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Angkor Archeological Park
Completed a week of temple touring at the Angkor complexes. Two couples five days of temples. Laundry list of @ 60. Saw most, skipped a couple of the “climbs”. Been fifteen + years since my wife and I visited. Quite “different”. Not necessarily in a good way. Far more commercialized and touristy. Siem Reap is hustlin’ and buslin’ comparatively speaking. Tourist money do have a serious impact.
Lots of restoration work at the temples. Many more ruins “restored” but it doesn’t really show, without a prior frame of reference you wouldn’t know. They’re letting the lichens, molds and fungi have a pretty much free run. At our prior visit the ruins were “cleaner” in that the discoloration was there but not nearly as drastic or noticeable. The restoration work completed and in progress appears to be directed at the mechanics and structural support. Yes, very much needed. Stone is heavy and I’m certain some serious accidents have occurred there. Many wooden supports, and several new steel support structures (gonna rust big time).
Worthwhile time for the historians and archeologists among us. Land mine museum “closed”, war museum’s a bunch of rusted armor staged outside. Almost seems like they’re sweeping Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge genocide under the rug. Little or no mention and/or advertisement of that infamous chapter of Kampuchea’s history – at least in Siem Reap.
I hope there is far more on that subject in Phnom Penh, S-21 prison. In Siem Reap the Killing Fields monument has doubled in size and been dressed up considerably. But, fifteen – twenty minutes there and you’ve seen all there is to see.
As per some other threads about expats going to Cambodia, from what I’ve seen (prior and recent visit), they can have it. Two industries, farming and tourism. Not much of anything else. Of course, I’m only speaking about my observations, and mine only, of Siem Reap. Hospitals – naught more than clinics. Transport, motocy’s, Cambodian tuk tuks, automobiles, and a slew of tourist buses.
Cheap land, 7k sqm for a $1. Doubt it’s usable for much. Red dirt, prevalent earth in the area. Lots of rice growing, all types of tourist souvenir shops, paintings, pins, scarfs, statuettes. All he same stuff you see everywhere else.And, incredibly, it all cost “one dollar”. Doesn’t matter what it is - it costs a buck.
