flowers, which Indra had not respected and allowed to be trampled under his elephant's feet, causing Durvasa to curse him to become void of all riches. Shri, or Lakshmi, goddess of riches, then disappeared into Kshirasagar, the sea of milk, and needed to be recovered from its womb by the gods. For whatever reasons they decided to commence, however, it became obvious after a thousand years that the gods could not churn it successfully on their own. They sought the advice of Vishnu, and he advised them to collude with the demons. They agreed, and the divine mountain, Mount Mandara, was laid in the ocean, a churning pole placed on top and the great serpent Vasuki coiled around it. Gods took one end of Vasuki, demons the other and they proceed to twist the snake back and forth to churn the sea. The bas-relief at Angkor Wat shows this scene, with 92 giants, or demons, at Vasuki's head (the giants have the bulging eyes and the helmets) and 88 gods (they can be distinguished by their Khmer-shaped eyes and conical helmets) at his tail. Vishnu appears in both his four-armed human incarnation and as the sacred turtle, Koromeak, in the depiction. What is most haunting from the scene is the depiction of the ethereal Apsaras, floating above the sea and dancing for the gods and demons alike. The Sea of Milk legend also appears at other temples in the complex, although each period has a different style and way of carving the main characters. "Carvings of the Churning of the Sea of Milk are seen in all temples of the Angkorian period until the end of King Jayavarman VII's reign in 1220AD," Chan Pheak Kdei, Director of Cultural Tourism Development of the Ministry of Tourism, says. "But the style of carving differs through the 11th, early 12th and 13th centuries. And of all the carvings of this legend, only the piece on Angkor Wat's eastern wall has the most beautiful, low bulging styles, with all the gods in depicted in character as they are portrayed in their divinity tales, or legends."

The legend explains that the Sea of Milk was once a Sea of Smoke. One day, a sacred cow emerged from the sea, radiating a light brighter than 1000 suns and appearing larger than the sacred mountain. Its light put the 1000 horses of the royal carriage to sleep, and the gods were forced to go to see Lord Vishnu to ask what could be done. Vishnu floated up to the level of the cow's face on his lotus flower, but when he looked, the cow had become a beautiful nymph. She said, "I will offer you three wishes". "I need only one,"
said Lord Vishnu, "Turn this sea of smoke into a sea of milk so that any being that drinks of it no longer feels hunger or thirst." She agreed, and that is how the Sea of Milk began. As the gods and demons churned to find treasures, a celestial cow, the divine four-headed horse named Ochai Svarak (the horse also represents the five Buddhist commandments not to kill, steal, to take someone's wife, to lie or to drink alcohol) emerged, along with the three headed elephant Ai Ravoan, and a nymph called Sriel Ksei, but before they could find the amrita elixir of life or the goddess Lakshmi, the churning stick faltered and became unstable. The group of gods had moved to hold the serpent's belly instead of his tail, and he began to sway, creating a storm that could destroy the universe. Preah Indra and Preah Brahman could not stop it so Preah Vishnu invited the monkey king Viroskab from Nokor Hem Voan Kiri. The monkey king respected only Preah Vishnu, but he agreed to hold Vasuki steady so work could continue. His efforts made his body red like fire, so he was renamed Mohaa Chumpou, or the Great Pink. Another disaster quickly followed. Mount Mandara began to sink and neither the gods nor the giants, nor even Vasuki could stop it. To make things worse, the snake felt sick from the churning, and vomited venom called halek halak into the water which threatened to kill gods and demons, or giants, alike. Preah Shiva saved them from this, using his hand to scoop up the venom and then swallow it. The venom burnt his throat to a very dark red, and the group offered him the new name of Preah Nilton because of this. To save Mount Mandara, Vishnu turned himself into the turtle Koromeak and swam underneath the stick so that stability could return and churning could recommence. But there was a problem with one of the demon giants, who wanted to outsmart the gods. The gods and giants had agreed that if amrita was found at the giant's end of the snake, the giants could drink it and take its powers of immortality, and vice versa. One giant, named Reahou Asoret, had decided he would not help churn, but wait outside to see when the amrita came out so he could run to drink it immediately, before anyone else. Vishnu was suspicious and asked the sun and moon to watch him carefully while they worked. Suddenly, the churning produced the sacred water of amrita and an Apsara, or celestial dancer, at the same time. But the sacred water emerged at the side of the giants and the Apsara appeared with the gods. Vishnu ordered the Apsara, called Dilotama, to dance and trick them into watching her, and they were captivated. At that moment, Reahou Asoret seized the amrita and drank. The sun and moon yelled a warning to Vishnu, and Vishnu threw his sharpened discus at the thieving giant, severing his head and hands before the water could reach his stomach. That's why to this day Reahou Asoret has only a head and hands-because the water of life only reached as far as these parts. Furious that the sun and moon had betrayed him, Reahou Asoret made a vow of revenge "It does not matter, sun and moon," he told them. "From this day on, I will swallow you at night when we meet at night and I will swallow you in the daytime when we meet in the daytime." Reahou Asoret then became the deity in charge of eclipses, and is often pictured with the sun in his hands, ready to swallow it, and that is why we have eclipses to this day.

Military bungles over Preah Vihear

2008-07-07T01:58:00.000-07:00

Diplomacy and ancient cultural sites are not the business of the Army; the southern insurgency is Published on January 26, 2008The military's strong but belated reaction to Cambodia's nomination of the Hindu temple of Preah Vihear as a United Nations World Heritage site raised eyebrows in Bangkok as well as in Phnom Penh.

It may be true that the Cambodian authorities last year unilaterally proposed to get the mountaintop temple on the Unesco list of historical and cultural sites of global significance, but the Thai Foreign Ministry has already protested the move and now both countries have been discussing the proposal to jointly list Preah Vihear.

The ancient temple is located on Cambodian territory along with secondary ruins on the Thai side. Cambodia and Thailand have for several years been cooperating on the restoration of the ancient temples - which are easily accessible from the Thai side of the border - as part of a joint tourism development.

The timing of the protest by the Defence Ministry, at a time when Thailand is about to revert to democracy after some 16 months of military rule, raises the serious question as to whether there is an ulterior motive behind this uncalled-for protest.On Thursday, the Defence Ministry accused the Cambodian government of trying to create "false historical evidence" with the intention of laying claim to the area adjacent to Preah Vihear, particularly the access road, which is located inside Thai territory.

The Defence Ministry also asked the Foreign Ministry to lodge a formal protest with Phnom Penh. According to the Defence Ministry, Cambodia has unilaterally created a new boundary in order to claim sovereignty over the entire area, including the access road on the Thai side, and is campaigning for international support for this.

The Defence Ministry spokesman went as far as saying that the incoming government should take the issue seriously, as Phnom Penh could once again incite anti-Thai sentiments among Cambodians living along the border - and that this could threaten Thailand's national security. He said the Army was on alert to protect Thailand's sovereignty.Such dramatic posturing by the military comes across as ludicrous and bordering on hysterical.

There have been no signs of any possibility of armed confrontation between the two countries over Preah Vihear. The dispute over the site was supposed to have been settled more than four decades ago.Sure enough, Thai military leaders yesterday backtracked, dismissing what the Defence Ministry's spokesman, Lt-General Pichsanu Puchakarn, said at a press conference was an inaccurate representation of the situation.Preah Vihear is still something of a sensitive issue in the relations between Thailand and Cambodia.

It became a hot issue again early last year when Thailand blocked Phnom Penh's attempt to list it as a World Heritage site on the grounds that Cambodia's annex document claimed some parts in an "overlapping area" claimed by both countries. In 1962, following bitter legal wrangling between the two countries, the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of Phnom Penh, which was given sovereignty over the temple compound. But the access route to the site is mainly on the Thai side of the border.

Negotiations on the overlapping area are ongoing.In clarifying the Defence Ministry's clumsy statements, Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Charungvat said yesterday that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed since 2000 to have a joint boundary committee and would not make any alteration to the environment or physical structures in the area before the demarcation is completed.In the meantime, the spokesman said both countries continued to discuss how best to get Preah Vihear listed as a World Heritage Site for joint tourism development and mutual benefit.The two countries said there was no dispute, and Thailand agreed to provide technical assistance to train Cambodian workers to restore the temple prior to the proposal to list the site.If this serves as a lesson to the military, it is this: the armed forces should learn to mind their own business and not over-extend themselves by venturing into unfamiliar territory - like diplomacy - that they know little about.

Everybody knows by now that the Thai armed forces have been fighting a losing war against Islamic militants/Malay separatists in the deep South and their prestige is taking a beating. The priority for the military is to disengage itself from politics and put its own house in order.

Marriage; Arranged For Life

2008-07-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Although he is just 25 years old, Long Vannak, believes that his arranged marriage is prosperous and his parents knew what was best for him. He doesn't think he will ever look back with regret. Outsiders sometimes view arranged marriage as a practice of the countryside, or as something bad, but Vannak was educated to 12th grade level. His family is reasonably well off and he chooses to live in the city. Vannak sees himself as a symbol of his culture and is proud of the way he found his wife.

"I used to be a playboy and had many girlfriends, but now I'm married I've changed, and I had no say in who the girl would be-my parents arranged the marriage," he says. Meng Kim Lim, at 28, is seriously preparing for marriage, and he is confident the best way to find a good partner is through the efforts of his parents. "I need to discuss with my parents first about whom to choose to marry with.

If they agree with me, I have no problem," he says. "They are responsible for that." But Srey Thom is also 25, and a graduate of the National Institute of Management in Phnom Penh, and her ideas of marriage reflect the changing ideals of many younger Khmers. "I have a boyfriend at the moment," she says. "He is not the first, and I was devastated when I split up with my first boyfriend.

That taught me one thing-that I don't want to rush into anything. We are engaged to be married as soon as he finds a job, and I am hopeful that he is 'The One', but I believe that knowing and understanding each other before we get married is a very important thing. When an arranged marriage fails, we blame our parents and it creates problems in families, but when the marriage is not arranged, we have to face facts and blame ourselves.

" Khmer tradition demands that parents find a suitable marriage partners for their children, and that their children accept whoever the parents choose. It is a tradition at loggerheads with modern trends, but Vannak, for one, is happy to follow the path his ancestors have always followed and put his faith in his family. "Before parents decide for us to get married to somebody, they think a lot," he says. "No parents want their children to face divorce or unhappiness in the future." But what if they find that they just cannot get along?

"The answer is almost certainly trouble within the family or a divorce," he says. "However, a divorce cannot be a result that comes easily because Khmer society does not accept it well, so the troubled couple needs to try to stay together as long as possible to avoid a divorce that could spoil the family's reputation. Most couples can bear it until the pain disappears."

Khmer children traditionally place great trust in their parents' decisions, particularly that they can provide a happy marriage. In Khmer culture, it is believed that the parents are always right.

One Khmer proverb says that a cake is not bigger than a cup, meaning that parents know more about the world more than their children and, for instance, that the children need to follow their parents' lead in choosing a husband or a wife.

But the world is changing, and young people today are more and more outspoken. Not every child who has watched television, surfed the net and been through university believes the cup and the cake must be different at all. Debate comes from the most unlikely corners.

Yi Soksan, 40, is an official with the human rights group ADHOC and a father of three, but he sees no conflict with arranged marriages. Parents want the best for their children, and good parents do not want anything but happiness for their offspring, he says. "According to tradition, parents arrange and choose the marriage for the children. But according to the law, children can choose somebody they love to marry," he says.

"In this new generation, people choose their marriage by themselves. I believe that in many cases, they do it, not because of real love, but because of love movies, youthful exuberance and the influence of foreign cultures." Miech Ponn, 72, is a consultant at Buddhist Institute's Mores and Custom Commission. He agrees that the new generation is freer than his generation. He also says that people of this generation have higher divorce rates than in the old days. "Before, people needed to spend three days performing a wedding ceremony properly.

Nowadays, the wedding ceremony lasts only a day or two," he says. "Also, in the old days, men could not get married unless they had been ordained or studied at the pagoda, because people believed that being a monk made you more knowledgeable and patient than those who were not ordained. On the other hand, a woman needed to do the Chohl Mlob tradition (rites of passage performed at puberty) in which a girl needed to stay inside the house and refrain from being seen by any man for at least three months. By doing this, it was believed that she learned more about being a perfect girl and a good wife.

" He says that once upon a time, a bride's parents would ask the groom to work for the bride's family for the period of two to three years. After that, the bride's family would be able to judge whether he was hardworking and capable enough to feed their daughter. "The ceremony would only start when the bride's parents liked the groom," he says.

"In the old days, it was the woman who asked for a man's hand in marriage. This happened from the 1950s until the 1970s. This happened when a man was a teacher, a government official and a person who had influence and knowledge." But the outcome of any marriage is always fraught with doubts and dangers, arranged or not. In the end, most people believe, the solution is to marry someone we love, or maybe just someone we can come to love as we spend our lives together.

Koh Ker Temple : A Treasure of The Jungle Emerges

2008-07-07T01:42:00.000-07:00

For decades, the towering Koh Ker temple has hidden itself in impenetrable jungle, inaccessible to the prying eyes of either international or Cambodian tourists. Now, a new road being chiseled towards it, step by step, inch by inch, is nearing completion, and this paragon of ancient architecture may soon be flooded with visitors. Previously, even researchers have had trouble reaching the 10th century brick, laterite and sandstone temple complex built as an alternative capital by King Jayavarman IV when the capital at Angkor fell into a state of turmoil. It stands in mountainous terrain, self sufficient, its jungles rich in sources of food and water, its artificial lakes, or barays, full, making it a perfect refuge for a king fighting for political survival. Although it remains a challenge to negotiate the 140 kilometers northeast from Siem Reap, or the 80 kilometers southwest from Preah Vihear to the temples, with the new road it is vastly easier than ever before.

Koh Ker was once the second largest Cambodian capital city after Soht Borak (Angkor) and boasts a collection of names befitting a royal residence. The original name of this city is Chohk Koki or Chhoahk Kiek. In Khmer, it is simply called Srah Koki, which translates to 'Koki Pool', and
apparently named for groves of koki pines that once grew here, but in later inscriptions it is called by its modern name of Kok Ker.

In official inscriptions it is also called Lingkiek Borak (Linga City). Linga are the phallic symbols of fertility that play such an important role in Brahmanism, and as this would suggest, Jayavarman IV dedicated the complex to Hindu gods, specifically Shiva, when he began construction on the main temple in around 928AD. The main temple covers an area of two kilometers square, and forms the heart of a vast collection of temples which were once thought to number around 86, according to the National Patrimony Department's first edition publication on the area, but are now known to be even more prolific-just how many there are is still undecided as more temples continue to be discovered in the dense tropical jungle. For instance, initially there were thought to be only three Linga city temples. Now, ten temples are known and researchers are reluctant to discount the possibility of more.

"Koh Ker temple was built by King Jayavarman IV between 921 and 944 AD. He later built a temporary city between 924-946AD called Chohk Koki or Lingkiek Borak," explains Ourng Von, director of the National Patrimony Department of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. "The king left Angkor city to build the Linga city at presentday Koh Ker because of a looming domestic crisis between members of his royal family. A nephew named Preah Baht Hasvarman I, probably too young to successfully hold the throne, was emerging as a pretender to it. Koh Ker architecture is known as the 'big temple building' or 'kampeng temple' (stone wall temple) and is dedicated to Brahmanism in the Shiva doctrine.

The main temple boasts verandas reaching up seven stories to a height of about 35 meters, but it was once even larger and grander. If we extrapolate from the architectural structure that remains intact in the upper part of the temple, we can conclude that the temple once had at least has one more level of verandas and a large fort at its peak, so it probably once reached a height of around 45 meters. "A particularly striking aspect of the design is the statue of a huge garuda, or mythical bird, that supports a huge throne room veranda atop the temple.

It was here that the sacred yoni of Neang Oma and linga of Shiva were housed, right at the temple's peak." To reach the temple's summit, visitors need to brave a 30-meter tall, rather rickety wooden staircase. This was constructed only recently, and gaping holes between each stair mean it is not for the fainthearted. At the top, an icy breeze envelopes modern intruders, chilling the body to the heart, and the sky is open. The temple towers above the jungle, and visitors are left to look down upon the now supplicant jungle, once so imposing from below.

On the left, the sacred Kulen Mountain and the Dong Rek mountain range are clearly visible. The view leaves no doubt as to why the ancestors chose this site for their a new and mighty capital. "The structure people think of when they think of Koh Ker is the pyramid of the main temple," says Ourng Von. "The construction materials are a mixture of baked bricks, laterite and sandstone, and the style is so unique from any other contemporary structures that Khmer archeologists have named the temples as the 'Koh Ker style'.

Chronologically it is the fourth of ten styles to emerge from the reigns of the kings of the Angkor period; Kulen, Preah Koh, Bakheng, Koh Ker, Preah Roup,
Banteay Srey, Klaeng, Bapuon, Angkor Wat and Bayon styles. "Most masterpieces of Jayavarman IV's reign are single temples with big, tall towers-perhaps because the builders wanted to show that King Jayavarman IV was a very influential and solid king. The temples we classify as masterpieces from this period are Prasat Linga, Prasat Andohng (the temple of the well), Prasat Krahom (red temple), Prasat Khmao (black temple), Prasat Prahm (the temple of five) and Prasat Domrei (elephant temple), and they all lie in this one area around Koh Ker. Because of the long history of wars in modern times, national patrimony and arts have been stolen and destroyed. Most importantly, we have not had a good road to the site before now. Many of the smaller temples do not have a satisfactory road access and in some cases whole villages out here do not have passable roads between them. Once we have roads, we can explore, preserve and protect the temples much more effectively, and this is very important in preserving our culture."

Ancient Tradition Battles A Modern Enemy

2008-07-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

At the gateway to ancient temples and roads, stern stone figures stand guard. These are believed to protect both the human and divine visitors against evil spirits, and they go by the collective name of ting moung. The same name and principal applies to the more humble, scarecrow-like creatures made of straw-stuffed old clothes that are often seen at the gates of houses in rural Cambodia. Like their stone counterparts, they always bear a fearsome expression. Even the poorest of families can afford to create a scary face on the bottom of an old cooking pot to serve this purpose, and farmers often use the same figures in their fields to scare away birds and wandering evil spirits alike.

But with bird flu sweeping Asia, the ting moung have suddenly become even more prevalent. Faced with a mystery disease spread in ways even scientists are still puzzling over, the people of the Cambodian countryside have turned to their old allies, and now they guard against avian influenza. The ting moung have silently stood guard against infectious diseases such as cholera, plague or small pox for centuries, and are also deployed to discourage the evil spirits of malaria and dengue fever, so the fact that people put faith in it when the specter of bird flu raises its head is not so surprising, given the lack of alternatives for the poverty stricken and often poorly educated people of the villages.

Mr Meach Ponn, 72, advisor to the Council of Khmer Customs and Traditions at the Buddhist Academic Institute, says belief in the ting moung has existed for centuries. "From before I was born, my grandparents and their contemporaries all believed in this kind of thing. During my childhood, I was scared of their powers," he says. "Often when there is an outbreak of infectious disease that attacks human beings or livestock, villagers believe that evil or wild spirits are menacing their lives, so they have to build the ting moung to resist those spirits.

The belief in ting moung is a type of psychological animism, like worshipping or praying, and since animism existed in Khmer society pre-Angkor, we can guess that belief in ting moung also predates that time." Mr Um Sok is the director of the Department of Culture in Kompong Thom province. He says that research has revealed that the belief in the ting moung existed in the post-Angkor era, and probably before it.

"Some people do not believe in the ting moung because there is neither reason nor evidence to prove its effectiveness," he says. "But the belief that the ting moung scarecrow used in the fields can scare away animals that want to come and destroy the crops is provably true, and thus makes the theory of ting moung acceptable to many in other roles, and so the ting moung, placed at the gate in front of people's houses or at the entrance to a village may also be able to ward off evil spirits or infectious diseases. Otherwise, belief in it would not have existed until today."

"Some rural people consider ting moung to be the king of all angels or spirits. Beside the ting moung, some Khmer people may also cut a piece of the chrolordai tree to hang on the fences of their houses or at the doorway as a substitute for the ting moung, and people in some villages such as in Sambo district of Kompong Thom province always make ting moung every year during the dry season as a community endeavor.

The people gather together to pray to the village spirits once this ritual is finished, in the hopes of warding off all kinds of bad luck." So it should not come as a surprise, with fear of bird flu raging in provinces such as Kandal, that districts such as Dangkao and Kean Svay are making ting moung and putting them in front of their houses. A woman from Veal Sbov commune, Kean Svay district, has put a freshly made ting moung outside her home. Although she has more faith in her creation than in doctors or vets, she doesn't want to be named for fear of being laughed at by city folk.

"After hearing the announcement about the outbreak of severe bird flu in Vietnam and Thailand on the TV, village elders asked their children to build ting moung and put them in front of their houses to ward off that disease," she says. Mr Doeu Sarath, 32, director of the Khmer Volunteer for Commune Development Organization, says the dolls are a common sight in the countryside, providing hope and confidence. "My organization works closely with people's communities in rural, mountainous areas where mosquitoes are rife and disease is common.

Every time I go there, I always see ting moung in front of villagers' houses," he says. "People usually make ting moung during the cropping and the harvest seasons, especially during seasons when their children get sick easily or when their domestic animals get infected with diseases. Sometime, people even burn the ting moung to ward off bad luck.

This custom is seen in provinces such as Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, Takeo, Kompong Speu and Kompong Cham." Din Prum, 72, is a lay Buddhist priest attached to the Royal Palace. He is a firm believer in the power of these ancient guards. "In fact, whenever a phenomenon takes place, our people always make ting moung with a fierce look to scare off spirits so that they will not enter their villages. This belief is true and has been a custom of our people since ancient times," he says.

Healing Hands

2008-07-07T00:53:00.000-07:00

Maysom settles herself at the end of the futon in the massage room and begins to work with strong, experienced hands. The room radiates peace, and the soft music begins to banish the worries of work immediately. "Klang?" she asks, but it isn't too strong at all. It is

perfect. Pouring scented oil from a small blue bottle, she sets to work on the souls of the feet, working up the legs, methodically kneading away the tensions of a very long, stressful day.

Health professionals recommend massage as a way to reduce stress and anxiety, enhance calm thinking and creativity, self esteem and feelings of well-being, according to the American Massage Therapy Association. Clinical tests have also suggested it can benefit a range of physical medical ailments from headache and high blood pressure to arthritis, depression, stomach problems and even some respiratory conditions. There is no need, then, to feel guilty about taking the time out to be indulged through a health-giving massage.

Think of it as a lusciously enjoyable way of making life more productive. Maysom is one of about 16 professionally trained and experienced therapeutic masseuses who work at In Style, in the heart of Phnom Penh. In Style is perhaps the capital's best known and most established private body treatment center, and has been lovingly developed and nurtured over the years by its Indonesian owner, Endang Little. "The aim is to create an oasis of peace, where people can spend quality time relaxing and forgetting the stresses they cope with outside," she says.

"We are getting more and more Khmer clients coming in for the whole experience, as well as tourists and expatriates. We promote the idea of couples being able to enjoy our beauty and massage packages as couples together, and that is proving very popular." Besides several styles of therapeutic massage, including traditional Thai massage, Balinese massage and oil massage, In Style offers facials, manicures, pedicures, hairdressing, hair spas, body wrapping and treatments, waxing, herbal baths and a Jacuzzi area. But it is the massage that really relaxes, and it forms an integral part of more than half of the sumptuous special packages In Style offers for those wishing to give a special gift or to take the time to indulge themselves, and, perhaps, a partner for anything from two and a half to five hours. On its own, each massage is a minimum of one hour long. There is no rushing here, and customers need to set aside some time to absorb the maximum benefit of the In Style experience.

The way a customer feels when they leave is the benchmark that Endang and her staff measure their success by. Total relaxation takes time to invoke. The oil massage Maysom is performing is a wonderful general pick-me-up. The essential oil massage becomes more specific. Here customers can choose from a range of ten mostly Italian imported oils. These are specially selected to be anything from refreshing to stress relieving, to smooth away cellulite or to calm, to induce a restful sleep to put you in the mood for romance, to relieve pain or, alternatively, fatigue, to a scent that gives an extra boost to an already luxurious therapeutic foot massage. Pregnant women can enjoy a special massage that target the muscles straining most under the unique stress of carrying an unborn child-aching backs and tired leg muscles will find relief through the sympathetic touch of a masseuse trained for just such needs-and the In Style back and shoulder or foot massages are popular specific target therapies for people on the go or tense and weary from spending weeks behind an office desk.

A double massage, where two masseuses work simultaneously, doubles to pleasure but halves the time needed to enjoy the full benefits of massage. A restaurant selling healthy snacks and drinks has just opened up in the downstairs garden, and Endang, who is also a landscape architect, has transformed the rooftop area of the building into a tropical oasis for small groups to gather for anything from a morning or evening in the Jacuzzi with friends to social functions. Although not designed for large groups, the intimate space has already become a favorite with people wanting to feel like they have left the heat and dust of the city behind for a few hours and entered a world without worry, especially for couples eager for a romantic escape. "We want people to feel relaxed.

When you finish a treatment, you don't want to have to run off. You want to sit and enjoy the feeling, so people can now order a refreshing smoothie or a healthy snack and unwind for a little longer before they head back out into the hustle and bustle again," Endang says. In the northern tourist town of Siem Reap, gateway to the temples of Angkor, the new Victoria Hotel Angkor provides one of the most spectacular settings for therapeutic massage in South East Asia. Stroll through the hotel's imposing doors and through the polished timber lobby to be confronted by a landscape of the deep blue of the spectacular rockery-style swimming pool, complete with a subdued cascade of cool water from the upper level, which is in turn surrounded by the lush green of the open garden area that forms the heart of this superbly designed and appointed 5-star resort.

Dotted around this magical space are three salas, draped with white netting like the beds of a Bedouin princess. "We have tried very hard to create a unique atmosphere within this hotel, and the garden area is an integral part of that," Director of Sales for Victoria Angkor, Takemi Matsui, explains. "I believe we are the only hotel offering massage in this type of outdoor setting. Open from 9am to 9pm, the nets are lowered during the evening, protecting customers from flying insects, but also offering a softer, more muted view of the garden area as one of three trained masseuses begins her work. Traditional silk triangular pillows provide backrests, and clients can totally relax on the futon-style mattress under the soft light of lamps.

"Massage tries to enhance the mind-body awareness," Takemi explains. Fountains fill the sala with their sound, and the feeling of serenity and luxury is palpable. "Massage is more than just a physical touch, and this is what we have provided with our setting and the ambiance of the area. The sound of running water here, for instance, is very important.

It isgently relaxing and soothing. We believe that massage is part of a total relaxation and rejuvenation experience, where mind and body find each other as stresses and tensions flow away." Massage here is tailored for both people after a quick rejuvenator after a day touring the temples under the tropical sun and those with time to fully relax. The neck and shoulders massage, which can be soft or firm, depending on client preference, takes just 20 minutes and is perfect for winding down after a day of new experiences in preparation for drinks or dinner with friends.

An hour of foot reflexology will bring aching feet back to life, however fatigued they may feel after a day of treading in the footsteps of the ancient Cambodian kings of Angkor, and a traditional massage, Victoria promises, will allow you to "feel your body lightening under the science of our therapist's hands". An Indian head massage is 30 minutes of bliss, as traditional Ayurevedic methods sooth the head, neck and shoulders. Far from being prohibitively expensive, these complete relaxation experiences cost from just $10. But the ultimate massage experience here must be the signature Victoria Massage.

At 90 minutes long, it allows your masseuse to give you a taste of all of the massage types available individually. Combining traditional massage, foot and head massage, energy channels are stimulated throughout the body, giving a feeling of vitality and wellbeing. In recent years, therapeutic massage has become an important aspect of the leisure industry, and most large hotels offer their own trained masseuses offering their own styles of relaxation and de-stress massage. For instance, the two magnificent colonial era Raffles Group hotels-Le Royal in Phnom Penh and the Grand Hotel d'Angkor in Siem Reap-are both equipped with the famous Amrita spas that have become a Raffles institution. Rich oils, scented candles and soft music accentuate the range of massage styles offered at both these places, and although not inexpensive, they continually garner rave reviews from expatriates and holidaymakers alike.

Amrita, after all, is the mythical element of Hindu legend that the deities sought to bring them eternal youth and beauty, and the hotel has designed its spas and the treatments they offer as an exclusive sanctuary offering guests physical and mental renewal through both exercise and relaxation techniques like massage. Some celebrities and many locals prefer the intimacy of smaller operations such as Sapors, a Phnom Penh institution as famous for its skills training as it is becoming for its therapeutic massage. The experienced masseuses at Sapors are expert in a range of recognized massage techniques. They recently earned high praise from British actress Minnie Driver, who visited Cambodia on a working tour and chose Sapors as the place she would enjoy a well earned rest and traditional massage.

The Value of Women in Cambodian Society

2008-07-07T00:36:00.000-07:00

Cambodian history rich with female role-models and rulers

In Western countries before World War II, women were expected to stay home, raise a family and certainly not to join the workforce-that was the domain of men. But when the men went to war, women were called into the breach and, when they came back, women were not so keen to go back to being wives and mothers alone. They stayed, and they fought for rights like equal pay for equal work, the right not to be discriminated against because of their sex, and access to the same benefits and pensions. That took many years, and the struggle in the west, even today, is far from over, but women now are an indispensable part of the workforce, and expect access to the same levels of education and wages as men. The situation in Cambodia today is slightly different, but women are a valued part of our society.

Princess Chayarach Devy :

If we look into Cambodia's past, we see that Cambodian people have at various stages of their history adopted matriarchy as a system, since the first Khmer tribes began to gather into small groups, and then into one, led by a female tribal chief whom historians know as Queen Lieu-Ye. It was she who formed the kingdom known most commonly as Funan, but also referred to in ancient texts as Kok Thlork or Nokor Phnom (mountain country).

Funan was the first step towards the formation of modern Cambodia. The geographical location of the earliest capital city of Funan was in the present-day area of Phnom Da Mountain in Angkor Borei district of Takeo province, in Cambodia's far south east. After Princess Lieu-Ye had become queen, the Khmer people started to acknowledge and consider women as matriarchs-in their families as well as society as a whole.

In memory of Queen Lieu-Ye's matriarchy as well as in honor of every mother and all Cambodian women, the word me, or mother, has been used in the Khmer language to prefix or precede certain words to express the state of greatness, leadership, or of being the most important article. So you get words such as medai (thumb), mekaoy (a chief or head of a group of people

even if that person is a man), metorp (military commander).

This word can also be used to refer to a male person who is the head of others in a group, or a male animal that is the head of a herd or a flock. In the literature or daily spoken language, Cambodians address their parents and grandparents by calling the mother or grandmother first. They usually say "mother and father", or "grandmother and grandfather", but not "father and mother", which also indicates the high value placed on women.

It should be remembered that people in the Funan era lived in peace and prosperity under the reign of Queen Lieu-Ye. During her reign, an entire range of customs and traditions were created for Cambodians to follow. For instance, there is an important little rite within the marriage ceremony. It is called Preah Thong Taong Sbai Neang Neak.

Preah Thong was the name of Lieu-Ye's husband. In the ceremony, a symbolic representation of Preah Thong clings to a piece of cloth worn on the nagini in order to make the journey to the Naga's kingdom, because Neang Neak is considered to be a daughter of the Naga King. However, people now think the Naga kingdom in fact represents the holy place where Princess Lieu-Ye and her bridegroom Preah Thong spent their honeymoon night.

Now, this ceremony is held for a bride and a bridegroom to go into their honeymoon room to enjoy their first pure love. The Preah Thong Taong Sbai Neang Neak ceremony remains indispensable in the Khmer wedding ceremony because it indicates that the marriage is complete, the bride and the bridegroom have officially become husband and wife, and that it is time for the new couple to enter the room to enjoy their honeymoon.

Princess Indra Devy :

From now on, they have to maintain their love and respect each other forever. It should be noticed that this ceremony took place during the marriage of Preah Thong and Neang Neak (as referred to by Cambodians), who were the King and Queen of Kok Thlork Kingdom. Their real names are Prince Hun Tean from India and Princess Lieu-Ye or, as they became after their marriage according to historians, King Kaundinya and Queen Soma of Funan.

During the golden era of Angkor between the 9th and 13th centuries, Cambodia again had several great female leaders. Princess Indra Devy and Princess Chayarach Devy were sisters and both were also wives of King Jayavarman VII, the greatest king of Cambodian history. According to the Phimean Akas inscriptions, Princess Indra Devy was a scholar of Khmer literature and also a Mahayana Buddhist.

She established four faculties: Prasat Chey Srey Faculty, which is now known as Preah Khan Temple, Prasat Raja Veha Faculty, now called Taprum Temple, Prasat Banteay Kdei Faculty, now known as Banteay Kdei Temple, and Noren Tung Faculty. She lectured in Buddhism and educated women on their value and their obligations to the family and society.

Princess Chayarach Devy was also considered by her contemporaries to be a great and perfect wife, and the power behind the throne of King Jayavarman VII. Women continued to influence Khmer society into the subsequent Long Vek era when the capital city was moved to Udong, and later to Phnom Penh.

The traditional ceremony of Kramom Chol Mlup, which parents traditionally organize for their eldest daughter when she reaches the age of puberty, is seen by Cambodians as a ritual that elevates a girl to the status of a woman. On the occasion of her first period, the girl is cloistered away for three to six months and takes the time to gain knowledge and to ask an elder woman to teach her rules of conduct for women towards her family and society. During the time when this custom was more widely practiced, a man wanting to marry a girl first had to work for the girl's family for between three months and a year to prove his worth. If the girl's family did not like him, they could reject his marriage proposal.

If they agreed to allow him to marry their daughter, the man had to fulfill a final obligation of bringing presents and a dowry as required by the girl's family. This custom still exists today. Unfortunately, during the dark period of civil upheaval between 1970-1980, the fabric of society was torn, and many of the ancient customs were lost or lost the power and respect they once had. But as Cambodia enjoys peace and ancient customs are once again revived, the value of women in society is once again being acknowledged and celebrated.

Training The Future

2008-07-07T00:31:00.000-07:00

Expansive wicker chairs and perfectly set tables sit out on the patio and cool lemon soda is the order of the day. The scent of fresh homemade bread perfumes the air. Waiters hover unobtrusively, jumping to attention to bring out the freshwater fish carpacchio, dripping in olive oil and fresh coriander, followed by succulent beef loc lac—a Cambodian specialty—and delicate peach pastry tartlets drizzled with vanilla sauce to finish. This may sound like a five-star hotel restaurant, but it is actually a study area where students gain work experience.

The waiters, chefs and bar staff are still in training at Ecole d'Hôtellerie et de Tourisme Paul Dubrule, Siem Reap, one of the most impressively equipped and organized training non-government organizations in the country. The entire set menu, with coffee or tea, is available for a $6 donation and is proving very popular with local expats and tour groups.

The goals of the school are lofty—to create a school which will become renowned in Asia for the quality of its hotel, restaurant and tourism industry training. A school that meets the needs of professionals of those sectors, that will sustain itself financially after set-up, which embraces the Cambodian culture and history in its curriculum and which teaches respect of the environment. Above all, it aims to build the skills of young Cambodians so that they have the capacity to earn up to four times the average monthly wage in the country's booming tourism industry and in this capacity still manages to open its doors to as many underprivileged people as possible through an impressive system of scholarships and sponsorships.

"Students pay $500 dollars per year, which is a donation really, but the actual total cost of the training is more like $3500. What we are trying to do is give the course some value, but still make it affordable enough for people to pay their own way," says Sheila Connolly, the school’s Sales, Orientation and Programs Manager. "We have a lot of scholarship students as well, so we welcome private donations and sponsorship of students."

The range of courses covers most of the tourism and hospitality industry. In gleaming stainless steel kitchens that are possibly of an even higher standard than most of the kitchens graduates will someday work in, budding chefs learn cold food, get experience in a full scale restaurant kitchen, and when the glass door is opened into the bakery area, a sumptuous array of pastries, breads and other baked delicacies flood the senses with their aroma.

For $40 a night, including breakfast, guests can stay in the beautifully appointed rooms at the school and experience the training of housekeeping staff from the facility first hand.
Front office personnel of the future greet guests as they enter the facility's foyer. There is also a Restaurant and Bar program, and the Travel and Tourism Industry Services course is a highly specific employment focused course.

Bernard Creff, the school’s director, has steered this new project for the past two years. "We were welcomed to Siem Reap on a national and provincial level.

I am sure that this school is of great value to the hospitality industry. I am very optimistic for its future contribution and the solid foundation we have built for its development," he says.

The facility is the result of a personal initiative of Paul Dubrule, the co-founder of the Accor group, who put his own money into the scheme to give life to his ideal that everyone has the right to access to training and qualifications. With tourism and hospitality emerging as Cambodia's largest growth sector, especially in Siem Reap, which is home to the magnificent Angkor complex, demand has been great for both places and for the trained graduates.

"We took a lot of students from the school when we were setting up operations here. We have a unique approach to our hotel, and these people come to us trained to a very high level but without any of the ingrained habits or preconceptions that they might have if they have been trained in-house by another hotel," says Director of Sales for the Victoria Angkor Hotel, Takemi Matsui. Her hotel, along with other luxury hotels in Siem Reap, has been very supportive of the school and its goals.

"This is a real NGO success story. We are very proud of the school and what it has achieved, and we have great hopes for it in the future," says Sheila Connolly.

A Salute To The Masters

2008-07-07T00:20:00.000-07:00

When Khmer performers of any of the classic arts step on stage, they have already staged the first act backstage. Whilst performers in western cultures may wish each other luck between practicing lines or warm up exercises, the backstage tradition for Cambodian performers isancient and as important as the performance itself.

The Piti Thvay Bangkum Kru or Piti Sampeah Kru is a ceremony to salute the masters and teachers. Each traditional art—Khmer traditional dance or Royal Ballet, the masked theatre of Lakhorn Khorl, the shadow puppet theatre of Lakhorn Sbek, Lakhorn Bassac or the Khmer musical dramas of Yike—has its own form of the ceremony, but each ceremony serves the same basic purpose. The prayer is for perfection and for the safety of all the performers.

Proeung Chheang is the vice-dean of the Royal University of Fine Arts. He says that the apsaras of the Royal Ballet prepare a Piti Thvay Bangkum Kru without fail before beginning any stage performance. A ceremony of this type is also held when actors begin to practice any play.

"The day selected for holding this ceremony is always Thursday, because we believe that it is the day of teachers and masters," he says. "Even students who come for their daily lessons have also to follow this tradition closely. Every Thursday, they have to bring candles and incense sticks to be offered to their instructors, who also perform a ceremony to worship the spirits of their own deceased masters. When a new student comes to learn the Khmer traditional dances, he or she has to prepare a ceremony to salute the instructor first so that the latter will accept them as student from that day onward."

The ceremony is elaborate and contains some items that might come as a surprise, he says. "Things prepared for the instructor include five incense sticks, five candles, cigarettes, areca nuts, betel leaves and a pair of Bachha, or pieces of banana trunk decorated with flowers and usually associated with religious. These things have to be arranged properly on a tray and then offered to the instructor in a saluting gesture by sitting on the legs which are folded backwards to one side.

"When I was a student, I had to prepare incense, candles, cigarettes, areca nut, betel leaves and flowers to be offered to my teachers every Thursday, too," recalls the dean. "We also held a quite big ceremony of this type once a year when the New Year was approaching. Besides the above mentioned offerings, we also bought perfume, bees wax, makeup, fabric for making clothes and towels to be presented to our instructors. This serves as a way of paying respect to both the instructors who are still alive and those who have passed away."

Grandmother Ruos Kong, 69, an instructor of Khmer traditional dances at the Royal University of Fine Arts, says the ceremony is integral to the dance. The two cannot be separated, she says, and most dancers would say that without observing the Piti Sampeas Kru, they simply would not be able to dance.

"Traditional dancers prepare the Piti Sampeas Kru before every practice session or stage performance to pray for ease of learning and success in their performance. The teachers and instructors themselves also hold a ceremony to salute the spirits of both the great and the lesser masters as often as they can afford—perhaps once or twice a year. In the old days, Queen Kosamak Nearirath herself held the annual ceremony of saluting the great Masters sometime just before the annual Water Festival."

Offerings for the "lesser masters" include a pig’s head, a boiled chicken, between five and seven different kinds of fruit, flowers, incense, candles, popped rice, honey, and baiseis, which are made of decorated banana trunks, she says.

"For the Great Masters, the offerings are much more elaborate—three pigs' heads (two cooked and one raw) represent three main characters. The female and the male are represented by the two cooked heads. The giant is the raw head, because giants eat their meat raw," she explains. "A pair of chickens, a pair of ducks, a pair of fish and at least seven different types of fruit are also offered, plus up to 11 incense sticks and a musical performance before the performance in which every instrument is played. A singer performs a song of prayer, and the number of pieces of music performed exceeds that played at the ceremony of saluting the small Masters.

"The ceremony has to be arranged before an altar where the masks of a hermit and giants and the crowns for important characters of the dance to wear are displayed .

An elder with profound knowledge of the arts is also invited to attend to invoke the spirits of all the masters from the whole of modern Cambodia as well as from the former territories of the kingdom to be present. Other spirits are believed to come to participate and enjoy the ceremony. Meanwhile, other elders use scissors, combs and face powder to make up the masks and crowns in the same way they do for the real characters in order to please all the spirits, who then might help young performers to perform perfectly."

The old lady says young performers are not forced to believe in this ancient animist practice, but they all choose to. "It has been noticed," she says, "that those who observe this practice firmly are always successful in their careers and become well known while those who do not observe it become failures, and some even become crazy or mad. For me, I have fully observed it. That was why I learned what my teachers had taught me very well. Even after surviving the Pol Pot regime, when everything was eliminated, I still have this knowledge in my mind, so I am able to teach the young people of this generation. Unlike in my generation, the children now forget what they have learned very easily after they have failed to practice for a few months. This is because they do not observe the ceremony regularly," she says.

No matter where Khmer performers go, they take their ceremony with them—even if it just means lighting some incense and praying together before a performance in some distant country.
Grandmother Em Theay, 70, is a respected teacher of music, theatre and dance at the Royal University of Fine Arts. She says that before a student is accepted to study any traditional dances, he or she has to prepare a baisei to be offered to the teacher.

"This is a tradition that we have practiced since the ancient times," she says. "And before practicing a new play, we also need to set up the baisei first. This is to make the spirit of arts of our nation survive vividly forever. Although our teachers in the previous generations have all died, their spirits always take care and govern us, the artists, all the time. Furthermore, this is also a way of teaching Cambodian children the moral principles so that they will be gentle, polite and quiet. This helps them to learn to understand the difference between right and wrong, and will safeguard the noble traditions of our nation."

Ultimate Street Magic

2008-07-07T00:13:00.000-07:00

David Blaine might think he invented street magic, and that he is the master. David Blaine can think again, says Neang Mak. This magician believes he takes illusionism to a new level—reality.

At 51, Cambodia's most famous "street magic performer" shows no signs of slowing down. In a single performance, he slits his throat, pierces his skin with needles, burns himself with naked flames, walks over broken glass (and then eats it) and sticks a skewer through his tongue. And, he claims, it is all very, very real.

"I didn't believe in this magic myself right away," the unassuming and rather fatherly performer confides offstage without a trace of irony. "It is only because I have made a living from it since I was young that I know it is real. None of the miracles I perform are 'techniques' or tricks. I use only magic. If I slice my tongue on stage, I really do slice it. I do not feel pain when I perform. If it hurt, I would not keep going out there. I am a person who is very afraid of pain. Even when I get sick and go to the doctor, I am afraid to have the injection. But when I perform, I do not know why I am so daring."

So harrowing is his performance for some viewers that after a brief appearance on Apsara TV’s 11 House Show two years ago when he appeared to decapitate himself on stage in a particularly bloody show, viewers could not believe that he could reattach his head after such a convincing live performance and rumors of his death reached hysteria level in the capital—a rumor he only found out about when he returned from a tour of the provinces to his home in Phnom Penh's Sangkat Beng Sralang. The slicing of his throat was the last straw for viewers, it seems, after he had first skewered his cheeks and chopped his tongue into a pulp.

Neang Mak says his success is all prayer related, and the feeling he gets after praying and before a successful performance is so distinctive that he would not perform at all if it failed to materialize.

"I use prayers that I repeat five, seven—up to ten times before an appearance. After I say prayers, I feel a shaking inside, and then I can perform. Sometimes, I say prayers only three times then I feel this cold shaking that means I can start performance. I say prayers until I feel this shaking which means the spirit has come to be me. This means that the performance can start. This is my habit. I do not play if I do not feel the shaking inside," he says.

Neang Mak's greatest support base is in the provinces, and he has toured the entire country with his daring, if not rather traumatizing, act. It's all in a day's work, he says, and if there was another way for him to make a living, he would.

"I have to earn money for my family. This is what I do," he says modestly. "The prayers are the key. If I put a needle through both cheeks, I say prayers to open and close the flesh. I says prayers so that I don't lose a drop of blood, and the injury will be healed in the next two or three days. Before I perform, I carry an offering of rice and walk around the stage. Doing this seals the sacred boundaries against bad people and spirits.

Magicians in the provinces want to challenge me and they are not very good. They are just the beginner magicians. If they were experienced magicians, they would draw close to us and even support us to protect this intangible belief from disappearance with time."

Neang Mak learned his trade from a monk when he was a 12-year-old boy in Kampot province. His teacher finally allowed him to perform on the stage when he was 18. At that time, he played in the drama group called Kun Krou Preah Otei Khmer Leu. The group was made up of up to eight performers, led by Mr. Pov Sakhoeun.

"I have performed ever since the Lon Nol regime. I have never faced barriers or discrimination because of my strange act. I finally established my own drama group in 1979 called Apsara Amatak, which featured about ten performers and the price was cheap. In 1990, I came to live in Phnom Penh and my group grew to include 50 people, including 19 women. The performers range from 13 to 30 years of age. We charge between 2 to 2.5 million riel per night (up to $625) according to distance traveled. The group is under the auspices of the Ministry of Interior at present."

He says his art is a Khmer tradition, and requires to support of a range of spirits for performers to survive it. Diet is important, too — no star fruit, beef, dog meat or other wild meat. Gourd, too, is forbidden.

"If I wanted to, I could use my powers for violence and change lives. I can make sacred prayers that can make people rich, or kill them by making their stomachs swell, but I have never tried. I just studied the knowledge needed to do it. But if business men ask me to make their business go well, I can. Other things, my teacher advised me not to do at all," he says. Neang Mak has four children—two sons and two daughters. Three of his children help with the performance. He is proud that his second child, 19, can perform some scenes. Neang Mak hopes that in the future, this child can replace him.

2008-07-03T01:59:00.000-07:00

Reported by Luu Hong

Miss Mexico Elisa Najera was judged the “Queen of Vinpearl” as she outperformed 79 other Miss Universe 2008 contestants in the Swimwear Show held in the coastal city of Nha Trang last night.

As the winner of the event, the 21-year-old beauty, received a crystal trophy and US$2,000 in cash.
“I am very happy and proud to have won this event,” Najera said.
“All of the girls looked stunning in their bikinis and the jurors surely must have had a difficult decision to make.
“The award is a great encouragement for me as I prepare to compete in the next several events in the days ahead,” Najera added.

She headlined the top five girls – including Miss India, Miss USA, Miss Colombia, Miss Spain – at the event organized by Thanh Nien at the Vinpearl Land Resort on one of Vietnam’s most beautiful islands – Tre Island.
The Swimwear Show, the third event on this year’s list of “mini-competitions,” may have been the most anticipated occasion for local reporters as it serves as the last chance for correspondents to meet with and photograph the international contestants.

Vinpearl Land’s Music Water Stage was packed with thousands of audiences screaming in delight as they witnessed the 80 girls strut about in their swimsuits on a special night that featured performances by local artists as well as a spectacular display of special effects.
Wednesday morning, the contestants had given the media a glimpse of what was to come by gathering poolside at the Diamond Bay Resort to pose in swimwear, attracting the attendance of more than 50 international and local correspondents.

The first two mini-competitions were the Traditional Costume presentation and the Ao Dai Fashion Show.

In the next few days, the girls will conduct interviews with designated jurors and participate in the Presentation Show and Dress Rehearsal from July 5-8.
Fifteen girls will then be selected to compete in the finale, to be broadcast live worldwide via America’s NBC channel on July 13.

Cricket season in Kompong Thom

2008-07-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

Cricket season in Kompong Thom begins in May and lasts for four hot and humid months.
In countries like China and Japan crickets are as often kept as musical pets, but in Cambodia and Thailand their value is very different. Whole, deep fried crickets are a favorite snack for many Khmer, and to many they are considered a culinary delicacy.

It is not uncommon to see the cooked insects piled high in open containers in the markets of the central province of Kompong Thom. The province is said to be the biggest supplier of the insects to Cambodian connoisseurs, though there is no data available on the volume of crickets that are caught or exported because statistical recording is new to the kingdom and the government does not consider the cricket to be a tradable item. However, comments from those who are engaged in the trade indicate its contribution to an informal economy is significant.

These tasty insects, which make a cheerful chirping noise by rubbing part of their forewings together, come out of their hole-in-the-ground habitat when attracted by night light. But local catchers have discovered that crickets find ultraviolet light even more attractive. Professional catchers hang a plastic sheet in the flight path of the cricket. Drawn in by the ultraviolet light, the insect is blinded at close range, crashes and falls into buckets of water placed below.

(roup1)"The more lights we use the bigger the catch," says Duong Dararith, a teacher in Kompong Rotes village in the Stung Sen district. Duong Dararith moonlights as a cricket catcher and he catches approximately 80 kg each night.
Sok Soeun, a 48 year-old villager who lives in Kdei village in the Prey Tahu commune of Stung Sen district, usually makes her living selling produce at the provincial market. During the cricket season she temporarily changes professions, becoming a cricket dealer.

On a normal day Soeun ships 200 to 300 kilos of crickets but on a good day she may ship a ton to Phnom Penh. How much she ships depends on the skill of the village catcher.

Last year Sok Souen sold 10 tons of crickets, many of which went to a wholesaler in Phnom Penh. The others were sold to a wholesaler in Poipet who re-sold them to buyers in Thailand. "These days customers pay the most in Phnom Penh," Sok Soeun said. Before she offers the villagers their bounty she negotiates a selling price with her wholesalers by phone. During a bad season, when supply does not meet demand, she charges higher prices and waits for the middlemen to come to her business to inspect and buy her crickets.

Ou, aged 40, also of Kompong Rotes village, is a fisherman who sells his catch to a Poipet wholesaler for onward transmission to Thailand. Aready owning all the necessary equipment needed for shipping fish, including refrigeration and necessary packing materials, he saw an opportunity to supplement his income during the low season.

Ou ventured into the cricket business, packing them in small bags, freezer-ready to be shipped to the border at Poipet. As soon as the shipments arrive in Poipet, they are lapped up. According to Ou, last year there was increased competition coming from other provinces and as a result the prices dropped.

The wholesale price in Cambodia is between 2000 and 3000 riel (50 - 70 cents) per kilogram, but at the final point of sale it can be sold for ten times that amount. A small bag of fifty deep-fried crickets can sell for $1 at the market in Phnom Penh.

Koh Russey

2008-07-02T20:05:00.000-07:00

A sandy seashore untouched by man

Besides boasting a famous name and beautiful white sand beaches there are many wonders of natural beauty hidden in the islands near the coastal city of Sihanoukville. One such island is Koh Russey, where picturesque beaches and the fresh sea air soothes tourists souls, sends them into a state of relaxation and melts their cares away.

Tourists who visit the eggshell colored sands at the southern end of the island will immediately notice the absence of human footprints. Until last year, neither fishermen nor visitors were allowed to walk on this mysterious coastline because it was occupied by a Royal Navy base. Only military personnel had the chance to enjoy these exotic beaches.

But now the winds of peace have reached every corner of Cambodia, controls have begun to disappear and the land .New policies have been made, allowing pleasure boats transporting tourists from many nations to tie up near Koh Russey.
The presence of visitors has created business opportunities for the local people. One entrepreneur, Mr. Kuy Sun, said that he began renting land near Koh Russey seashore six months ago. He now operates a restaurant and a five-room guesthouse for those who are interested in staying on the island overnight. For only $5 a night guests can rent a small bamboo bungalow. "Before the rainy season there were a lot of guests taking their holidays here." He said. "Now, it is starting to get quiet."
Mr. Kuy Sun also runs a transport service for tourists. The one and a half hour trip to Koh Russey from Ochheuteal only costs $20 per round trip for groups of one to three guests. Groups of four or more pay only $6 per person.

"In the future, I plan to run visitors to Koh Russey three times per day, and I hope to lower the costs. We will continue to improve our service and comfort in order to attract more tourists to the region. We also have plans to enlarge our guesthouse, by installing five more rooms." Added Mr. Sun.

Twenty-four year-old boat captain Phoan also takes tourists to the islands around Sihanoukville. "At least two or three foreign clients per week hire my boat to transport them to Koh Russey. Many of the islands near Sihanoukville have beautiful sand beaches. Some of them have large beaches and some have small ones. Each has its own unique personality and beauty."
Royal Navy sailor, Sin Prin is stationed at the Koh Russey base. he says, "We have only recently allowed tourists to come to Koh Russey. In the past only government soldiers received permission to catch fish and take holidays here because of the Kompong Som Navy base. Now we have opened the island up so that all types of people can have an opportunity to spend their holidays here. Sometimes, guests ask me to bring them up on the island so they can see the big artillery pieces kept there."

Mr. Prin stated, "Visitors often ask me to guide them through the unexplored paths that are deep in the jungle so they can take pictures of the lanscape. They always say they love the nature here very much."
"The southern part of the island has a long sand coastline. But it doesn’t attract many visitors because they are too lazy to walk the islands 900 meter width." he said. "The most beautiful beach on the island is a secluded 600 meter long stretch of pure white sand. It features two smooth natural stairs which lead down to the water. Sea waves break on the coast, and combine with the song of birds in the nearby trees to form a relaxing symphony."

Mr. Prak Thorn, a senior naval officer, stationed at Koh Russey base said, "I feel very happy to welcome tourists who wish to visit the island’s interior or its lovely beaches. Guests won’t be harassed by soldiers, and we can guarantee their safety."

"I want to see multicolored tourist bungalows here, instead of the drab olive color of the military camps of the past". We want to convert our navy base into a site for tourists. We also want to teach the armed forces based here to become tour guides." said Prak Thorn. "I believe the beautiful nature and picturesque coastline on this island can attract tourists and fulfill their wishes and needs." he added.
The tourists who do venture out to the island do so to see its beauty. Mr. Jam Kelly, a tourist from the UK said, "I like the environment here. The beach is clean, the sand is white, and there is no noise. It is possible to go camping here, which is fun and relaxing for tourists. I believe that if the natural beauty remains protected, this location has great tourist potential."

There are plenty of room to relax on Koh Russey

Mr. Kelly’s girlfriend, who sat on the sand, beside him, said, "many people like the places which are already built up. But lots of people are still interested in the unspoiled nature, which they have here. If someone tried to build a huge guesthouse, hotel or restaurant it would destroy much of the island’s natural beauty. I think it would make more sense to promote camping here."

Sihanoukville Tourism Department Director Mr. Teng Huy said, "Many tourists already know about Sihanoukville, and they praise its natural sand beaches. But they are unaware that we have many islands which are hiding out in the sea. These fantastic islands are waiting to welcome them. I believe that all who stroll along the coast on Koh Takeav, Koh Russey, or any the other islands will be overwhelmed by their natural beauty. The islands can fulfill all of the tourists’ wishes."

Life in Floating Village in Cambodia

2008-07-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

In a country where fish is the staple source of protein and land is at a premium, most villages are located along the lakes and rivers and many are built to actually float on the waterways. This is especially the case around the shores of the enormous Tonle Sap Lake.

Kompong Luong is an entire commune of five floating villages located on the lake in the Pursat province area. Like most floating communities, it is a sophisticated and bustling township of fisherfolk, boat builders and businessmen, providing everything which a town on dry land can provide its population. The people of Kompong Luong almost never need leave the water.
According to Mr. Keo Sovanareth, commune chief of Kompong Luong, there are five floating villages in the commune comprising 1214 families with a total population of 6962 people.

"We have four different ethnic groups of people living here," Mr. Keo says. "There are Cham (about 40 families), Chinese (two families), Khmer and Vietnamese. The last two are here in roughly similar numbers. Seventy percent of the villagers make their living as fishermen and the remaining 30 percent have mainly fishing-related occupations, such as boat building, making nets and processing the catch."

According to Mr. Mao Sophorn, director of Pursat’s Provincial Culture Department, Kampong Luong began its life as a small fishing village in ancient times. But in the post-Angkor era, and perhaps during the reign of King Ang Chan Reacha, who defeated King Korn’s troops and the Thais during his rule, the king began to use it as a port when sailing between Krakor province (now present-day Krakor district in Pursat province) to the ancient capital of Long Vek, which now lies in present-day Kampong Chhnang province. He used it as a secret stop on his way to war and as a rest and relaxation place where he could swim and recuperate without fear of ambush.

Because of the king’s frequent voyages, Mao Sophorn says, villagers in the area christened the place Kampong Luong—Kampong in Khmer means a place where water is taken, a bathing place or a place where ships and boats land, load or unload. Luong means the king or monarch.

Some elders, however, disagree and say the name Kampong Luong existed before the reign of King Ang Chan Reacha and was instead named because it was the king’s route between the temple capital of Angkor and the southern part of the kingdom.
Chork Kimseng, 51, is a Vietnamese-Cambodian villager and a village chief. He has lived here most of his life, but he is worried that the floating villagers’ traditional way of life may now be in jeopardy.

"In the past my family made their living from fishing, but because of the increase in the number of fishermen and the decrease in fish production, I was forced to change career and became a boat builder back in 1988 or so," he says. "But now, business is not so good, and the fishermen cannot catch fish, so they have no money to order new boats or have a boat built. Boats are not cheap to make.

"When they want a boat made, people usually buy the timber themselves and transport it to me to build. During the past few years, most people prefer small boats of just 1.5 meters width by five or six meters in length. This kind of boat is called a touk sampan.

It can carry 500-600 kilos of cargos. One cubic meter of wood is enough to build this type of boat. There isn’t a lot of profit left at the end of it. I charge 200,000 riel ($50) for the work, but I pay three or four workers for a week of hard work to help me, and the resin and oils used for coating the boat’s hull and nails is not cheap either. Still, it is easier than fishing, where you are out on the water under burning sun, teaming rain, winds, storms—the lot—and have to work very hard for no guaranteed result, pulling heavy nets in and out. In the past year or so I have made just five to ten boats.

The fish are not there in the numbers they used to be, and a good boat made from koki wood can last 15 or even 25 years.

They need maintenance, though, so recoating old boats with resin, not to mention maintaining people’s floating houses, forms the bulk of my business.

I learnt how to build a boat from my father when I was a child.

Now, my children have also learnt this skill from me and will probably be fixing the boats I made in the future."

Testing out the waterproofing sealant before launch.

they say, and one bad spot in the timber once it is cut and hollowed out will mean they must throw the whole log away or suffer a curse by being prevented from becoming rich and have a troubled life while they use that boat.

Chhuo Seng Nea, 25, who used to be a food vendor but is now a student, came to the floating village from Pursat provincial city. She is not a lifelong resident like most others there. "I had lived among and had done business with fishermen at various floating villages such as Chhnok Tru, Kampong Luong, Raing Thil, Kbal Kol, Prek Torl and Chong Khneas for many years, but the floating village I liked most was Kampong Luong because, like a town on land, this village was very busy with many people going in and out. There are all types of services: market, clinics, a floating pagoda, school and even floating petrol stations. At night, the reflection of electric lights on the water is beautiful. There are also many karaoke parlors and restaurants, so there are plenty of things to see and do," she says.

"I remember the first time I went ashore for a while after several years of living on the floating house. I felt the ground rocking! How strange it was! Though we have had difficulties caused by storms, or in moving our house up and down the river banks along with the water level everyday, they were small problems, and the floating village provides unforgettable memories in my life." Seng Nea, said.

Villagers cover their catch with a tarp to protect it from the rain.

Like Chork Kimseng, Keo Sovanareth also complains about the difficulties of living in the floating villages. We face storms in almost every season, he says, and the fish production has decreased dramatically in recent years. They also face another unusual difficulty—having to regularly move their houses up and down the banks with rising and subsiding water so they float properly on their moorings and allow boat traffic up and down the cluttered "roads" that crisscross the villages.

"However, the main moving jobs in our floating village usually happen only twice a year," he says. "In the rainy season we have to move it close to the bank to avoid storms while in the dry season, when the water goes down, we have to move it out into the open lake according to the depth of the water where we can gather together again." A floating village needs between one and four meters of water beneath it.

The floating house is constantly moved in a safe direction from the wind.

Villagers are beginning to mutter that the increasing drop in the fish catch may force them from their unusual homes. Illegal fishing and the harvesting of fish fry for commercial fish farms are massive problems that will continue to drive the catch down as long as they are not controlled, they say, as well as rising competition for the fish that remain.
For now, however, the villagers of Kampong Luong continue to live as they have for centuries, with their lives on centering the rise and fall of the Tonle Sap.

Khmer Architectural Styles of Buddhist Temples

2008-07-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

Buddhist Prek Am Bel Temple, Koh Thom

The buildings of a Vihara (Buddhist temple), and a Sala Thoama Saphea (the hall in which the dharma is taught or discussed) are like great palaces. Built in the Khmer architectural style, they are usually decorated with beautiful artistic ornaments and covered with flickering golden roofs that rise above those of the nearby houses of rural people in the Kingdom of Cambodia.

These are sacred places of worship for the Buddhists, who make up approximately 95% of the population. A Buddhist monastery, or Wat (in Khmer language), is composed of a Vihara, the Sala Thoama Saphea and the Kods (Buildings

where monks live).
In the past, especially in the post-Angkor time, through the French and Japanese colonial rules, the Wat played an important role in the field of education. Religious ceremonies and other national festivals were held there. Even today, in almost every village, the tradition of building schools in or nearby Wats continues.

The Khmer people are very devout in their practice of Buddhism. That is why nearly all Wats are large and ornate. Although the rural villagers are often very poor, they sacrifice from their meager wages, to contribute to the building of an impressive Wat.

Khmer artistic style is used for decoration in the Buddhist temple.

According to Mr. Chhoam Chhat, Director of Administrative Department of the Ministry of Cults and Religious Affairs, "90% of the 13,000,000 people living in Cambodia are Buddhist. The country has 59,470 monks living in the 3,980 Wats." He stated that the people contribute to the building of an ornate monastery, worth thousands of US dollars, because their belief in the religion is so strong.

Since ancient times, Viharas were usually built with their face turning towards the east. The statues of Buddha enshrined in those buildings, or other places of worship, also traditionally face east. This was done to express gratitude to Lord Buddha for his achievement of enlightenment, and to guide all people toward the path of enlightenment.

Of Cambodia’s 3,980 Wats, only 3 or 4 of them were built, oddly, with their Viharas not facing East. Those Viharas include: the Athaross Temple, which faces to the north and is located in Kandal province; the temple in Wat Bakan or Bakan monastery in Pursat province, which faces to the west; and the temple in the 100-column monastery in Kratie province, which faces to the north. A big statue of Buddha placed outside the temple in Wat Prek Prang (north of Prek Kdam in Kandal province) also faces toward the west. The pages that follow contain some historical legends involved with those unusual temples and statues:

Vihara Athaross (both the temple and the Buddha Statue face north)

Vihara Athaross or Athaross Temple is located on the top of Preah Reach Trop Mountain in the district of Punhea Leu of Kandal province (about 40 km. north of Phnom Penh, reach by national road No 5). In the 13th century AD, the end of Angkor Era, a Chinese King designated many groups of envoys to visit various countries in order to study their respective civilizations. If the culture were found to be advanced the envoys were to gather information, which would be disseminated upon their return to the king’s court. China would then open relations with these advanced civilizations and colonize those countries that were found to be undeveloped.

After the Chinese envoys made a full investigation of Cambodia, they went back to inform their Emperor that The Khmer Kingdom was flourishing although it had declined a bit in recent years. The Khmer people still walked barefoot, ate with their fingers, and wore nothing on their heads. However, the envoys believed that Cambodia would flourish and become more glorious than ever before. According to Chinese astrology, the place, which corresponded to the present-day Preah Reach Trop Mountain in Punhea Leu district of Kandal Province, was very favorable to the country. They had seen the form of "Mokar" (a legendary sea monster) in the mountains. The monster’s body was located at the present-day Trai Troeng Stupa. The head and mustache lay at Totim Stupa, and the tail at the statue of a reclining Buddha. They had also noted that there was a deep cavern on the top of the mountain, where they believed Mokar would soon emerge.

According to the Chinese astrological prediction, whichever country the creature emerged from would become powerful, making it invincible. So, for the safety of China in the future, Chinese officials asked their emperor to send troops to attack Cambodia and take it as a colony immediately. But the Chinese emperor thought that to do so would be a violation. Moreover, Cambodia was still strong and flourishing, and would not be defeated easily. Even if China could defeat Cambodia, it would lose many soldiers, and thus, cause the people to suffer.

The Chinese emporor wished to block the hole in order to prevent the monster from coming out. They thought, "if we use rocks to block it, one day, when the Khmer know the secret, they will take them out. So, we should build something there that the Khmer respect." The Chinese knew that Khmers strongly observed Buddhism. They wouldn’t dare destroy statues of Buddha, or Viharas. Therefore, the Chinese King sent his officials to Cambodia to ask for permission to build a Vihara on the mountaintop. First they built a Buddha statue in the Khmer style. Then, they built the Vihara to house the statue according to the Khmer tradition and Chinese astrology. For this reason the Vihara faces north, towards China. No one knew what the Chinese called the temple, but, having seen that the huge Buddha statue is 18 Haths (an ancient unit of linear measurement equal to the distance from the finger tips to the elbow. 1 Hath is approx. 0.50 meter) high, the Khmers called it ‘Vihear Athaross’, which literally meant the temple with a Buddha statue 18 haths high.

Typical Khmer Buddhist temple

Many years later, the temple fell into ruin, with only the Seima (the sacred boundary within the temple) and the Buddha statue remaining. Later on, in the Longvek era, during the 15th century, King Ang Chan Reachea ordered the reconstruction of the temple, but the statue was left more or less as it was found.

Many years later, the temple deteriorated again, prompting King Norodom to use royal and privately donated funds to rebuild the temple. Patriarch Teang (the head Monk) oversaw the construction personally. The new temple was inaugurated in 1911, during the reign of King Preah Sisovath.

Although the temple was damaged during the war it still is used as a place of worship, and is a popular place for day tripping from Phnom Penh.

Khmer Kam Chroch are enjoyed in peace

2008-07-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

If you are a foreigner and can read the Khmer language you might well be horrified to read signs along Cambodian roads saying, "All kinds of kam chroch are sold here", as in English this literally means, "All kinds of missiles sold here".
That may sound frightening, but these are not like the missiles that kill people, because it is when Cambodians organize special ceremonies or during Khmer national celebrations, that these "missiles" are exploded.

Kam chroch may be translated into English with two different meanings. Sometimes, kam chroch does mean "missile" or "rocket" –rockets that Cambodians saw kill and maim many people during the civil war. But the second meaning, and by far the more frivolous, is "fireworks", the kind used the world over for enjoyment, just as Khmer take pleasure in them during traditional ceremonies.

From the early 1980s until the 1990s, Cambodians seldom saw kam chroch because they were too expensive and their sound too similar to that of bombs and missiles. Before 1990, Cambodians launched kam chroch only in Phnom Penh on Victory Day (January 7), when the country celebrated the anniversary of the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Now kam chroch are let off on public holidays, such as on King Norodom Sihanouk’s birthday, at The Water Festival (Bon Om Touk) and on Independence Day. They are also used at small community and private celebrations such as Banh-chos Ceima (pagoda inaugurations) and at cremations.

Prak Nol, a 52-year-old villager of Cheoung Sdock in the Batheay district, Kampong Cham province, organized his sister’s cremation. He says people used to misunderstand the noise. "But now it is okay, because we have peace. The launching is one of prestige in the village," Mr. Prak says. "My sister’s cremation cost $200 with meru and the firework launching." Meru is a product of the banana palm used as an accelerant when cremating bodies.

Srey Ny, 18, a sweets vendor near Prak Nol’s family cremation told her neighbor the fireworks were good because she could see them close-up. "It was a fantastic view," Miss Srey says.
Say Seang, a 45-year-old villager in the Batheay district says because lifestyles are better now there is enough money to buy the fireworks. "This is a kind of prestige in the village, because if they were poor they could not do a cremation like that," Mr. Say says. "The cremation, with meru and fireworks, is not cheap. It is expensive to hire it, sometimes costing between $150 and $300 per ceremony."

Doeur Inn, 53, has known how to make kam chroch since he was about ten. He produces and sells the fireworks in Kang Pisey district, Kompong Speu province. He made fireworks during the war but business was difficult.

"It became better business in the early 1990s after King Norodom Sihanouk returned to our home land," Mr. Doeur says. And nowadays, Mr. Doeur says there are many kam chroch makers throughout the country.

Most of his clients are Cambodians. Often, they are wealthy and high-ranking government officials who buy his products and hire him to launch the fireworks for their ceremonies. "My business is good when the rainy season stops. I am hired to launch fireworks nearly every week in the dry season when Cambodians have harvested their crops," Mr. Doeur explains.

The fireworks are numbered from one to six, according to price and fire power–one being the cheapest and least powerful. Mr. Inn says the "Number One" firecracker costs 1200 riel (about US$.30) and the most expensive, "Number Six", is 40,000 riel (US$10).

He says compared to fireworks made overseas Cambodian fireworks, which are made by hand, are of a poorer quality. However, he believes they give value for money.
Generally, at private and small community ceremonies the kam chroch launched are produced in Cambodia, often made in Kang Pisey district, Kampong Speu province. At official national ceremonies such as The Water Festival and the King’s birthday, imported fireworks are used.

Mr. Doeur’s father learnt the art of kam chroch making from his father who learnt at a pagoda. Mr. Doeur has himself become experienced. When he was ten he only knew how to make the fireworks fly in one color. "But now I can make them in three colors such as red, white and light blue," he says.

He further developed his art from fireworks brought over from Thailand and Vietnam. Now he can make all kinds of fireworks from numbers one to six.

Mr. Doeur adds that because kam chroch are now being produced by machine, the technology produces more colors and better pictures. "Some look like the areca flower." These kam chroch can be sold more expensively than the local hand-made varieties. "But I never disappoint," he says.

Manufacturing fireworks is far from safe. "They must be made away from flames. The firework components burn easily and it’s dangerous," he says. Although he has never been to the hospital, Mr. Doeur has suffered burns to his hands, legs and hair.

He has profited from his work and because of his success, he owns a truck, three motorbikes and employs six people.

The blacksmith

2008-07-01T23:33:00.000-07:00

At midnight bright sparks are blown by bellows into the air like fireworks. There is a repeated sound of knocking which is at once fast and then slow. The knocking echoes from one end of the village to the other, making a noise which wakens the still night. The figures of four people appear amidst the sparks. They are holding big hammers and are hitting hot pieces of iron just removed from stoves filled with embers. Each time their hammers hit the red-hot iron, the impact produces flickering sparks which lighten the darkness. Then, the darkened roof of the blacksmith’s workshop flashes like lightening and in this brief moment, we can see their illuminated faces.

A career that has been passed down from generation to generation amongst Muslim Cambodians
Uncle Chea Ris is puffing as he walks out of his workshop. He pulls the krama (cotton scarf) from an end of the roof to wipe his sweaty face and says, "We have been making a living as blacksmiths since we were teenagers–over 20 years now. However, I just became a master about three months ago."

"All the Muslim Cambodians in this village have made their living as blacksmiths for generations and we have always had a tradition of doing our work at night. Because it is cooler than during the day, it is better for those of us who work close to the burning stove," Uncle Chea says.
Uncle Chea is about 40 and says blacksmiths learnt their respective skills from their ancestors. "Some families have a skill of producing axes like me. Some make only knives, while others make spades, hammers, adzes and swords."
He explains that each blacksmith cannot produce every type of tool as the quality of the products would not be as good.
"Even experts in making knives or axes are classified into two to three separate groups. There is a group that is skilled in producing large knives and axes and a group that is skilled in producing smaller sizes. When blacksmiths make a knife or an axe, they usually work together in the workshop in a group of four, so it is easier to shape a piece of iron into the kinds of tools they want. For instance, my group, which makes axes, consists of four men: myself, the master; brother Sos Oun, who is skilled at using a big hammer (this weighs 6kg); brother Ly, who uses a medium sized hammer (5kg) and grandmother Van Chanri, who pumps the air to burn the iron which is then shaped into various tools. Every one of us must work together very hard according to their own skill, otherwise we cannot produce the tools very well.

"My workshop produces medium-sized axe blades weighing between 0.8kg and 1kg. To completely shape an axe blade from a piece of iron, it has to go through one to eight phloeng." A phloeng is when the iron is burned in the stove until it becomes very red and is then taken out and hit. The cycle is repeated eight times before the axe blade is ready for use. "We sell the blades for only 3,300-3,500 riel (83-88 cents) per blade."
"Every night from 12 until 6 in the morning our group can produce 25-30 blades. We make 500-800 riel (13-20 cents) of profit each after deducting the cost of the iron, the charcoal and the labor."
Uncle Sos, 45, is a former blacksmith who now sells iron. "All the people in this village have made their living by producing knives, axes, hammers and diggers since the old times. We neither farm nor fish," he says.
He recalls his childhood: "In the past when a boy proposed to a girl in this village of Chrak Romeat, her parents would only ask the boy if he was a blacksmith. If the boy did not have the skill, he would not be able to marry her even if he was rich or came from another place. This is the reason why every man in this village has this skill.
"Although I am now the seller of iron to the blacksmiths here, on some nights I still spend time with other blacksmiths to try my energy and skill for fun. Every day I have to do my regular work of cutting iron into specific sizes the blacksmiths need."

"Blacksmiths like us," Uncle Sos continues, "will not abandon our skills easily. Even if we look for a new job, it will be at least partly involved with this career. Although most of the villagers here have moved to other provinces far away, they still earn their living as blacksmiths."
A well-known blacksmith master in Chrak Romeat Grandfather Mous Saly, 80, says he can remember when the French came into Cambodia. His ancestors bought iron bars from them to make knives, axes, sickles and adzes.
"I don’t know when my career began. My grandparents just told me that their parents and their grandparents were also blacksmiths. I repeated this to my grandchildren. People of my generation knew how to hit iron into tools since their youth. I got this skill when I was 13 years old," Grandfather Mous says.
Though there are some records, historians are unsure as to when Cambodians–or indeed Muslim Cambodians–began to produce tools from iron.
The village chief of Chrak Romeat Grandfather Kok Matt, who is about 50 years old, says there are approximately 176 people living in Chrak Romear and of them, more than 60 percent are blacksmiths. The rest own other small businesses.
Grandfather Kok says all the iron tools produced in the village are sold throughout the Kingdom. "In the past the products were also exported to Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. But now Thailand has factories to produce those tools."
However, he says proudly that all the blacksmiths in the village are still busy with their work, because the users know the quality of foreign-made products cannot be compared with those produced in the village. "Because, the longer you use our products, the sharper they become. As for the imported ones, after their tempered edges are worn out, they can no longer be used. Therefore our products remain very popular."
Although careers in blacksmithing have been improving the living conditions of Cambodia’s Muslim population, blacksmiths nowadays do not want their children to follow in their footsteps because the trade is difficult. They say because there are more schools now and the world continues to modernize, they will let their children decide on their own futures.
"As parents, we just try to make as much money as possible to support them so that they will have a better life than us. But I love this career more than any other and I am happy to continue with it as long as possible," Grandfather Kok says.

Battambang Province

2008-07-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

Battambang is a large and important province in the northwest of Cambodia. Its name translates as "the lost long stick". Battambang combines local legends with beautiful countryside, hills and Angkorian temples.

‘The Legend of Lost Long Stick’

Local folklore states that in the eleventh century King Chakrapoate, Cambodia’s sixteenth king, mobilized his people. He ordered them to dig canals to drain land around the capital and cut trees in the Dangrek and Cardomom Mountains to build a palace. The people obeyed his wishes, but were unhappy, as the work was hard.
One day Gnoung, one of the local chiefs (a farmer’s son from Suorn Monkhut Village, now in Laos), was put in charge of cooking rice for his group. He was preparing to cook when he realized he did not have enough spoons. He cut some wood from a Rakar tree. The Rakar has dark wood and when he stirred the rice, the rice turned black. As he was hungry, he ate the rice and after felt very strong.

When he started to work cutting timber, he found he was amazingly powerful and could pull as many trees as seven elephants. His efforts earned him respect from his people and they began to obey his orders. Out of respect for the Rakar tree, he cut a long section from a nearby tree and made it into a stick to use in battle. He declared himself the people’s King. His people called him Dam Bang Kragnoung (King Black Bat). He ordered his men to take up arms against King Chakrapoate. People were happy with this, as they did not like having to work so hard.

When Dam Bang Kragnoung attacked King Chakrapoate’s forces, King Chakrapoate was sick. He tried to lead his men, but fell down and died. In 1545 (Buddhist era, or 1001 A.D.), Dam Bang Kragnoug became the King of Cambodia.
He immediately ordered that all of the previous royal family should be put to death, as he was worried that they would challenge his throne.
At that time, the eldest son of King Chakrapoate, Buttum Komar, was 13 years old. He had already entered a forest pagoda and was learning to be a monk. The pagoda was renowned for its strong magic. Accompanying him was his five-year-old brother, Serey Komar. The new king’s forces came to look for the two brothers and found Serey Komar. His mother tried to protect him, but they threw him in a fire. He managed to escape, but was badly burned. His arms and legs were crippled. The monks took him in and looked after him. As he grew up, the monks called him Prohm Kel. His disability did not stop his studies and he learned well.
One night Dam Bang Kragnoung saw a strange light in the sky, brighter than the moon. He called a fortune teller to interpret this sign. The fortune teller told him, "You will be king for only seven years, seven months and seven days. There is a good person born in this country. He will ride a white horse around the palace and seven days later he will replace you as king".
Dam Bang Kragnoung listened but was not afraid. He thought that he would be able to kill the newcomer with his magic Rakar stick.

The news of the good person spread throughout the kingdom and people waited expectantly and began to gather at Mohanokor (eventually called Angkor). Disabled people were gladdened to hear that they would be cured by this person. After a time, the news reached Prohm Kel. He asked the head monk for permission to go to Mohanokor to wait for the good person. The monk gave his permission and Prohm Kel left for the city.
Because of his disability, he could not move very fast and he was very tired. He stopped to rest under a big Bo tree on the outskirts of the city. While he rested, an old man approached with a white horse. The old man said, "Would you watch my horse and two bags for a moment?" Prohm Kel declined. However, the old man tied his horse to Prohm Kel’s arm anyway and ran into the forest. The horse became angry and pulled his arm. Amazingly, his arm was healed! He tied the horse to his leg. The horse pulled. His leg was healed! He continued until all his limbs were healed.

Prom Kel then wondered what was in the bags. In one bag was some food. He was hungry after his long and tiring journey, so he ate the food. He immediately felt strong. He looked in the other bag. Inside was some fine cloth and well made shoes. He put them on and got on the horse. Immediately the horse galloped off towards the capital.
When the crowds of people saw Prom Kel, they started to applaud, as they knew it was the good person they were expecting. Of course, Dam Bang Kragnoung was also waiting to see this person.
When he saw Prom Kel on the white horse he was furious. He took his magic black stick and hurled it at Prom Kel, in order to destroy him. Unfortunately for Dam Bang Kragnoung, his magic stick became normal in the presence of the Prom Kel. The magic stick flew off and landed far away in a village which became known as O‘Dam Bang. The village can still be found in Sangkee district, Battambang province. The French used the name to form the name Battambang.

Dam Bang Kragnoug had lost his magic stick, so he and all his followers left the throne for Prohm Kel, Seven days later, as predicted, Prohm Kel was crowned the eighteenth king of Cambodia. Cambodia was at peace again.

Battambang Today

Nowadays Battambang province is a vital agricultural area. Crops include corn, beans, oranges, sesame, and especially rice. According to 2002 year’s statistics, Battambang province produced five hundred thousand tons of rice. It is bordered by the Tonle Sap lake in the east, Pursat province to the southeast, Thailand and Pailin province in the west and Banteay Meanchey to the north. Battambang covers an area of 1,270,200 hectares. 172,000 hectares is towns and villages, 264,500 hectares is agricultural land and 476,520 ha is forest. The rest is floodland. There are 13 districts, 96 communes, and 741 villages. There are about 172,451 families and 1,250,695 people. 53 percent are women. 70% of people farm.

Battambang is also the name of the provincial capital and is Cambodia’s second largest city. It is about 291km from Phnom Penh. You can get there on National Route 5, or by train. Boats also travel to and from Siem Reap.

Tumbleweed and Black Jack

2008-07-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

Every evening at dusk, thousands of Khmer farmers, laborers and vendors return home from Thailand through Poipet’s international check point. Thai gamblers cross the border behind them, passing beneath an illuminated model of Angkor Wat which sits atop a huge gateway. In Cambodia, they will spin roulette wheels, roll die and smoke cigarettes until the sun comes up—garish neon from the casinos entices them across the frontier.

The border town of Poipet in Banteay Meanchey province is a pedestrian crossing between the two kingdoms of Cambodia and Thailand. A back door for goods transportation, Poipet can’t decide if it wants to be a tumbleweed-frontier-town, or a well-manicured entertainment mecca.

Poipet isn’t Las Vegas by any means, however more casinos are built here every year, catering for both those seeking fun and those feeding addiction.

Marketing Director of Holiday Palace Casino & Resort Mr. Thomas Teh says his casino was established in 1999. "Back then, this was the only casino in Poipet," Mr. Thomas says. "Now, this town has nine. In terms of service and standards, this casino is definitely comparable to any other international venue."
The Holiday Palace Casino & Resort is the first casino you will come to through the border. You can’t miss the sign; "Holiday Palace" is bigger and in more gold than even the welcome sign to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Mr. Thomas says Thai are the most prolific gamblers. Cambodians are not permitted this "hobby" but he says they can work or stay the night in the Holiday Palace hotel. His staff is 70 percent Cambodian.

"The Holiday Palace Casino is not just a casino. This is a hotel too. There is also a
duty free shop, restaurant, café, night club and travel agent."

Cambodian casinos skirt the periphery of the country, as the law stipulates that gambling dens and casinos operating within the Kingdom, must do so only if they are 200km out of Phnom Penh. A total of 20 casinos are permitted to legally operate in Cambodia and all of them are located at the border. Half of these casinos are in Poipet.

The casinos here have clipped, green lawns and pretty fountains reflected in plenty of glass. They are of an international standard—walk down the winding staircases and sit at a machine, and you could be in Hong Kong or Macau.

Further down the 1km strip of casinos, is the O’Smach Casino. Croupier Miss Meng Mouy says her job is simple and fun. "I have worked here for three years now and I earn $200 a month. I am happy here, but I do miss my home and family in Stueng Hav district, down in Sihanoukville province," Miss Mouy says.

There are more than 5,000 people employed by casinos in Poipet and like Miss Mouy, most travel a long distance to find work here.
Deputy Governor of O’Chreov district in Banteay Meanchey province Mr. Kann Svang says Miss Mouy is representative of most working in the casinos. "Those who work at the tables, or as food and beverage staff and so on, are young and they can earn more money in these jobs than in others. Generally, they earn anything from $50 to $200 a month, excluding meals," Mr. Kann says. He agrees with the Cambodian government’s policy of not permitting nationals to gamble. "I’m happy about allowing Cambodians to work in the casinos, but not to play. It’s a good policy."
Further south in Sihanoukville, Marketing Manager of Holiday Palace & Resort Mr. Ariffin Hartono says a lot of Malaysians and Koreans frequent the tables and machines. "But it is difficult to estimate a daily number of customers. We do not have many regulars though. And, during the weekends and public holidays, we are very busy," Mr. Ariffin says.

So what of the future for Cambodian casinos? Will the tumbleweeds spin between empty card tables and down quiet staircases one day soon. Or will the signs just get bigger and neon brighter? Mr. Ariffin says it it "too difficult to predict". Spin the wheel and roll a dice.

A Land of Sweet Trees

2008-07-01T20:43:00.000-07:00

France is known the world over for their exquisite red wines, why don’t we make Cambodian palm wine and palm products the envy of the world too?
Sugar palm trees dot vast, green rice fields and stretch toward the Cambodian sky with a slight lean. As far as you can see, the trees grow in small groups, frond to frond; or stand alone. In Latin they are Borassus flabellifer. In Khmer, they are thnôt.
The sugar palm tree, or palmyra palm, grows extensively in India, Myanmar and Cambodia—where the tree is part of the national heritage, even taking pride of place on a 500 Riel note. The sugar palm tree is also a very important national resource. Since encouragement from King Norodom in 1901 for every family to plant a few trees on their land, the sugar palm tree population has increased dramatically. It is estimated that at present, at least 3 million trees cover the Cambodian plains.

A professor at the Cambodian Technical School and manager of Khmer Nature Craft Mr. Pok Leak Reasey says, "I remember vividly commenting on them in my youth. They were growing in my back yard at home. I wondered when they had been planted there and even my grandparents didn’t know. They said they had grown in Cambodia since the beginning of Cambodian history—since the Funan period."

"Thnôt symbolize the birth of the Khmer soul, because they began to grow from the very same moment the first Khmer walked in Cambodia," Mr. Pok says.
Most Cambodians use the sugar palm trees in traditional ways. Farmers delicately ascend the trunks, cut the buds and harvest the juice from the trees’ flowers. They return two hours later to retrieve the juice collected in bampong (bamboo juice receptacles) or, as is more common nowadays, in soft drink bottles. The entire tree has many uses.

Mrs. Ming Chheng, 43, a farmer from Angsnoul in Kampong Speu lives in a house with a roof made from sugar palm leaves. After rice, Mrs. Ming says sugar palm is the main crop produced on her farm however sugar is by far the more lucrative.

"From December to April, I produce approximately 1800kg of sugar from the juice of 20 thnôt. I can earn nearly 2 million Riel to feed my family of 15," she says.
The leaves are the second most important by-product of the sugar palm tree and are harvested two to three times a year.

"Thnôt leaves can be made into mats and rice containers, while the fruit can be eaten fresh or made into many kinds of delicious desserts. You can make traditional beer with the juice or drink it as it is, or you can make it into palm sugar like we do. Baskets and bridles for the cows are made from the bark; kitchen implements, some furniture and crafts are made from the trunk."
Mrs. Ming Eap Yarb, 42, is a palm leaf hat maker from Ponhea Leu in Kandal province.

"I am a widow. While I have less rice fields than most, I use the leaves from thnôt to create my own business. I can make up to 30 palm leaf hats a day—that’s about 7000 to 8000 Riel per day. My hats are very popular amongst the tourists in Oudong. Everybody needs to buy one of my hats when the sun shines," Mrs. Ming says.
Confirel is a Phnom Penh-based private enterprise producing cakes, fruit preserves, wine and vinegars from the sugar palm tree.

Its managing director, Mr. Te Laurent says, "I used to live in France, and whenever I saw thnôt I really missed my homeland. So that is why I came back and developed a business using thnôt. They are emblematic of our culture and of our agricultural industry."

Mr. Te says the reason he has created this business is because he wants to inform Cambodian farmers about the benefits of the sugar palm tree. He recognizes that because his production capacity is still in its infancy, and compared to neighboring countries, his market is small.
Even so, Mr. Te has great ambition. "France is known the world over for their exquisite red wines, why don’t we make Cambodian palm wine and palm products the envy of the world too?" he says.

Banteay Chhmar: a temple beneath the trees

2008-07-01T20:20:00.000-07:00

As old as other famous Khmer temples from the Angkorian area, but lesser-known is Banteay Chhmar, or Narrow Fortress. At the center of this temple was one of the largest Buddhist monasteries of the Angkor period. However, nowadays, little remains. Banteay Chhmar is slowly being smothered by crawling trees—the temple is being taken captive by the jungle.

Banteay Chhmar is 63km north of Sisophon in Banteay Meanchey province. It was a city surrounded by a large moat and a 900m-long wall, and its bas-reliefs are believed to rival that of the Bayon, 150km away, in the Angkor Wat complex.

Although the jungle tries to subdue the grandeur of Banteay Chhmar, through small gaps in the trees, one large central tower can still be seen. It is adorned with four giant stone faces smiling out toward the compass points.

It is not easy to visit this praasaat (temple) if you don’t have a guide. Long-neglected, it is difficult to navigate—especially during the rainy season—as collapsed walls make it hard to find a path. Several boys, all barely in their teens, run over to our car at the entrance door to the temple. These will be our guides. Unlike the guides at the main Angkor temples, these children cannot speak English, but they have played over the temple and know the routes through the compound, clambering over the fallen walls and clinging trees.

However, the children know little about Banteay Chhmar’s history. They do not tell us of the damage done to the temple by Thai marauders, nor about the great pieces of sandstone pillaged as recently as 1998. But they do tell us stories related to the bas-reliefs on the walls—stories their parents and relatives have related to them. They describe a carving of the sun eating an ox cart and in the center of the temple; the boys show us a carving of a hermit plucking a pin (a small guitar). On the eastern wall, there is a carving of a battle between the Khmers and Chams under the direction of the bold King Jayavarman VII and his son, Sintravarman.

UNESCO Khmer cultural expert Dr. Michael Tranet says Banteay Chhmar is similar in architecture and style to the Bayon temple. "But this temple is different in other aspects, in that it is decorated with several kinds of excellent carvings including the god Avalokiteshvara. His 32 arms represent his actual 1,000 arms—a symbol of the great power of Mahayana-Buddhism,"
Dr. Tranet says. The children point to the busy limbs of Avalokiteshvara.

He says the most significant carvings are on the lintels above the doors of the temple, describing a Vairosana Buddhist god who has four heads and eight ears listening to music. And, on the eastern wall, explains Dr. Tranet, carvings of the Khmer and Cham battle, show Khmer soldiers taking Cham soldiers prisoner. In this terrible battle, Jayavarman VII lost four loyal commanders and his son.

"Banteay Chhmar is a memorial to Sintravarman and the men who sacrificed their lives to save the country from the invading Chams," Dr. Tranet says. There are carvings of krut (the Indian mythical bird—garuda) believed to protect the temple from evil and to emphasize the great power of the then-kings. There are also rare carvings, not usually seen on other temples, of kinnari (legendary creatures with the body of a woman and the wings of a bird).

Director of Banteay Meanchey provincial cultural department Mr. Him Tim says Banteay Chhmar was once a large city, similar in layout to the compound of Angkor Wat, with a central tower and four smaller outer temples. "In total, we have found 271 temples in Banteay Meanchey province. I believe this particular temple, Banteay Chhmar, was once a very sacred place," Mr. Him says.

Khmer cultural expert Dr. Tranet says, "If we look back over the history pages of Cambodia during the magnificent Angkorian era—under the sacred shadow of Jayavarman VII—it is recognized that Banteay Chhmar was not only a place of worship, but also a capital city to rival that of Angkor."

Dr. Tranet says Banteay Chhmar was a door to the famous capital of Angkor itself and a strategic city for the political management of Cambodia’s western and northwestern provinces, now provinces of Thailand.

Getting there :

• From Sisophon take Road 56. To Banteay Chhmar the trip will take 63km and approximately 3 hours. The road will require a 4x4 vehicle.
• There is no entry fee, but give the guard at the temple entrance a couple of dollars.
• If you hire a taxi from Sisophon, it will cost between $35 and $50 for the day, depending on the number of passengers
• If you hire a taxi from Siem Reap, it will cost between $50 and $70 for the day, depending on the number of passengers. From Siem Reap the trip to Banteay Chhmar will take approximately 4 hours.
• Breakfast in Sisophon or Siem Reap is a good idea. Pack a picnic for lunch at the temple. There are just a handful of drink shops there and most have very little food.
• Take a hat, a krama and some mosquito repellent. Strong walking shoes are necessary as you will have to climb up and over walls to properly explore the temple.
• Photographers should remember film, a 200 ASA is optimal and a tripod is a good idea

A quirk of fate

2008-07-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

An iced coffee is stirred, some milk is added, and photographer John McDermott and I settle in his soon to be opened, rather cold gallery. The cream paint smells new. Angkor photographs not yet hung look incongruously wintry, the Siem Reap dust awaits a wipe. He bites his straw and begins.

John McDermott was a one-time Mountain View, Arkansas arts-and-crafts store co-owner—where he played the guitar on the porch and sang folk tunes—and a second-time Hollywood movie lighting technician on futuristic blockbusters with big budgets and bad acting. He is however, an all-the-time photographer—his portfolio eclectic: catalogues of knickers and jewels, inside a nuclear reactor, the plains of Myanmar, and Mona Lisa-esque smiles of the Bayon temple.

He proceeds to provide a chronological overview of his existence on this planet since his Little Rock birth in 1955, where Mr. Clinton himself first made an appearance. He blames his frequent vagueness on time—his twenties the beginning of memory decline. What immediately colors this timeline, "and this is a little embarrassing", is the inspiration of a once American beauty queen and a move to California. "Yes, we packed a U-haul and moved to Beverly Hills. It’s a little bit Hillbilly I know," he says.

"Little Rock was just not big enough to support a lot of photographers’ work … In 1989 I met this girl and we fell madly in love.
"She wanted to do acting and was going to move to L.A. At that point in time I’d had enough of Little Rock. Twenty or so years later, and I’m really glad I left. I have opened up my eyes to the rest of the world."

So to Hollywood: movies and lighting and then some camera work. What lured John to the East (wondering how in his early thirties he could compete with the "youth" of Tinsel town) was the offer of photographic work on a Bangkok business magazine.
A plane ticket came in the post and he flew to this part of the world where he now lives with his wife and a kitten at the edge of the jungle.

He has provided the photographs for a book called, The Extraordinary Museums of Southeast Asia. For the book he "shot pictures" in Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. "In 28 days I took photographs of these museums, but it had already taken months of getting permission from the authorities. I had to contend with real bureaucracy in Laos," he admits.
But what seem to take pride of place in his extensive repertoire, are photographs of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. "I explored the temples of Bagan in Myanmar and Luang Prabang in Laos.

I mean these places are like an alien planet, right here, on this planet."
It is the photographs taken in Cambodia that he is famous for. They are the images of Angkor Wat taken with infrared film—the prints now waiting to go up on the walls. Using the infrared film was inspired by a complete solar eclipse over the temples in 1995. "It was a moment of complete awakening."

On his website he explains the technicalities. "Infrared film has a much broader range of sensitivity to light than standard films, and records light waves that fall below the visible spectrum for the human eye. A filter is placed on the camera to allow only the infrared wavelengths to pass
through … [The images produced are] dreamy, impressionistic … like etchings or charcoal drawings from another era."

"The film, like the eclipse gives the temples a monochromatic and surreal look. Some are photographs of ghostly, bright light through doorways and windows. I suppose you could say this is my signature style," he says.

In walks the owner of the gallery next door. There is some hearty chat. Along with other artists—like this friend next door—John says he wants to help further Siem Reap’s reputation as an arts centre in Cambodia. "There is real potential for this to happen here. I think this community has a definite artistic vision. I mean, we can not only create art here, we can sell it."

So the timeline of John McDermott continues. He terms his beauty queen and the solar eclipse "quirks of fate". I wonder what the next quirk will be? A meteor? A lightning bolt? He’s not done here yet.

In the clouds on bokor Hill

2008-07-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

The road to the summit of Bokor Mountain is pock-marked and strewn with rocks; vehicles crawl up the winding road lined with faded kilometer markers. Through sun-lit gaps in the trees, a glimpse of the sea brightens the weary faces of travelers and when they reach the summit, buttons are pressed and car windows slide down to the smell of wild flowers and the bite of cold air.

Dilapidated buildings with missing doors and windows for eyes—their façades patched with rust-colored-lichen—watch the arrivals through empty frames. In the early twenties, these solemn quiet buildings were once the lively heart of the famed ‘Borei Bokor’ or ‘City of Bokor’. In 1922 King Sisowath agreed to the construction of this settlement. A settlement, with schools, a hospital, a pagoda and a Christian church, hotels, a post office, a power plant and a water-supplying plant. Bokor became a haven for French holiday-makers.

During the Sangkum Reastr Nyum era (1955-1970), led by Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, ‘Borei Bokor’ was famed for its windswept beauty and incomparable scenery. In 1961, King Norodom Sihanouk, ordered the renovation of all public buildings and the construction of additional buildings to beautify the area to entice more visitors.
The French having left, Bokor then became a week-end holiday resort for Cambodian civil servants from Phnom Penh.

Cambodia enjoyed a certain prosperity then, on a par with other Southeast Asian countries. But the civil war of the following two decades almost destroyed ‘Borei Bokor’ and its beauty was forgotten. But slowly, it is emerging from the rubble. The Cambodian government has honored the settlement, and the mountain’s, history. It is now a protected national park.

Director of Bokor National Park Chey Yuthearith says about 10,000 people lived in ‘Borei Bokor’ during the Sangkum Reastr Nyum era. They were civil servants, businessmen and farmers, who grew vegetables, fruit trees and tea. "But now only a group of 50 park rangers live atop Bokor," Chey says.

"This area is colder than any other place in the whole kingdom. At certain times of the year, in the evenings, the temperature drops to as low as 10-16°C and rises to a mere 22°C during the day."

"The Bokor summit is 1,079m above sea level. The national park is 42km from Kampot and it is 32km from the junction of National Road 3, at the foot of the mountain, to the peak." According to a 1993 Royal Decree, Bokor National Park covered an area of 140,000ha including the former City, but Chea says the entire area of the park covers 150,000ha.

The director complains that as there are too few rangers for such a vast area it is difficult to patrol illegal loggers and poachers.

For sightseers, Chea says there is a 60m, three-tiered waterfall in the Park and 20km from the old ‘City of Bokor’, there is a large, flat area of rock with grasses growing between the cracks in lines, like dikes in a rice field. This place is called Veal Srae Muy Roy or Plain of a Hundred Rice Fields.

"There are also many kinds of wild animals in the forest, tigers, elephants, oxen, buffalo, deer all roam here and there are more than 230 species of birds."

Prum Socheat is a staff member at the Khmer Women’s Voice Center and Sary Nitha works at an organization assisting women in crisis. They are visitors at Bokor and they offer their impressions of the mountain-top.
"I feel as if I were flying or walking in the sky like in my dreams. When I peer down from where I stand, I see clouds floating along the waist of the mountain far away," Prum says.
"Here, you feel the coldness reaching into your heart," Sary says. "No waterfall is as cold as Bokor waterfall. I will never forget the scenery of the mountain. It is like a daydream in the sky."

The sprawl of the banyan Temple

2008-07-01T19:43:00.000-07:00

Ta Prohm is a theatrical backdrop of gnarled banyan tree roots spilling down doorways and sneaking slowly around corners. Tuon Savoeung is a guide there—the narrator in the play. He says most tourists who visit this temple consider it their favorite. During their time wandering the Angkor Wat complex, they return again and again to clamber over the huge root systems and follow the smell of incense into secret saffron-colored courtyards.

"Visitors see the banyan which moves like a snake over walls of Ta Prohm temple. No one misses the opportunity to take photographs of these trees which grow almost as if they wanted to smother the walls of the temple," says Tuon.

He says another great feature of Ta Prohm temple is the hundreds of birds which gather on the tops of the big trees and sing day and night making the temple less peaceful than the others. "Tourists stand still, looking upward here and there. They are scouring the jungle canopy for birds, enchanted by their songs."

Chonlada Kuenwan is a Thai tourist. She says she can’t believe her eyes. "The trees have besieged the temple." Kuenwan says she had only ever seen photographs of Ta Prohm. "The reality is quite astonishing. I never thought the trees could be as big like these. Ta Prohm temple is just marvelous and it really has stood the test of time." She agreed with the guide’s snake description of the crawling tree roots.

Lai Chian Sing has watched countless television programs about the marvels of Angkor Wat, Bayon and Ta Prohm temples at home in Malaysia.He has scoured the internet for images and descriptions of the temples and the beautiful photographs lured him to Cambodia.

"But I think those television programs and photographs and lengthy descriptions did not do these temples justice. Now that I am here I have no words to describe the true qualities and gloriousness of these temples," Chian Sing says.
He says he is quite puzzled as to how the temple stones could be stacked together without cement. "And the carvings and bas-reliefs here are just amazing."

"With only trees for company I could do nothing but stand gaping. I am so pleased to have finally set foot on this ancient wonder of the world. I am simply overwhelmed by the sheer size of all of the temples."
Cultural expert and director at the Patrimony Department of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. Oung Vorn is concerned about the damage the trees—banyan, fig and spoung (a pine with red wood)—are doing to Ta Prohm.

"Of course they really do add to the temple’s exquisite beauty but we worry about the roots gradually moving underneath the temple, or the trees dying. Ta Prohm could well collapse," says Oung.
He says Ta Prohm temple was built by Jayavarman VII between 1181 and 1220 AD. "Ta Prohm was the soul of the Angkor capital during his reign." Jayavarman VII dedicated the temple to his mother (in her image) and to Buddha.

"Ta Prohm has Sanskrit inscriptions, like stone documents really, which clearly describe the temple and its inhabitants. According to the inscriptions it took 79,365 people to maintain the temple.

However, these numbers were probably doctored by the king."

"Besides these valuables, the inscriptions note official tax levies collected from various agricultural products and also describe foreign diplomatic relationships," Oung says.

The guide Tuon Savoeung says Ta Prohm is wonderful. "I never tire of the trees and I think this is some of the rarest scenery in the world."

Step over the sprawling banyan, bend your head beneath the arches and slip behind the curtain into the cool darkness of Ta Prohm.

The sound of Mondulkiri

2008-07-01T19:11:00.000-07:00

My driver wears a small denim hat with a narrow brim shading freckles and he smokes cigarettes, flicking the ash with worn hands. He claims his elephant is one-hundred-years-old. She walks like a centenarian, extremely slowly and deliberately, down a hill-side in Mondulkiri toward a waterfall for lunch. I sway atop in a small basket with my knees around my ears; beneath my feet a great length of chain secures the basket to the elephant. While she eats green bamboo leaves, I eat sugared crackers.

The trip from Phnom Penh to Mondulkiri province is long, a great portion of it—red and pot-holed. The landscape, from Kompong Cham to very-nearly-Vietnam, is a vista of green rice fields and spindly, bending-to-the-light plantations of rubber trees. The road, lined with tall elephant grass, is cut through less prosperous land.

The red road eventually smoothes and widens as it winds toward the provincial capital of Mondulkiri, Sen Monorom. The town is small with lively gardens here and there, a non-operational airport—currently a drag strip for local motodops -and plenty of guesthouses with not so many guests.
In the evening, the temperature slowly drops and the crickets screech: headache-inducing. I sleep in a loud night.

Mondulkiri is Cambodia’s largest province. It is a province of mountains and rainforests, where an estimated 80 percent of the population belongs to tribal minorities. Most of this group are Phnong—"People of the Mountains". The Phnong make scarves to sell to tourists, the price for one, more of an entrance fee for a glimpse inside a thatched-roof house and a sip of lukewarm rice wine..

High above Sen Monorom, the elephant moves on against a view of green and blue. It is quiet, save for the crack of tree trunks and some rather disconcerting stomach rumbling coming from far below the basket.

The elephants come to the edge of the river; they do not deliberate their crossing and begin to plod over the rapid. Now we swim while a barbeque is lit, clothes hang on trees, a hammock is strung and the elephants wander off for more bamboo.

This is a different place from the rest of Cambodia. The hills are green, cows graze on long grass and pine cones are scattered beneath the imported trees they fall from. Somewhere lurking there are wild elephants and apparently tigers and leopards.

Certainly there are plenty of dragonflies, hovering over waterfalls and a trail of blood on my leg attests to the presence of small leeches. To avoid, I am told—walk quietly. Later that night, I throw a bucket of water on the screeching insects

Cambodia’s Legal Aliens

2008-07-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

by: ELLEN MINOTTI
The karaoke roars, the bus dives into a hole, tiger-balmed women bounce out of their seats, and with a round of piercing "ooooooweees", the bus lands upright. There is a pale-faced foreigner on this bus who has forgotten earplugs. Rice appears and is offered to the foreigner who is too busy vigorously chewing double-mint. There is a fair bit of expectorating going on out of seat number 24’s window.

Disembarked and recuperated the foreigner, plainly a recent émigré, asked four expatriated experts—who have all lived in Cambodia for more than seven years—if they can sing-along with Preab Sowath and eat rice at the same time.

Ellen Minotti left Seattle for Phnom Penh in 1992, and with time and experience on her side, I believe her when she says her feelings about Cambodia are complicated like love. "It’s not always only positive," Ellen says. The positive aspects of Cambodia are explained with genuine enthusiasm. She loves the food; Khmer soups and salads, and the lemon-grass and turmeric enhanced stir-fries with cha Kroueung, her favorites.

"I’m also a sap for Angkor, Siem Reap. Because, somehow when you enter, the air cools off as you enter the park … and it gets so quiet and peaceful. I’ve been there more than a dozen times … at the full eclipse of the sun … and beneath a full moon during the water festival in ’97."
Then she tells me the shortest conversation in Khmer. "I love it. ‘To?’ ‘Tay’. You know? ‘Moto?’ ‘No thanks’."

Director at Social Services of Cambodia, Ellen and her team of almost 50 staff—"only two are full-time expats"—have several projects on the go at the moment. "Our biggest work right now is training social workers and counselors," says Ellen, "and since the organization began 12 years ago, we have trained hundreds and hundreds of people."

Trainee social workers and counselors have to be "pretty committed" she says. "Social work does not have a high status in Cambodia, it doesn’t seem glamorous and in fact, it’s a lot harder than it looks." In 1992 Phnom Penh was a much quieter place Ellen says. Electricity was also extremely irregular, people didn’t speak much English, "and I didn’t speak much Khmer". "Sidewalks were scary and [there were] open sewer holes and so you really had to pay attention to where you walked."

"There were lots of dogs and there were plenty of pigs and chickens in Boeung Keng Kang."
Together with her own dog, and cat, Ellen will continue to stay in Cambodia because she says she has stopped guessing when she’ll leave. But before she goes somewhere else she would like to study why the Cambodians who have remained honest and uncorrupted have stayed that way.
"I think there should be more honor given to kindness, goodness, intelligence and curiosity."

The Mekong River - the mother of water and life

2008-07-01T18:49:00.002-07:00

In Khmer the name Mekong means "mother of waters", a name of true relevance for the people who survive at the water’s edge, whose lives revolve around agriculture and fishing. The river is a home for millions; it is a means of employment and a source of food.

The Mekong River is one of the world’s 10 longest rivers. Its source is in the mountains of Tibet, after which it flows across Myanmar and Laos PDR, down through Thailand to Cambodia, before it reaches Vietnam and the South China Sea, a journey of some 4,350km. In Cambodia the Mekong roars down the rocks at the Khone rapids on the border with Laos PDR, firstly irrigating the soil of Steung Treng province, before traveling south through five provinces, before leaving Cambodia at Prey Veng for Vietnam. Fifty-five million people depend on the river.

In Laos PDR and Cambodia, approximately 85 percent of the national area of these countries is made up of the basin of the Mekong River.
Everyday, the thousands of farmers who live along the river side in Cambodia carry heavy yokes of water from the river for drinking and for dousing their vegetables.

Kan Aun is a farmer from Sambo commune in Kratie province. Kan says his family plants cabbages, chilies, corn and other seasonal vegetables.
"Our life is dependent on the water of the Mekong River… for us it is a source of life. Because everyday we eat something from this river and from season to season we have different jobs in relation to how high or low the river is. When the river floods we fish. When the river is low we grow vegetables," Kan says. "If water levels are not high enough, our living standards worsen. It means not enough fertile soil dumped for the land and not much fish."
His garden is 25m x 60m and he can produce more than one ton of cabbage per season. He says he has a more difficult job than a rice farmer would, but he enjoys life along the river. "My family like to see the beautiful green lining the river and I like to bath and drink the clean water of the Mekong."

"I think the Mekong water is more delicious than bottled water in town," Kan says.
No different from other Cambodian fishing families, this Vietnamese family has been living on the Mekong River where it flows through Kratie province for more than two decades. Husband and father Meo Sren, 54, says he came to live on the Mekong River just before 1970, then during the Pol Pot regime he moved back to Vietnam. After the regime collapsed Meo’s family returned to Cambodia to work as fishermen. Meo says every year fish supplies are diminishing, but he can still catch enough fish to make money for his family of five.

Meo’s fishing boat is usually moored in one place on the Mekong; he moves it only several times a year. He catches fish in a traditional chhnok, which are huge fishing nets attached to long bamboo rods leaning over the water like giant spindly insects.
"I remember in the past I could catch more than 500kg of fish per day with the net, but now, at the best of times and over several days, I get only about 100kg," Meo says.
H.E. Touch Seang Tana is a wildlife specialist and a member of the Council of Minister’s Economic, Social and Culture Observation Unit. He says that according to a documentary made by a French colonel in 1948, which explored Cambodian fishing, 200,000 to 250,000 tons of fish were caught per year.

"In 2004, statistics show only about 150,000 to 200,000 tons of fish was caught. We worry about the decrease in fish supplies and about the sustainability of ecology in and along the Mekong," Touch says.
"Losing species of fish is very worrying for those who rely on the river for food and income," he says. One of the biggest, and most endangered freshwater fish in the world (found in Cambodian sections of the Mekong), is the Mekong catfish, which has been known to weigh as much as 350kg. There are 750 confirmed species of fish in Cambodia’s rivers, including the tiny trey riel, most often used for prahok (a Cambodian savory preserve).

Director of the Tourism Department in Kratie province Ear Mong Den says along the river there are dozens of ever-changing views from region to region. If you take the fast boat from Phnom Penh to Kompong Cham, there are vast landscapes of rice fields where villagers drop their bicycles and work up to their ankles planting rice. Then there are meandering hills and floating villages, giant fishing nets and swooping birds.

From Kratie up to Steung Treng there are huge trees (chrey krem and rey) which stand in the river, their root systems forced from the mud below, so that they are swept up and become parallel to the top of the water. There are also many concrete channel markers dotting the river. These posts were constructed by the French to prevent vessels from running aground on the rocks when the river was low.

From Phnom Penh to Laos PDR, take the scenic and comfortable option; take a boat via Kompong Cham and Steung Treng to the border.

Beauty school drop-out

2008-07-01T18:33:00.001-07:00

I am the nouveau arrive at beauty school in Phnom Penh and I am frightened, for someone is to shave my eyebrows with a razor blade, my Brooke Shield’s 1980s-never-before-plucked-eyebrows. I hadn’t envisaged that a make-up course could be so incredibly dangerous.

I am swiftly led to the upper floor where the real students are performing magical make-up maneuvers. Today I shall be versed in penciling eyebrows, mine have just then been very skillfully shaped, and not removed as I had feared. I am to pencil first the top of the brow, then beneath, and finally within. I pencil the other brow for good measure. I have really outdone myself.

"The left side is bigger than the right side," says my make-up tutor Marady turning my head from side-to-side, "So omit with this cream and this cotton bud and re-do." Fine, this is quite understandable. Of course by the fourth time I am not so enthusiastic.

Marady says some students have taken nearly three weeks to master the art. Will I ever graduate to blusher? I am tiring of eyebrows. I want gold eyelids, fake lashes and pouting lips. "You have to learn about natural make-up first," I am told tersely. The next day I learn about the application of foundation. Before weddings, Cambodian women usually apply three or four layers of waterproof yellows, creams and whites and their faces are completely shaved with a razor blade to remove every single scrap of hair so the make-up goes on perfectly smooth. Cambodia’s renowned beauty queen,and the owner of the school Sapor Rendall says frankly, "If you’ve got a lot of pimples you need thick make-up." Mimicking an ogre’s grimace and clawed hands, she adds, "But some people use way too much."

The hair styling course is next door, and an odd looking decapitated mannequin with plastic hair is unsentimentally screwed onto the bench. I begin by plaiting, thumb getting in the way of thumb, so help arrives and I become further confused, six hands are now at work on one plait to create ‘Gills’, a fish-like hair-do. "You have to learn the basics first," says Cheng Chanda my teacher. I have very little aptitude for hair styling, even teasing, and what will I ever know of the technical masterpieces? How could I possibly create the 35-step ‘Isabella’, ‘Desdemona’ or ‘Cinderella’?.

I blow my cover and admit to be writing for a magazine. These students are too advanced. I talk to Sapor instead.
"Here at Sapor you can learn make-up, hairstyling, hair cutting and blow-drying, fruit carving, facials, massage, body scrubs, pedicures, manicures, cooking, dining etiquette and cat walk," Sapor says.
"Beauty is a very popular course. Once upon a time women didn’t care about their faces and they didn’t care about their look. They liked being fat. But things have changed in Cambodia."

Asides from being a mother (she’s married to an Australian), a business woman and a cat walk model (most recently at a New Year’s Eve bash at Sokha Hotel in Sihanoukville), Sapor has made countless television appearances, including contraception ads for OK Condoms, Mobitel and a public health advertisement about malaria.

"In it I ran to get help from my village for my ‘husband’ who was very ill from malaria … But no one recognized me!"Sapor, 33, was born in Kompong Thom and grew up there, but with the financial assistance of her adoptive Chinese parents left for Australia when she was "16 or 17". She studied beauty the Australian way. "When I studied eyebrows in Australia, we went for the natural way, but in Bangkok, where I also studied, they have to look straight and thin, like a ruler. Cambodians like that Thai style," she says. I will have to tell her later, my eyebrows will definitely be reverting back to the "natural way".

She is open about her success. "Everywhere I go I hear people murmuring, ‘There’s Sapor. That’s Sapor’. They know me and I feel proud of my achievements.
"You know, when I was in Battambang for a fashion show I realized I had left one of the dresses in Phnom Penh, and I was running around panicking looking sporty and very daggy. I got the women there to make me a simple and sexy dress for the show and they made it in three hours. If they didn’t know me it would have taken three days, so that’s a bonus."

This woman has had three children and retains the figure of a 20-year-old—that’s the bonus. Sapor has got a very infectious laugh and the rather endearing habit of saying Australian "yeahs". She’s a likeable character and she knows her stuff. There are 50 students at the school (which opened in 1996—the first of its kind), 50 models on the books and people still clamoring to get in to both.

I’m not cut out for the life of makeup and modeling or Cinderellas and cuticles, but Sapor is. She’s not a drop-out.

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly

2008-07-01T18:27:00.000-07:00

If you are searching for something more than potato chips, peanuts and pretzels; satisfy your epicuriosity at a Cambodian market or drive to Skoun for some unique fried snacks. The array of delicious morsels this country has to offer are not preserved in strange numbers, packed with nutritional information or shelved.

Try some six-legged snacks, or a few winged-snacks. How about a kilo of jumping snacks? Cambodia is teeming with fried crickets, deep-fried a-ping (tarantulas—which some believe stop breathlessness), fried kantes-long (a black beetle), deep-fried kantea-touk (a menthol tasting beetle) fried mea phleang (winged termites), fried pupas, dried clams, lie (freshwater clams), kchorng and kchav (types of snails). How do they taste? And why on earth do Cambodian people like to eat them?

For Cambodians, who know their flavors well, they are mouth-watering. For foreigners, and judging by the grimaces, it is a whole different story.

Sok Tiek Savy is a deep-fried insect vendor at Phnom Penh’s Central Market and she says foreigners don’t buy these sorts of delicacies, but they do watch her selling them and rather than sample, take photographs. Sok says she makes up to 100,000 riel ($15-$25) a day.

Plunging a brown, shiny kantea-touk into spitting cooking oil Sok turns and says, "I have my suppliers who bring kantea-touk, kantes-long, crickets, a-ping and pupas from various provinces according to the seasons." During the dry season vendors sell dried clams tossed in salt and most people buy them to marinate with ripe tamarind and dip in fish sauce.

Some of the insects are transported alive while others are cooked so they won’t spoil on the journey to the city. When they arrive, Sok re-cooks them with her special spices and oils. In Phnom Penh there are three wholesalers who buy insects in large quantities from the provinces for export overseas, particularly to Thailand.

A young girl selecting kantea-touk says every time she comes to the Central Market and it is cricket season, she will buy fried crickets, if it is a-ping season, she will buy deep-fried a-ping and if it is kantes-long season, she will buy fried kantes-long.

"They are not at all disgusting. In fact, they taste very nice. If you don’t believe me, close your eyes and try, and then you will know how these things taste," she says.

Sam At is a vendor at Hun Sen Park in the capital and she says that every weekend during the evenings she sells about 7kg of snails. She sells by the plate—one plate weighs half a kilogram and costs 2,000 riel (50 cents). While down the road north of the Japanese Friendship Bridge, Bun Chantha sells 50kg of frogs a day to huge crowds of salivating students. "Ninety percent of my customers are pupils from the local schools," Bun says. Deep-fried frogs, or kon sngoen, are also very popular amongst Cambodian men who like to chew the legs with a glass of sour palm wine.

North of Phnom Penh, stop anywhere in the town of Skoun and savor a bag of their famed arachnids. The locals have long used tarantulas not only in traditional medicine—they are thought to be good for the heart, throat and lungs—but as a source of food. According to some enthusiasts, the anatomy tastes a little like crab meat. It’s the taste of the abdomen that’s sounds worrying. Eating has never been such an adventure!

Ronaldo wannabes

2008-07-01T01:59:00.000-07:00

On red clay, on the sand in Sihanoukville and often perilously in front of oncoming traffic, Cambodians are forever footballing. Like the rest of the world most Cambodian young people love the game. Not only in urban areas, but also in the countryside, Cambodian boys know how to play the game, and they know the stars. One day, if this popularity keeps up, could there be Cambodian Ronaldos and Beckhams scoring penalty goals at Old Trafford?

At Khnarng Puos village on the Té River in Kratie, young and old men are running backwards and forwards aiming a ball into their rivals’ goal. These men don’t own football boots, so they’re barefoot, dust belching up from behind them as they run to follow the ball. And this isn’t a rolled green football field, this is the bottom of a dried-up river 10m deep—a makeshift stadium, with supporters in tiers on the banks. The puddles of remaining water and mud don’t seem to bother anyone.
Ruos Thouen, 31, one of the players who initiated the game in the village says his team started playing three years ago. Bowing down, he pulls the kramar he’s wearing up to wipe the sweat from his face. Ruos says the reason why he introduced the game to the village was because during the dry season, after harvesting, they were not very busy. It was also considered that if young people played football they wouldn’t commit crime. However, he admits to a bit of harmless gambling.

"We have bets on the game, for instance, one goal wins 3,000 or 7,000 riel, [this] attracts everyone to the game," Ruos explains.
He says that since the game was introduced to the village young people were not "wandering around looking for vices."

"Instead, every evening they gather at the football field, which is usually set up in a rice field near the village. But this year we play at the bottom of the river because the water has dried up and it’s cooler there."
He confesses that initially no one knew how to play the game. "We could not even hit the ball when it passed us. But now we are much better. We can dribble, receive and stop the ball well and some of us even know how to do headers. We never learnt how to play the game; we just watched the TV and then tried."

Nhim Sopheap, 18, is a student at Kosamak High School in Kratie and considered the best player in the village. He says he doesn’t belong to the school’s football team though, but he has listened to the school’s sport coach during physical education classes. Nhim says he doesn’t watch football on the TV that often because there are only a few in the village, and they’re far from his own house. When he does get the opportunity, he watches David Beckham, Ronaldo or Zidane playing the game. "I like to watch them very much," he says, "and I want to become a footballer like them too."

Sen Sambou, 30, a Phnom Penh sales and marketing manager says he has loved football since he was young, but he never had the chance to become a footballer. He says he is part of a team now and plays at the Old Stadium in the capital every Sunday.
"Our games are just good weekly exercise for the sake of our health," Sen explains. "Playing football is also a good way to help reduce stress. When we sweat after running and kicking the ball, it makes our bodies healthy and strong and our brains brilliant, too."

According to a Cambodian Football Federation (CFF) report, it has 24 member clubs; 20 in Phnom Penh and 4 in the provinces. Cambodian Football Federation information official Nhim Vanny says the Federation has plans to expand the number of clubs in Siem Reap, Battambang, Kampot and Kompong Cham next year. Nhim says the existing 24 clubs consist of small teams of varying ages from 22 years of age and under.

"I hope those in the oldest age bracket will become a fully-fledged national team in 2006, meeting international standards, while the younger teams will continue to develop their game," Nhim says. He continues that besides the 24 teams of the Federation, there are two other football clubs, one belonging to the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the other, a private group, made up of teams from private companies, NGOs and some foreign agencies. Nhim says Cambodia will host football matches for under-17s within the framework of the five ASEAN nations.

President of the Cambodian Football Federation Khek Ravy says the Federation has received financial support of nearly $400,000 from FIFA to build a training field, a club room and an office. As well, the Federation receives an annual amount of $250,000 from the Association.
Khek says there are two ways to raise the profile of Cambodian football. "Firstly, there should be participation from the government, especially the National Olympic Committee of Cambodia; and secondly, the government should provide counterpart finance to support the sport."

Will you dance with me?

2008-07-01T01:51:00.000-07:00

She was right up there—apsaras are the best of the best. Young men used to throw roses to her on stage. Then tragically, with 16 years of dancing experience behind her, she plummeted to the bottom of the heap. Disabled, confined to a wheel chair and waist-high to the rest of the world, the future was bleak. That was Kim Sathia.

Half a world away, in England, a young woman longed to be a dancer. So great was her desire to be a part of this universal art form that at 23, she had the audacity to audition for dance school. Her natural ability was perhaps eclipsedby her obvious passion and the school accepted her. And that was Katie MacCabe.

Katie was brought up in what was probably a comfortable middle-class family but one thing about her life was a bit different from that of her peers. You see, Katie’s father was severely disabled having fallen victim to polio and yet, in Katie’s words he, "lived a normal life. He was completely integrated. You didn’t see him as disabled." Growing up with this was a constant stimulus as she formed the belief that so many people with disabilities could similarly be integrated if only they could overcome their sense of shame—believe in themselves as a complete person. And what better way than by learning performance skills: feeling very okay about putting up in front of the crowd; being integrated into their communities?

Sathia, star of the Royal University of Fine Arts Ballet in Phnom Penh and trained in both classical and cultural dance, had sustained injuries in a motor accident that had rendered her paraplegic. Her career was over. There was little left in her life. After 10 months of hospitals and rehabilitation centers things improved a little for Sathia when she was taken in hand by Carson Harte, from disability NGO The Cambodia Trust, and offered work as a receptionist. With her options severely limited, Sathia accepted. It might have been one of the smartest things she ever did. Back in England, Katie graduated from dance school and inspired by community dance work she had seen being done with disabled people there, she trained with CanDoCo, an organization promoting international integrated dance. Katie’s work with CanDoCo led her to form her own company, Epic Arts, which took her to China and then to Cambodia where she began talking to organizations that work with people with disabilities. One of these organizations was The Cambodia Trust and who did she meet there? Sathia.

That was a year ago and while Katie began working on integrated dance projects with other clients of the Cambodia Trust, Sathia was unwilling to be involved. Katie accepted this; she was aware of the massive trauma that Sathia had suffered and just how that impacted on her talents. As a dancer with passion and fire in her belly, Katie could begin to understand just what it was like to have those legs taken away.

But Katie, working on her program with other Cambodians, needed to learn some of the finer points of the hand movements of Cambodian dance. Sathia, still sitting in the wings, agreed to teach her and it was during one of these sessions, nearly 12 months after their first meeting, that she quietly took Katie’s hand and said, "Katie. I want to dance with you."
Sathia and Katie now work together regularly. Not only are they building dance pieces to take to wider audiences but they are also combining their skills to bring integrated dance to young people with disabilities. Their combined enthusiasm and mastery of their craft works magic on children and young adults who up till now felt left out, shamed and incomplete.

It’s early days, but Katie has big plans for the works that she and Sathia are creating. She also has some lofty goals for Sathia’s future and at 37, there’s a lot of dancing left in her yet.

Buffalo slayers

2008-07-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

In the northeastern provinces of Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri, hill tribes practice bloody animal sacrifices for better harvests, to cure the ill, to banish bad spirits and attract the good. This is the Kap Krabei Pheok Sra (literally, Cut the Buffalo and Drink Wine) feasting ritual.
The Kap Krabei Pheok Sra ceremony is performed by the Phnong, Kreung, Breov, Tampuan, Jarai, Lunn and Steang tribes.

Rann Say Loeun, 52, is a member of the Lunn tribe (from the Bar Keo district of Ratanakiri province). Rann says the feasting ritual is usually held as part of other villages ceremonies, like the Bon Dar Phum ceremony (when a village is newly created) or the Bon Loeung Neakta ceremony (in which food is offered to the village spirits). A buffalo will also be sacrificed when chieftains pray to the spirits of the rice fields for a plentiful harvest. He says the ritual is seldom held privately by a single family except when a family member falls sick and cannot be cured by traditional medicine. The village spirit medium may then suggest a buffalo be sacrificed and offered with wine to the village spirits or the forest spirits in order to pray for recovery of the ailing person.

To begin the sacrifice, a buffalo is tied with rope to a wooden post planted firmly in the middle of a field. Those skilled in killing animals are ready with long swords to sever the nerve endings of the buffalo’s hind legs, while others rush forward to cut its front legs making the animal collapse. Then the most experienced, will cut off the animal’s head. Other men holding knives, axes, spears and tridents surround the buffalo to prevent it from escaping. There is a belief that if the sacrificed animal is not killed on the spot, bad luck will descend on the village.

Once the buffalo is decapitated, the host of the ceremony, or the chieftain, will take it and place it on a shrine fixed to a wooden post; then they will pray for the sick to recover from illness (if the sacrifice is for a healing ritual). If the head is offered to the spirit of the rice field, they will pray for a better harvest. For Bon Loeung Neakta, the chieftain will pour wine on the buffalo’s head and pray for their village to be safe from any harm done to the villagers and their animals by bad spirits.

If it is Bon Dar Phum, when the chieftain builds a new village at a new location, a rokar prey (a kapok tree) is always planted at the same moment the buffalo is slain as a symbol to prove that their ancestors were wealthy and strong.

Rann says the feasting ritual is held with a very good sense of communal solidarity.
"Every villager … is invited to participate and they each bring from their respective homes, a jar of wine to share with the group. Everybody has to make an appearance even if they are busy at work. In the evening a bonfire is lit and the elders sing songs … beat gongs or blow horns … while the young ones, the boys and girls, dance. [The ceremony] lasts for as long as three days, or until there is no more wine and meat left." He says that some hill tribes take the blood from the sacrificed buffalo to mix with wine for drinking and cut off meat from the buffalo’s head to serve as food for the second and final day of the ceremony, leaving only the skull and horns on the shrine. "The skull will not be removed … until the horns come away from the skin … and it can be left there forever," he says. "But no one dares take [the head] because it is considered as belonging to the spirits. It also serves as a sign that a village with many shrines of buffalo skulls is a wealthy and prosperous village." He says cattle are the hill tribes most valuable possession. Sometimes, Rann claims, hill tribes will buy a buffalo worth tens of thousands, or even millions of riel, from their Khmer neighbors to be sacrificed even though their daily income is often less than 1,000 riel. "Because unlike the Khmer, hill tribes do not raise [buffalo] to be used as draught animals for help with farming, but rather to be offered as sacrifices to the spirits, or for meat to serve at feasts."

The pearl of asia

2008-07-01T01:38:00.000-07:00

Photos courtesy of UNESCO and the Documentation Center of Cambodia
In Phnom Penh, behind families sorting plastic from their hand-carts or beyond guarded gates, sit some fine examples of French colonial architecture. Glance upward next time you take a stroll around the city, look beyond the fences, peer down the alleyways and discover delicate remnants of the past. Unfortunately because of constant disregard for the fine architectural history of this city, it may well be your last glimpse.

When Cambodia became a French protectorate in 1863, European influences settled upon the city, beautiful mansions popped up north of Wat Phnom and banks and schools were constructed. The infrastructure was developed and wide tree-lined boulevards stretched throughout the city.
In 1884 inner city canals were dredged and ornate over-bridges were constructed.

Phnom Penh continued to expand well into the 1920s and 1930s—the ‘Pearl of Asia’ began to gleam and prosper. The Monivong Bridge was built in 1929 and with it, the city gained access to the eastern side of the Tonle Bassac. In 1932 the capital’s railway station was built, as was the first line to Battambang in the north, and in 1935 the great art-deco dome of Phsar Thmei (New Market) reared above the city’s skyline.

King Sihanouk led the Sangkum Reastr Nyum period from the first year of Cambodia’s independence in 1954 until 1969. He prompted the construction of many unique public buildings, including the Olympic Stadium and Sports Complex in 1963 and the Preah Bat Soramrith National Theatre (now known as the Bassac Theater) in 1964. Cambodia’s famed architect Vann Molyvann says the only other Southeast Asian country with a bigger stadium than Cambodia is Indonesia.

After Pol Pot’s regime was toppled, Phnom Penh emerged a battered city. Following those tumultuous years, the Cambodian Government set to work to reconstruct some of the stately pre-war buildings of Phnom Penh, often selling or leasing properties to foreign investors.
When the first democratic election was held under the watchful gaze of UNTAC in 1993, the free market began to open its doors and privatization policies began. Many buildings and tracts of land were sold or leased to investors for development. This policy is continuing, with many private companies having a hand in repairing such buildings as the Preah Monivong Hospital, the Royal University of Fine Arts, the Old Stadium near the Cambodian-Japanese Friendship Bridge and the Tonle Bassac Theatre.

Government officials say the 21st century is a "‘selling century’ for public land and buildings." Whether or not this is benefiting the city is a different story. Is the pearl losing its shine?
These photographs show a very different Phnom Penh.

And now we have a new construction but the same style, type, viewing... as like before, mean it's look like the past.

A Barang (French) in the Market

2008-07-01T01:29:00.000-07:00

As a foreigner, it takes a long time to learn your local market. There are the obvious things, the usual ones you recognize from "home": fruit and vegetables that are familiar—but many that aren’t—and fish, the likes of which you’ve never seen, much of it still flapping around in the large metal fish boxes they use here. Then there’s the meat. Hmm … I can tell what is pork and what is beef. But there are also the "bits": the entrails and the offal, the stuff many would either chuck out or never see because it’s gone to the pet-food factory or been processed into sausages. I can tell a chicken from a duck—easier than ever here because if they’re not still alive and flapping, they’re still complete with head, legs and feet.

But it’s all the things that are completely foreign that cause the dilemmas. Do I cook this or eat it raw? Is it sweet or savory? Should I peel it, and if so, does it require a special tool? I ask the questions but the answer is often just a grin or a nod. "Do I cook this or eat it raw?" "Yes – chnung," (tasty). Helpful, but not very. "Pa-aim" (sweet). Ah that’s better, it’s probably fruit. "Do I peel it?" "Up to you." You get the idea?

So gradually the fresh produce takes on a meaning. The more familiar things become staples and, step-by-step, you add new things to the repertoire accepting or rejecting them according to taste. But the time spent searching and finding out and the frustrations of coming away no better informed, all mean that the range remains small.

And what of other provisions? Herbs and spices, household requirements, soaps and detergents, toilet paper, oil, vinegar, sauces and condiments? They’re all there, and some. But where?
Inside, of course. Packed in beside the gold jewelry, the clothing, the shoes and sporting goods and of course, the hairdressers. It’s Tuesday morning and there’s not a lot of hairdressing to be done so I approach one of the booths, careful not to become entangled in the spaghetti-like mass of water hoses and power cords. "Can you cut my hair?" "Ot baan." Okay, silly question, I’ll try the next one. Even terser this time: "Ot!" "Why?" "Ot che" ("I don’t know how"). Well I guess that’s a good enough reason for not wanting to mess with anyone’s precious locks.

Madam, who is selling quite a staggering array of clothing across the aisle has been observing my progress with some amusement and points to a booth a few meters further on where a shy looking woman sits alone. She smiles diffidently and ushers me into the chair. I take in my surroundings, quite spartan really, but the essentials are there so I settle in and watch the proceedings in silence. I don’t know her name, despite asking. Propriety obviously prevents her from divulging this handy piece of information. But I do glean that she has been cutting hair for eight years. And it shows. She works with that assured deftness that comes with experience, unhurried, and with a sculptor’s consideration for the effect of every snip.

This wasn’t exactly Kim’s salon, where I usually go, but then it probably wasn’t going to cost half as much either. The best part was the hair-wash and scalp massage at the end. Difficult conditions to work in here; it’s hot, the plumbing is makeshift and the power supply positively dodgy. But she did as good a job as anyone can with my unruly thatch and I was happy. The price: two dollars—I was very happy. I will probably go back.

I think one of the obstacles to quicker learning is that there are alternatives to the local market: supermarkets (and hairdressing salons). Small perhaps by western standards, they nevertheless have an amazing array of, well, just about everything you would expect a supermarket to have. Convenient, although comparatively expensive and catering mainly to western tastes, they provide an "out". The more comfortably off need never brave the smells nor get their feet dirty while doing the household shopping. But they miss out on an awful lot.

A Dara status

2008-07-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

"To be a celebrity is something difficult and quite unattainable for most people. I used to feel that it was too—when I was a child I used to wash cars for a living," says 24-year-old television presenter Soun Pheakdey, aka D.J A No.

"On screen you are one person, and off you have to be another, and I’m not entirely sure people understand what being in the limelight means. It requires understanding, it involves pretence and you are constantly trying to live up to everyone’s expectations of you. Sometimes I come to work feeling unhappy, but as soon as that camera points my way I need to smile. It wouldn’t do to be sad, my viewers don’t expect that." "Pretence," she says sagely, "is part of my job description."

Soun presents five programs on Cambodia’s TV3 channel—a health and beauty show, a cooking show, a women’s chat show, the Dara Spy Show (a celebrity chat show), and a ‘celebrity versus viewer’ game show.

"For single women we explain how they need to take care of their bodies. For men, we help them to understand women. For housewives we provide cooking ideas, because as the Cambodian proverb says, ‘Good food will make the husband come home everyday’. And besides providing entertainment, education and information, all of these programs try to inform viewers how to live in a modern civilized society. In society, television is essential for everyone and it has three main roles, to provide information, to entertain, as well as to educate."

While she powders her face—part of a grueling daily 3-hour make-up regime—Soun explains how she made it on screen. "When I was younger I hadn’t a clue about the world of television, and before I could present shows I had to learn certain speaking techniques as well as brush up on my general knowledge so I could keep up with my audience."

In 2002, Soun beat off 4000 other Cambodian wannabe beauty queens, in a pageant sponsored by a Thai make-up product. Her win was an entrée into the world of film and television, where she now enjoys a rare and accomplished status on screen. Soun’s first break was as a newsreader on TV5, after which she spent time as a DJ at 98 FM. She has also appeared in 21 films and countless karaoke videos. She began work at TV3 earlier this year.

Casual in jeans this afternoon and with a genuine smile, Soun refers to her alter-ego saying that A No the film and television star is quite different from the everyday A No—"the outside A No".
"A No on screen is sexy, often nasty with comical characteristics. But A No on the outside is just the same as other Cambodian women. She is gentle and sympathetic—happy all the time. She is younger and more polite."

This young woman also loves to shop and admits to spending $300 a month on new outfits and beauty products. "You can see the evidence of my shopping addiction at home! I have three huge closets that I usually add another three outfits to each month." This is a rare liberty in a country where most Cambodians struggle to earn that much in a year. But Soun, well, she doesn’t wash cars anymore.

She doesn’t understand why Cambodia is so behind the rest of the world, but she is hoping her shows will provide some positive diversion for her younger viewers.
"We are living in modern times, why don’t we care [about] ourselves? The rest of the world does. With these programs I want to inform Cambodian women and teenagers, all of TV3’s watchers, to understand modern life and get some new insights. But these shows are meant to make people happy, after they’ve finish[ed] work or study. They are especially aimed at young people who get into bad activities, especially the young who are suffering from drug addiction."

So does this incredibly busy woman have time for romance or a hobby, or even a snooze for that matter? She very coyly says "no" to the former, lowering her lashes. A hobby? "I don’t have free time for playing any sport or reading books. I have to work from morning to night."
Sounds like sleep is out of the question.

The Secret Smile

2008-07-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

The Bayon temple has oft been argued about. Do the faces represent the then king Jayavarman VII, or the embodiment of Buddha on earth, Avalokitesvara?
UNICEF Khmer cultural expert Dr. Michael Tranet explains that Prasat Bayon (Bayon temple) was built by King Jayavarman VII between the late 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century. This is the only temple in the complex to be built primarily as a Mahayana Buddhist temple. However, under the reign of Jayavarman VIII in the mid-13th century the temple was converted to Hinduism. "At the top of each of the 54 towers, are the four faces of Avalokitesvara (Lokitesvara) … In total there are 216 repetitions," Tranet says.

Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara is the embodiment of Buddha and compassion on earth. A bodhisattva is anyone motivated by compassion, who seeks enlightenment for all beings. The hundreds of eyes looking down from the smiling faces of Bayon temple link god with humans. The four faces project benevolence outward to the four compass points; the sculpted faces deliver hope, happiness and peace, and protect all those living on earth, especially those living in the Khmer Empire.

Bayon temple’s baray was built to represent the Ocean of Milk. A Hindu creation myth, the Churning of the Ocean of Milk is a story about a war between gods (devas) and demons (asuras) who try to churn the ocean to produce amrita, the elixir of immortality. Jayavarman VII built the temple with Mount Meru (the center of Jambudvipa, or the Hindu cosmos) represented by the central pyramid. According to legend the gods lived on top of the mountain. History Professor at the Royal University of Phnom Penh Sambo Manara says Jayavarman VII built this
temple at the very heart of Angkor Thom city for a particular reason.
"Prasat Bayon is decorated with fine examples of bas-reliefs showing the many facets of the Khmer civilization. But the most stunning feature of the temple is of course, the 54 towers with the four faces of the Boddhisttva Avalokitesvara. There are more than 200 in total. This temple was built so Jayavarman could relay the four Dharmas, from the very center of the kingdom," Manara says.
"When we look up toward Avalokitesvara’s smiling face, we get a good feeling, we feel more confident, and happier. The longer we look, the more we enjoy."

"The first of the Dharmas is meetta-thhor, which means to be merciful and to have compassion. The second is karuna-thhor meaning pity; relieving others of worry, sorrow, pain and suffering. The third mudhita-thhor, is to have sympathy and the last, upekkha-thhor, is to have impartiality and aloofness. In the latter, there are four more points to consider: you must not take sides because of love, because of hate or fear, or because of ignorance."
Manara says the core of the temple, not only represents Mount Meru, but also the center of the earthly Kingdom; the central governance—the King himself (Bayon was the state’s temple).

From the top—both literally and figuratively—the King spreads the ideals of prohm-vihea-thhor down to the next levels of governance, and then on to the people below. "For me, the Prasat Bayon should be called the Prohm-vihea-thhor temple," he says.

Tranet says the Bayon temple was considered the most sacred place in the Khmer Kingdom for meditation. "People traveled from all over the Kingdom to admire the smiling faces of Avalokitesvara at the Bayon temple. When they arrived, perhaps they felt weary or hopeless, but as soon as they saw that smile, their energy and confidence was renewed. The prohm-vihea-thhor had restored them," Tranet says.
"The Bayon temple is a symbol of the human transition from hopelessness to happiness."

A Profession On The Mend

2008-07-01T00:25:00.001-07:00

The painted signs outside roadside dental clinics, of hefty pliers plucking teeth from open mouths, are not representative of Cambodian dentistry. Thank goodness. In fact, dental care in Cambodia has come a long way in recent years, dental training has begun anew—after the profession was quashed under the Khmer Rouge—and the quality of dental services, and equipment, has improved ten-fold.

General director of Apsara Dental Clinic and vice president of the Cambodian Dental Association Dr. Poch Sophearoth, says of all the health services available in Cambodia, the dental sector is the most trusted.

"When Cambodians get sick they often go abroad, but when they have a dental problem, they use the services this country has to offer. There is no need to venture overseas, because quality dental procedures are available here," Poch says.
He says Cambodia’s reputation for high-quality dentistry, at a reasonable price, is becoming known abroad; this reputation is attracting foreign patients to the country, in what the Cambodian Government is touting as "dental tourism".
"Cambodia is seeing more and more foreigners coming for dental treatment, just as Thailand does."

Owner of Bright Smile Dental Clinic Dr. Som Vichet agrees. "We have modern equipment and facilities, our services are cheaper and our treatment is on a par. Why would anyone bother to go overseas?"

"Except for major surgery," Poch says, "Cambodian dentists can now perform most procedures with recognized quality,
procedures such as, bleaching and whitening; diastema closures; bridges; splints; diagrammatic representations of surgery; restorative surgery; periodontal and gum treatments, orthodontic work and root canals."

"However, on the other hand, most of the Cambodian population, especially those in rural areas, cannot afford to go to the dentist—children are especially vulnerable."
Director of Phnom Penh’s Pachem Dental Clinic Leag Ton says Cambodians are facing serious dental problems. "In developed countries, dental health is very important, but Cambodians … don’t place much importance on their teeth. Life goes on, even with tooth ache," Leag says.

Head of Japanese-based NGO The Tooth & Tooth Dr.Wataru Shimazu has been working in conjunction with Pachem Dental Clinic for the last five years, and he says Cambodian children are particularly at-risk "When I worked with children on Koh Dach, I removed up to five teeth from every child on the island. In Japan every child goes to the dental clinic every six months, but in Cambodia most children have never been, and never will," Shimazu says.

"Poor dental health does not cause death, but it does affect people’s daily lives. It will make people smell bad, speak poorly, eat with difficulty, have an unattractive smile, and other related health problems," he cautions. "Being loved or unloved sometimes depends on these kinds of things."

Bon Bon Bon

2008-07-01T00:21:00.000-07:00

Today is Luem Voun’s day. It is a clear and warm Saturday morning in Siem Reap just before 6am and Voun’s family is gathering to celebrate her life. There are party tents and stages, decorations and musicians, an altar and offerings; all this arranged around and underneath the traditional Khmer wooden house which belongs to her eldest daughter, 56-year-old Som Savath.
After months of planning for this celebration, Savath is happy, busy guiding the festivities and enjoying this wonderful moment in her family’s life. Today is the first day of a two-day celebration, a Bon. More accurately a Bon Chamroeun Ayut, a celebration of an elder’s life, her mother’s life.

Lok Yeay (Grandmother) Voun, 76, has one surviving sister of an original three—her five brothers have all passed away—she also has nine children, and her daughter Som Savath, has twelve, so this is a big celebration for a big family.
One of Voun’s grandchildren explains the significance of a Bon, "When we are young our parents give us life. They give us food, clothes, a house, an education, everything. When they are older we must show them respect and offer thanks and honor them for all they have done for us."
Cambodian people love to celebrate and nothing has been left to chance; more than two hundred people will congregate for music, ceremony, prayer, chanting, eating, and enjoying being together as a family and as a community.

All morning guests fill the tents. There are a lot of people to greet and to share some time with, all in celebration of Luem Voun. She has lived through so much; so much history, so much change, so many trials and challenges and so many joys.
Savath’s siblings and children have all contributed to the efforts in preparing for their grandmother’s Bon, and all the women work together like a well-oiled machine. The nuns look like they have been doing this forever, and many of them have. They know exactly what to do and when, and they enjoy helping the family honor a respected sister, an elder woman in the circle.
The children run and play throughout the day and only need to be reminded to show respect once or twice, usually partly as a lesson and partly just so the adults can have fun watching them squirm a little

And so the celebration continues, it rains and people nap; the monks arrive and are given gifts; they honor Luem Voun with chanting, are fed and head back to the pagoda for a mid-day rest—they will return and continue late into the evening. The daughters bathe their mother, a ritual to show gratitude for all the love and care they received growing up, and a way to give in return.
Cambodia is a country of rhythms. There is rhythm in everything, in the music, in the food, the colors and smells, language and weather, the day, the seasons and in the lives of a family.

The afternoon folds into the evening and a heavy tropical rain begins to fall. Boys and girls scurry to help protect their elders from dripping tents and small streams begin to form in the sand.

Playing crusoe on Bamboo Island

2008-07-01T00:13:00.000-07:00

Past creeping liana and upturned millipedes we wander; down a close and dark jungle path. From above, five-year-old Xy Hong is a large moving hat. Together with his sister Xu Kim Huy, 15, and friend Sophon, 9, Hong is leading the way across Bamboo Island to show my friend and I the "big guns". He and Sophon are sharing a too small pair of blue flip flops and when he’s not wearing them he runs ahead leaping and shrieking over the writhing diplopods.

We soon emerge into the light and are directed to the hardware, "soo-a s’day-ing" a scantily clad toothless man who might be the caretaker, or quite possibly some sort of Man Friday.
Well, the Russian guns are indeed big, so we admire them for a time as it appears we ought, whilst our guides climb trees and bag green fruit. Of course I can make no sense of the Cyrillic signs, and once you’ve looked at big guns, well you’ve seen ‘em all, so I call out to ask Kim Huy what is "over there" beyond the flowering hibiscus.

As is shortly revealed, "over there" happens to be the most gorgeous beach in all of Cambodia—believe me. We are immediately, and completely, enchanted. To the left, there is a long beach with leaning palms; to the right, further beach and a rocky outcrop at the far end. And to both sides: nobody.

The beach is at the southern end of Bamboo Island (Koh Russei) in Ream National Park; it is a barely-touched stretch of caramel-colored sand, storybook seashells and complete solitude, so I should hardly be promoting it. Here on Bamboo, a once Cambodian Navy base, there are no crabs for sale; there are no walking beauty salons; there is no fruit to buy. There is just you and the sea.

My friend and I sit beneath the trees, a rather astonishing Angkorian sandcastle is constructed; we read and doze; swim and doze a little more,
then walk back to our bungalow for an evening aperitif of Chang on the other side of the island.
Friday has vanished.

Kuy Sun rents land on the northern side of Bamboo from the navy. He’s built 10 bungalows, a bar and a home for family members, all close to the water’s edge with views of other nearby National Park islands. Sokha, 25, appears to be the man in charge—he’s Kuy Sun’s brother—he tells me there are 30 people living permanently on the island and that there are 10 dogs; chickens, ducks and cows also lurk about the place.
The island has good toilet and shower facilities and the generator comes on when it’s dark and goes off about eleven, depending on what’s going on at the bar. The bar has a full menu, offering the usual beach fare: omelets, French fries, curries and soups. Breakfast, including good coffee, is available and can be delivered to your bungalow verandah.

There is fabulously little to do on Koh Russei. You can swim all day, you can read in a hammock in the morning, you can ask Kim Huy for a manicure at the bar and the charming Kim Lay, 22, will put your hair in a French-plait (the fee: a packet of dried jackfruit purchased at Kim Huy’s shop). Arrange to go on a fishing boat for the day; construct useful things, or play volleyball with the fishermen—a number of shirtless sarong-wrapped anglers play during the day.
That is the island in a conch shell: a perfectly simple and beautifully surprising piece of Cambodia.

Just don’t go all at once.
Travel details:

- Boats can be arranged from the Sihanoukville end or you can drive directly into Ream National Park and get a boat from there (we asked a local restaurant owner to organize one for us). The turn-off to the Park is on your left 15km before Sihanoukville. The boat trip takes about 40 minutes from Ream and a bit under an hour from Sihanoukville.

- Remember to take the following: insect repellent, coils, soap, sun block, toilet paper, any snacks you fancy, extra liquor if there is a large number of you (the bar could run dry!), a hammock, a bed sheet, and a first aid kit might be a good idea. Bungalows cost $5 per night and have a double mattress and mosquito net.

- Prices of meals and drinks are about the same as what you’d pay on the beach in Sihanoukville.

- Cooking your own food is not altogether discouraged, but just support the local economy as much as you can.

- If you’re staying in Sihanoukville, the island is worth a day trip.