Food Feature: Set in stone

While Thailand has becomE a hotspot for travelers in recent years, Cambodia maintains an air of mystery, with monuments to past glories and memories of indescribable horrors.

Across the Thai/Cambodia border, the marks of civilization come to an abrupt halt. Bangkok is a surreal melting pot, alive with frantic action. Backpackers converge from all points on the compass, still trailing Himalayan soil from Bhutan or powdery sand from Bali. Businessmen press cell phones against their faces as they walk through the smoggy streets. In Pat Pong, Asia’s most notorious Red Light district, prostitutes perform amazing feats with their elastic genitals.

But a one-hour flight across the Cambodia border transports you into a very different place. The asphalt roads, which fan out from Bangkok like a spiderweb, come to an end at the border. All signs of civilization seem to vanish except for the massive squares of cultivated rice paddies seen from the air.

Landing in a tiny military airport in Cambodia last November, I was greeted by uniformed troops of 16-year-olds with AK-47s slung over their shoulders. It wasn’t a problem that I hadn’t secured a visa before I left; a crisp $20 bill eased my entry in minutes. A few passport stamps later, I stepped outside onto the unpaved streets of Siem Reap.

The thick tropical air in Siem Reap seems to muffle all sounds. Bicycles tooled down the street, one with a bundle of green bamboo, another with a squirming pig tied to the back, still another that precariously balanced a family of four on two wheels.

Siem Reap might have remained an exotic backwater overlooked by adventure travelers if it wasn’t for the massive temples that emerge from the jungle nearby. From the 10th through 12th centuries, Siem Reap was the seat of the Khmer Empire. Divinely ordained kings conquered lands from Thailand to Vietnam and constructed the massive temples at Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom and Bantay Shrey.

At Angkor Wat, five towers rise from a man-made reservoir representing Mount Maru, the Hindu center of the universe. A long causeway leads into the temple, symbolically transporting the pilgrim from the terrestrial world to a more spiritual realm. Carved into the walls at Angkor Wat, myth converges with history. Dancing apsaras (goddesses) entertain the gods who churn the waters of creation. The Hindu deity Vishnu presides over a wall relief depicting the cosmic struggle between giants and demons to make sure that equal parts of good and evil are stirred into the universe. In the next carving, Jayavaraman, the historic king who built Angkor, takes the place of Vishnu, commanding his own armies and buxom courtesans.

These are not dead ruins or museums of carvings. These ancient monuments are still alive with worshippers. Incense still smolders in archaic wall niches. Along one corridor, percussion and xylophones are beaten for the god Vishnu. Limbless men, crippled by the landmines of the Pol Pot regime, bow their Cambodian lutes on nearly every promontory, like living pieces of the temples. Children swarm at the entrances and exits with armloads of bamboo flutes for sale.

Angkor Wat is not a single temple, but a massive complex where each building has a distinct and unforgettable personality. We crossed a stone bridge lined with Buddhas and demons, their heads hacked off by thieves, on our way to Angkor Thom. On these towers, the massive sculpted faces of Jayavaraman watch over the Khmer kingdom in every direction with a benevolent, mysterious smile. Another temple, Ta Prohm, has been left unrestored; thick roots drip over the crumbling walls and snakes slither through the fallen shards of Buddhist sculpture.

The glory of Jayavarman’s great empire was forgotten and swallowed by the jungle by the time France annexed the Indochine territory in 1864. A century later, Prince Norodom Sihanouk’s “royal crusade for independence” led his nation into what he hoped was a new golden age.

During the brief rebirth of the Khmer kingdom, the temples of Angkor caught Hollywood’s eye. Richard Brooks, who had directed Elmer Gantry (1960), brought Peter O’ Toole and James Mason to Angkor to film Lord Jim in 1964. Within two years, Sihanouk was writing, directing and producing his own films set among the ruins.

The filmmaking-monarch hoped to capture his nation on the rise in films such as Apsara (1966) and The Joy of Living (1968). Instead, as the Vietnam War seeped across the border and the Khmer Rouge gained power in the hills, Cambodia was headed for its darkest moment in history. Sihanouk’s last film of the decade, Tragic Destiny (1969) might have been his nation’s epitaph.

Thirty years after Pol Pot’s reign of terror, Cambodia still struggles with the remnants of the killing fields. On the road from Siem Reap to Angkor, a billboard advertises Coca-Cola on one side and illustrates different types of landmines on the other. Slowly, Cambodia is acclimating to the modern world.

In 1999, Pol Pot quietly died in a jungle refuge. While the government still teeters, some stability seems to have finally come to Cambodia. First came a trickle of backpackers and adventure travelers, and now Hollywood is once again looking at Angkor as a vital location. This summer, Cambodia’s great temple complex is featured alongside Angelina Jolie’s pouting lips in the film Tomb Raider. The question is: How will the big-budget film affect the site? Will the film introduce one of Asia’s marvels to a new audience, or are filmmakers stealing the soul of this sacred spot for a pulp fiction?

While the $85 million dollar Tomb Raider might make Angkor a star, many people are concerned that the film has paid too little attention to cultural detail. The Phnom Penh Post in January complained, “the film’s depiction of ... seemingly idyllic villages populated by people inexplicably wearing traditional Vietnamese hats — much to the annoyance of the locally hired extras — showed little awareness of sensitivity to the reality of modern Cambodia.”

Hollywood’s renewed interest in the monuments of Angkor might attract international money and tourism that could serve to preserve the temples, but the price might be too high if the land’s traditions and culture are overlooked and overwhelmed by real-life adventurous tomb raiders. The day might not be far away when Cambodian children hawk Tomb Raider T-shirts instead of bamboo flutes.

Cambodia is a land of contradictions. It has seen horrors and yet warm smiles abound. While Tomb Raider will not expose the true Cambodia, it will bring images of one of Asia’s great wonders to a wide audience and hopefully inspire travelers to discover the people and traditions of this mysterious country.??