I’ve noticed there are a few Dopers planning to visit Cambodia in the near future or who are otherwise connected to that country. Here’s a roundup of some of the stuff going on these days:
This is an excellent article about how gambling is fueling poverty in Cambodia, and then we see here that one casino company in particular made a net profit of US$25.5 million in the first half of the year. The wife and I have walked past those casinos in the special border zone between Thailand and Cambodia mentioned in the first link. You officially exit Thailand, then there’s this short stretch – maybe a quarter of a mile, if I remember correctly – until you reach Cambodian Immigration, and it’s along there that you pass all these casinos. They look fairly flash, but we’ve not been inside any of them. I’ve been told if you win big, the casinos will have some of their security gurads accompany you back to Thai territory, lest something untoward happen to you in the interim.
Here we see that Cambodia’s population is approaching 14 million. That’s not much more than the upper estimates of Bangkok’s population alone.
And speaking of populations, here is a story about two monkey species that are threatened with extinction but which have been found living in remarkably large populations in Cambodia: “The monkey tally, announced today, represents the largest known populations of these species in the world.” (Yes, yes, I KNOW it’s Fox News, but that just means no one’s probably seen it yet.)
And they’re planning a trade triangle for Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. No doubt the money will all be spent as it’s supposed to. :rolleyes:
Thought I’d throw in some more Cambodian stuff. Here we see that rapid urbanisation has doubled traffic deaths there. Ya know, I don’t recall ever seeing a traffic light in Phnom Penh. I’m sure I’m mistaken, there must be some around, but whenever we’ve gone through most intersections, there were no traffic lights or stop signs whatsoever. The traffic flow does not even slow, and the vehicles just do this odd little traffic dance around each other, and you make it through. It’s very weird. The article points out that traffic accidents are Cambodia’s second-biggest killer after AIDS.
The Khmer Rouge’s old Tuol Sleng torture center in Phnom Penh is poised to become a Unesco “Memory of the World” site. Story here. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this particular program, but Tuol Sleng is well worth keeping up as a reminder. It’s a devastatingly sad place, but one that everyone should see if at all possible.
It seems like they’re always finding a new species of animal or old ones previously thought extinct. Now they’ve discovered a new species of catfish. See it here. A lot of these “new” species have been maintained because of the isolation of the country, and they’re being discovered now because that isolation is being broken down. Thailand’s gone from something like 80% forest coverage to 20% in only a few short decades. If the same happens in Cambodia, and it looks like it will, it could be bad news for some of them.
There’s been a standoff at the border between Thai and Cambodian troops for some months now over a dispute involving the old Khmer-era Preah Vihear Temple. Yesterday (Friday) was the first time shots were exchanged. Story here.
I know there are some Dopers planning to visit Cambodia in the near future, and specifically Siem Reap for the Angkor Wat ruins. I want to assure you the area where this dispute is occurring is very isolated and nowhere near Angkor Wat or much of anything else. It presents no safety concerns to you.
But I see the Cambodian army seems to have made out the best yesterday, with only one of their soldiers wounded, while four Thai soldiers were hurt. (The linked story says two Thai soldiers, but later reports put the number at four.) The Thai army tends to be pretty hopeless. Twenty years ago, it got involved in a shooting war with Laos over ownership of some sandbars in the Mekong River that appear only during the dry season. That’s right, men died shooting each other because of some stupid little patches of sand that pop up out of the river once a year or so. And Laos won that one! The Thai army couldn’t even assert it’s claim against the friggin’ Lao army. Laos owns those sandbars now whenever they appear.
For anyone in the neighborhood soon (and I know there are a few): Where Elephants Weep, “a Cambodian-American rock opera,” makes its official world premier in Phnom Penh from November 28 to December 7.
“The tale of Sam, a refugee from the Khmer Rouge genocide who leaves America and returns to his homeland of Cambodia.” No, that’s not me.
And here we have “Exhibit of 1978 ‘Hell’ Photos To Tour Country.”
It seems that in 1978, a Swedish photographer visited Cambodia at the height of the Khmer Rouge regime. He bought into the whole “worker’s paradise” theme. They showed him around Phnom Penh and took him out to some rice fields, let him take a bunch of photos, and he left to tell the world what a great place Cambodia was now. He later learned of the almost 2 million who died.
He’s back in Cambodia and exhibiting his photos and apologizing for missing the truth.
One of the crazier experiences I’ve had was taking the fast hydrofoil from Siem Riep to Phnom Penh across the Tonle Sap Lake. It was one of the sketchiest things I’ve done, and I’ve done a few. The hydrofoil was an old thing that was bought used from Greece or something like that (Wikitravel says that they are old Soviet boats). You could opt to sit on top of it, thus overloading the thing by probably twice it’s capacity. I don’t recall seeing any life preservers. Tonle Sap Lake is pretty big, and when in the middle of it, you can’t see the shore on either side, so if the boat sinks, you are in for a pretty long swim. It’s a bit chilly because you get sprayed by water the whole time. So, you don’t really feel the sun beating down on you. I got the worst sunburn of my life on that trip. It was really quite fun, actually.
Also, the river that Tonle Sap Lake turns into actually reverses direction when the Mekong floods, so that’s pretty weird.
We rode that once ourselves. We opted for inside, and it was bouncing along so much that it had to stop to let the people up top come below. They must have been begging to get in. Apart from no life preservers, I didn’t notice any handholds, either.
Here is a good follow-up on that Swedish photographer. It even includes a very brief but interesting overview of communism in the 20th century and chances for its resurgance in the near future.
Well, so much for the rock opera mentioned in post #4 above, Where Elephants Weep." It’s been banned in Cambodia! Story here. :rolleyes:
Some other Cambodian news. A good International Herald Tribune piece on 36 hours in Siem Reap. The town itself, not the nearby Angkor Wat ruins. The town is quite a pleasant place these days.
And something here on how Khmer culture relates to Thais.
Cambodian havs protested formally to Thailand over the Jupiter Cruise affair. See here.
On Christmas Day (just a coincidence, as it being December 25 had no bearing on the matter), 269 tourists were denied entry to Thailand from the cruise ship Jupiter Cruise despite the fact that they all had valid visas in their passports issued by the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh unless they each posted a US$1,500 bond deposit that they could collect back after three months just in case any of the passengers caused “trouble” in Thailand.
What the …??? Thailand is always causing problems for Cambodia – it and Vietnam even swallowed the country up at one point in history, disappearing it completely – but this is bit strange. As fellow Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nation) members, Cambodians technically don’t even need a visa for the country. There was a Cambodian senator in the group, too.
The comments after the article are, um, interesting.
There’s a controversy now in the border town of Poipet. Poipet is the asshole of the universe. I can think of no more disgusting place that I’ve ever had the misfortune of finding myself in. Many casinos are located there, several in the No Man’s Land between where you exit Thai Immigration and enter Cambodian Immigration, but it’s still Cambodian soil. They’re all foreign-owned (read: Thai-owned). For Chinese New Year, some of the casinos staged a fireworks display. A rather controversial fireworks display. I’d rather not write about why it was controversial, for fear of spending 15 years in the pokey, but it involves He Who Must Not Be Named. Story here.
As is often the case, the added comments at the bottom are most amusing.
And here we see that Cambodia is preparing to teach about the Khmer Rouge era in high-school classrooms. A good idea, as it’s been 30 years now since the Khmer Rouge were pushed out, and many young people know nothing about it.
Excerpt: “‘When we tell students about the Khmer Rouge genocide, they don’t believe it and think it’s fiction,’ Deputy Education Minister Ton Sa Im told Reuters.”
Finally! A Khmer Rouge higher-up is facing a UN genocide trial, which starts today (Tuesday). Story here. Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch. Along with being in charge of the agency that oversaw internal security and the operation of prison camps, he ran the infamous Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, a former high school. Visiting there, one is struck by the mundane neighborhood setting.
Good news here for anyone planning to visit Anglor Wat. Greater flexibility in the 3- and 7-day tickets. You no longer have to use them on consecutive days. No change in the US$20 single-day tickets, but the $40 3-day tickets can now be used to visit on any 3 days in one week, while the $60 7-day tickets can be used to visit on any 7 days in one month. Even if you plan to visit only four or five days, it’s obviously worth it to buy the 7-day ticket pricewise. We’ve found five days about right for a visit, but many linger for a week or longer. Anything less than four days, especially if it’s your first time, feels too rushed. Some private companies will actually take you around in half a day, and that’s just crazy!
And speaking of Angkor Wat, Malaysian archaeologists have uncovered evidence of a pre-Angkor civilization there that reportedly could be the oldest one in the region. See here. This would certainly seem to be older than the other known pre-Angkor civilizations, such as Chenla.
Thailand is always causing problems for Cambodia – it and Vietnam even swallowed the country up at one point in history, disappearing it completely – but this is bit strange. As fellow Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nation) members, Cambodians technically don’t even need a visa for the country. There was a Cambodian senator in the group, too.