The Ghost Station

The Bokor Palace Casino, located on a hill top above the Golf of Thailand on the south coast of Cambodia, is one of the spookiest buildings in Asia. Built by the French in the 1920s, the casino has been opened and closed twice.

In 1970, the building was abandoned and now stands as a lone symbol of decades of war Cambodia has suffered since.

Since peace has returned to the South East Asian kingdom in 1997, the Bokor Palace has served as an attraction on the war tourism trail, as well as the location for several movie productions, including Matt Dillons 'City of Ghosts'. Now a Cambodian consortium is planning to redevelop the former French Hill Station and casino and lay the ghosts of war to rest.

This story was first published as a photospread in the Wall Street Journal. Also published in Fortean Times.

South of Pyongyang - Journey into the culinary Heart of Darkness

North Korea has opened a restaurant in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. It is aptly called ‘Pyongyang’ and it delivers not just North Korean cuisine to the curious and weird, but the best of North Korean entertainment. If you have never given a thought to the global war on terror, think again. And then go to the ‘Pyongyang’ and be swept away by the country’s finest.

Phnom Penh - The City of Ghosts awakens

After 30 years of conflict and civil war, Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, is once more becoming the 'Pearl Of Asia', a charming backwater capital on the banks of the Mekong River. With the war truly over, much of the French colonial architecture intact, fascinating and sometimes grim traces of Cambodia's recent past lingering amongst renewed urban development and more than 200 bars and restaurants catering to tourists, Phnom Penh is the most enigmatic of South East Asia's capitals - there's a great deal to be discovered.

Photographs: Aroon Thaewchatturat (via www.onasia.com)

This story was first published in Lifestyle+Travel. Also published in The Nation (Thailand).

The People on the Great Lake

Cambodia's water-borne Vietnamese minority live out a precarious existence on the kingdom's great lake, the Tonle Sap. Mien settled on the Tonle Sap Lake in 1981 and revived an ancient tradition and life style that had almost disappeared in the war and chaos that reigned in Cambodia for thirty years – the Tonle Sap houseboat.

Mien, along with 7.000 other people –that’s more than a thousand families - lives on his own houseboat in Kompong Luong, one of several predominantly Vietnamese fishing communities that are found along the shores of the Tonle Sap.

Photographs: Aroon Thaewchatturat (via www.onasia.com). First published in Untamed Travel

Ratanakiri - Cambodia's Remote North East Is Opening Up

The ancient Chinese aircraft touches down in a giant cloud of thin red dust. Through the haze outside my window I see people approaching across the potholed runway. The airport building is but a wooden shack. A couple of teenagers are holding up signs, which become slowly readable as the dust settles. 'Welcome to Ratanakiri', they wave enthusiastically. Ratanakiri means 'gemstone mountain' in English; a land that time has truly forgotten. But Ratanakiri, Cambodia's wild northeastern province is about to be rediscovered. Dusty roads, Crystal lakes, ethnic minorities and Conradian jungles along the Khmer-Lao-Vietnamese border.

First published in The Nation (Thailand)

Long live the King - Cambodia's coronation

Impoverished Cambodia celebrates King Sihamoni after the abrupt retirement of King Sihanouk. Tom Vater attends the coronation and investigates the future of the monarchy in one of the world's poorest nations.

Photographs: Aroon Thaewchatturat (via www.onasia.com)

First published in Farang - Untamed Travel

Bauk - Gang rape, favorite past time of Cambodia's young and affluent

In the shadow of the Independence Monument in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh young women sell themselves for 6$ a night. Cambodia's 70.000 sex workers are exposed to the fastest growing AIDS rate in the world. Now they also fear bauk - gang rape. Every night students and urban rich kids, some as young as 15, get together and hire a girl for an all night multiple rape session in which up to ten men participate. The girls have no way to resist and no one to report to. The youngsters, fuelled on drugs and beer, like to brag about their exploits. After thirty years of war, genocide, civil strife and instability, Cambodia's young and rich now live out a culture of impunity, thriving on shootings, drug taking and rape, untroubled by a corrupt and underpaid police force.

This feature was first published in The Sunday World (Eire)

Apocalypse Sleeping

Cambodia went to the polls at the end of July 2003 to choose between several idiosyncratic candidates to lead them into the new Millenium. Opposition leader Sam Rainsy and coalition funcinpec minister Mu Sochua told of impending catastrophe if Hun Sen remained in power. Which he did.

The Sam Rainsy interview has appeared in The Far Eastern Economic Review.

Also published at www.nthposition.com and in Farang-Untamed Travel

Cambodia's shaky rebirth

Photo Feature!!

With director Marc Eberle, I researched and co-wrote the TV documentary feature 'Angkor, Stone Smile of the Khmer' (arte, SWR) in 2001 and 2002 , which has since been broadcast numerous times on public television in Europe. The 52 minute documentary was shot in three weeks in Phnom Penh, around Battambang and Siem Reap. This selection of images shows a country re-merging from decades of chaos.

Fancy a-ping? The Tarantulas of Skuon

The best tarantula in the world is deep-fried in garlic and salt. Crispy and shiny black on the outside and gooey on the inside, the tarantulas, locally known as a-ping in Cambodia, should be served hot. They taste a bit like crickets. Or grasshoppers. Or bamboo grubs. Or chicken.

This text has appeared in 'Beyond The Pancake Trench', published by Orchid Books.

Also published in Untamed Travel Magazine.

The Sounds of Phnong

Mondulkiri is Cambodia’s wild east, an area rarely visited by tourists. Population density is low here and more than half of the province’s 30.000 or so inhabitants belong to the Phnong minority. The indigenous communities in the area share their space with increasingly rare mammals. Wild elephants, bears, several species of wild buffalo and deer, leopards and even a few tigers are said to live in the remoter parts of the province.

First published in ‘Beyond the Pancake Trench – Road Tales from the Wild East’ by Orchid Press in 2004.

This story has also appeared in Folk Roots (UK), Publico and Farang-Untamed Travel Magazine

Iron Horse

Cambodia is not famed for its infrastructure. Thirty years of foreign meddling, war and revolution have left the country in tatters and the Khmers have limited options to get around their shattered country. Most of the roads, except for the area around the temples of Angkor, are still in appalling condition. Planes are far too expensive for ordinary Khmers. Commerce is limited and more than 80% of Khmers have never been to Angkor, unlike the 300.000 tourists that arrived there by plane last year.
There’s only one other option for Cambodia to get on the move – the two train lines.
The Battambang Express crosses the width of the country and races down 275 km of wonky tracks from the capital in a mere sixteen or so hours. No, average speeds don’t go much above 20 km an hour.

First published in ‘Beyond the Pancake Trench – Road Tales from the Wild East’ by Orchid Press in 2004. Also published in Untamed Travel Magazine.