resort – Tom Vater

Going ‘wild’ in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains in The Nikkei Asian Review

November 3, 2019November 14, 2019tomLeave a Comment

“Camera traps have been smashed and stolen. We have caught hunting dogs. A logging gang started to build a road through the national park so our team watched them for three days, then stormed the camp and arrested 20 people. The following day, everyone was freed, but at least the road was not built.” Laure […]

Return to Bokor Mountain, Cambodia

July 31, 2015May 25, 2022tom4 Comments

I’ve just been back to Bokor Hill Sation, one of Cambodia‘s most beautiful and haunted spots. Rising a thousand meter above the kingdom’s southeastern coast, Bokor has been developed three times. In the 1920s, the French cleared some of the jungle on the way up, built a road with the help of 9000 kulis […]

Kep – Cambodia´s Seaside Revival – in The Asia Wall Street Journal

July 2, 2010July 2, 2010tomLeave a Comment

Together with photographer Luke Duggleby, I visited Kep, a small town on Cambodia´s south eastern coast. First populated by French colonial administrators at the beginning of the 20th century, Kep became something like Cambodia´s St. Tropez in the 1960s, with rock bands playing on the beach and King Norodom Sihanouk cavorting and partying as if […]