Cambodia Reborn

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.

Sombat and two kids in front of Angkor Wat.

In the film, Sombhat, a young tourist guide from the provincial town of Battambang traveled to the ruins of the Angkor Empire, the spiritual and cultural heart of Cambodia that once ruled most of South East Asia, to witness the relentless growth of a gigantic tourist industry that has emerged out of the ashes of his war-torn, exhausted country.

Two Apsara dancers having a break behind the stage at the Grand Hotel.

Director Marc Eberle and I undertook a month-long research trip across Cambodia in 2001, which took us through the tragically dysfunctional back roads of a shattered nation. We visited Khmer Rouge stronghold Pailin and Pol Pot's grave at Anlong Veng, illegal archaelogical digs near Poipet and (then) remote temples like Bang Melea. During the shoot we traveled with demining NGO CMAC and filmed the classicaly trained Apsara dancers of Siem Reap (see image above).

Finally, we celebrated Khmer New Year with thousands of Cambodians at Angkor Wat, the world's largest religious building. While the Cambodians are certainly a tenacious people, the late 20th century has left deep marks on a nation faced with very 21st century problems - AIDS, unemployment, ineffective governance and a culture of impunity and lawlessness that is unriveled in the region. Despite this, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit every year, most of them flying into Siem Reap, walking the ruins and hopping back on a plane. Amongst the grinding poverty, blatant official mismangement and burgeoning tourist circus, there are plenty of moments of beauty and pride, when the Khmer culture shines, however briefly, through all the miserable decades of war that the country has endured

What follows is a small selection of captioned images from across Cambodia.

Aereal view of Cambodia on the now defunct Royal Cambodge flight from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. The only other passengers were a gaggle of completely drunk Khmer businessmen. On take-off, thick smoke pumped from the A.C. unit, which alarmed the soundman next to me considerably.

To this day, driving in Cambodia is a serious undertaking. Only this year have government bodies discussed the introduction of a driving test. Cambodian roads seem to have been copied from a PlayStation racing-game featuring traffic participants equipped with total disdain for rule or method.

Accidents are frequent. This woman crashed into a car on Phnom Penh river side. The driver of the car did not stop.

Soda seller in front of Angkor Wat

The men from CMAC on the road to Anlong Veng, difusing a landmine.

The lingering war - landmines and UXO continue to kill and maim hundreds of people in Cambodia every year.

The staff at the War Museum in Siem Reap are showing off their special skills. The War Museum, sadly, is a tourist trap crammed with the kind of rusty military junk that can probably be dug up in most people's backgardens.

Searching for gem stones in a river near Pailin, the last refuge of the Khmer Rouge and its ageing leaders. Piss-poor workers sift the river all day, while middlemen like this man carry away all the profits.

Pol Pot's grave in the hills behind Anlong Veng, a few miles from the Thai-Cambodian border. Pol Pot died or was poisoned in a hut near-by, but by the time I got there in 2001, only the foundations and toilet were left. The area was heavily mined and the late demagogue's personal belongings, medicines and household trash lay scattered across a wide area. The prosthtic leg belongs to our guide, a man who calls himself San Rung and lives in the house of former Khmer Rouge General Ta Mok, also known as 'The Butcher', one of the two high-ranking KR commanders currently in jail.

San Rung, the man who claims to have been Ta Mok's assistant, "Pol Pot was a good man, he had a good heart." San Rung claims to have fought for the government troops of Lon Nol in the early 70s. He then changed to the Khmer Rouge side but lost his leg to a landmine. He continued building landmines for years after. Following the arrival of UNTAC and the end of the civil war in the 1990s, San Rung became a mine clearer, though he claims that he resold some of his de-mined mines, while there was still fighting going on.

Pol Pot's toilet, a bizarre and fitting shrine to the Khmer Rouge's abysmal legacy.

Kamping Poy Dam, near Battambang, was built entirely by hand and stretches for 8 km. More than 10.000 people are thought to have perished here, in one of the Khmer Rouge's more outlandish engineering feats. Today the area is a popular picnic spot.

This man has had shrapnel lodged in his skull since 1998.

Link to Article 'The End of the Despot's Road' - Pol Pot's Grave

Link to Article 'The Sounds of Phnong' - Cambodian hilltribes on the margins

Link to Article 'Tombraiders in Cambodia' - Plunder of prehistoric artefacts continues