Angkor Wat, a crash course in trauma symptoms?

Simon Van de Sande
Jul 28, 2017 · 4 min read

The Angkor Wat holiday experience ca. 2017 is characterised by a deep disconnect that works at multiple levels. There is the obvious disconnect between the majestic temples and library complexes of the old Angkor — structures that were seemingly built with their eventual dilapidation in mind, by a group of 13th century Albert Speers, perhaps — and the local residents, who seem mainly attracted to old Angkor by the marketing possibilities it offers.

The Khmer have tried to reconcile that disconnect in a few haphazard ways: a few Buddha statues decked out in gold foil in a ruined gallery here, a traditional band riffing tunes at a path with high footfall there. Mostly, though, it is left unaddressed, and the juxtaposition of past and apathetic present leaves you vaguely unsettled: a practice drill for the apocalypse?
The most recent theories indicate Angkor became inhabitable because of climate change.

Closing in on the unattractive modern town (a shanty of neon billboards and concrete shacks, its entirety still well within old Angkor’s city limits), you can’t help but notice a second disconnect: that between the attempts the French made at de-haut-en-bas urbanism and the workings of daily life. An attractive riverside promenade lies fallow, no one enjoying the breeze; the public parks are grown over and the Royal Residence hides behind a tall barbed wire fence; the few remaining modernist buildings, albeit attractive, have been tackily renovated into tourist destinations — cream latex paint and Chinese vinyl fittings. Even the Grand Hotel, Indochina’s former ultimate hi-so playground, has been expertly neutered into reconstituted tile anonymity by Singapore’s Raffles Hotels.

Not caring much about long-lost monuments built for an extinct religion or for the naff accoutrements of French colonialism is one thing, though, but the yawning divide between Cambodia’s more recent past and its present wholly another. The Khmer Rouge haven’t happened, really, it seems, until they spring up on the visitor unexpectedly: a street vendor boredly hawking Folio pockets of Loung Ung’s D’abord ils ont tué mon père; a pile of skulls encased inside a dusty stupa; a faded picture of Miss Landmine 1989 tacked to a baseboard, Miss Landmine eternally smiling with both her legs blown off above the knee. These objects are invariably presented without context; if there is context, it is usually a billboard set up by some Western NGO.

Miss Landmine 1989.

The climax of this spectacular air-gapping must be Siem Reap’s War Museum, a huddle of rusty tanks, amphibious vehicles and other war paraphernalia tucked away between the fields on the town’s outskirts. Apart from the ticket ladies and a gaggle of tuk-tuk drivers resting in the cafeteria shack, there are no Khmer people in sight. What little context there is to explain the collection amounts to six photographs of the Khmer Rouge leadership (“COMRADE IENG SARY”), some faded war propaganda posters and hand-written notices by some of the war machines. These notices are very interesting themselves:

BUILT IN USSR — USED IN BANTAEY SREY PROVINCE — DISCOVERED IN BANTAEY SREY PROVINCE IN 1996.

The same approach as for the temples: one would not be able to distil the fact that this was a Vietnamese amphibious vehicle warring against the Khmer Rouge and left behind after the 1992 transfer of power if one tried. No, there it is then, your hulking heap of rust. It was built. It was discovered in the jungle.


At the patch of grass in front of a burned-out Sikorsky helicopter, two British girls in traveller pants are posing for pictures with old bazookas. Their tuk-tuk driver impassively snaps a few shots. They then repeat the process with a rusty M16. The driver shows no emotion at all.


When faced with horror, it is easy to shut down and try to externalise what happened in order to cope: it didn’t happen here, well at least not in this house, it was the people next door, and it’s a very long time ago now, anyway. Calling the Khmer passive, unmotivated or disinterested in their history would be slightly unfair: far from behin passive, they try very hard to dissociate from it — perhaps even so much so, they haven’t quite come up with an alternative to it yet.

And in that sense, they just might be poster children for calamity survivors anywhere around the world, in past, present or future.

Simon Van de Sande

Written by

development economist | perspectives on sustainability, cities and the state of affairs where I travel | www.simonvandesande.com

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