Angkor management

As I attempted for Manila and Tokyo, I offer five things about Cambodia (or, more specifically, Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor).


1. The Khmers invented Poohsticks. You put an identifying mark on a coconut and drop it down the well at the Bayon. About a week later, it should reappear in the great lake of Tonlé Sap; if you spot it, good fortune will be yours.

2. Coolest cigarette brand in the world: Alain Delon.

3. In the centre of Siem Reap, local people (mostly, but not exclusively, women) peddle second-hand books from carts. It's the usual mix of guidebooks, lurid volumes documenting the foul excesses of the Pol Pot regime, and the tome that now appears to be compulsory reading in the backpacky community: Mr Nice, by Howard Marks. Each cart has a large placard attached, giving a potted biography (in English, sometimes also in French) of the seller: name; age; number of children; disabilities and illnesses of any family members (polio, landmines, etc). It's difficult to know whether the details are accurate but, as spin doctors now tend to put it, the narrative is plausible. I think of the tart cards left in London phone boxes, and immediately feel guilty that I've made such a connection. But do you get my point?

4. Avoid the superficially charming monkeys of Angkor Wat. They climb trees and throw coconuts at innocent tourists. Bastards.


5. Most of the temples have been reclaimed from the jungle, but at Ta Prohm the trees have been allowed to take over. As a result, the stones are constantly shifting position; the tree trunks, meanwhile, seem petrified, a little like stalagmites. The whole place seems to sum up two key elements of Buddhist philosophy: anicca, the notion of impermanence; and the belief that existence is a never-ending cycle of life and death. It's not often that a man-made structure accidentally comes to embody the very concepts that it was built to commemorate.