Cambodia Overview

Like the rest of Indochina, Cambodia is a country with a turbulent past. Pummelled by the intrigues of the great powers, battered by B52 bombers, decimated by an insane dictatorship, and dissected by civil war – its recent history has been a national tragedy and an international disgrace. Unlike the horrors of Stalin’s purges, the Nazi’s ovens and Mao’s mad ‘Cultural Revolution’, the conflict that overwhelmed Cambodia and the rest of Indochina in the late sixties was a proxy war, encouraged and fuelled by the US, the USSR, China, and their supporters.

The Kh’mer Rouge was actively supported by the US and China, even after the scale of the genocide was known.

Since the 1998 elections resulted in a stable coalition government and the final collapse of the K’hmer Rouge, Cambodia began to pick itself up and take the first steps on the road to recovery. The 2003 elections have again led to a political stalemate, but Cambodia’s recent entry to the WTO should cement the country’s reintegration into the international community.

Today. the county has a population approaching 13m, 90% of which are ethnic K’hmers. About 1.4m people live in the capital, Phnom Penh. The national religion is Theravada Buddhism.

The currency is the ‘riel’, but the $US is acceptable more or less everywhere. Travellers cheques can be exchanged in city banks, but credit cards are of little use.

Its climate is similar to that of South Vietnam, although the temperature drops and the rain increases the further inland you travel.

Apart from main centres of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, tourism infrastructure is minimal. It’s possible to travel across the country by road, but it’s a slow and frustrating business. There are no restrictions on movement, but exploration well off the beaten track is limited by large quantities of unexploded ordnance from the thousands of tonnes of high explosive dropped during the 3,500 sorties flown by US bombers.

However, you have to be a long way from civilisation to be at risk. There’s a tourism myth that the small signs on the sides of some main roads are landmine warnings – they actually mark underground cables.

There are three main attractions: the Angkor Temple Complex, easily the most impressive cultural destination in Indochina, Phnom Penh, now recovering its past colonial glory, and Ton Le Sap, a remarkable river and lake in the centre of the country.

You’ll find the Kh’mer people friendly and helpful, and a rich local culture based on Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

Haivenu offers extensions to Angkor and/or Phnom Penh by air. For those that want a more leisurely experience, a boat trip from Ho Chi Minh City up the Mekong River to spend a couple of days in Phnom Penh, then a ferry across Tonle Sap to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, includes most of Cambodia’s best attractions.