Clover Stroud revels in the colour, energy and optimism of modern Cambodia, but also discovers a country where few people remain unaffected by its recent history.
Children are playing basketball in the water. In a caged court on a lake, they dance with the ball, slamming it into the wire walls encasing them. A boat bobs alongside, its driver shouting to the children. They thrust hands out for cartons of mango juice which he exchanges for sweaty coins.
I've never seen a basketball court on water, but this is Cambodia and it's one of many things in the country that opens my eyes. The court is on Lake Tonle Sap, south of Siem Reap, home to catfish, freshwater dolphins, lots of crocodiles and towns of stateless Vietnamese, who arrived in 1979 with the soldiers.
Today 1.4 million live in floating villages, another four million on the banks. The villages, like much in Cambodia, are testimony to the ingenuity of people fighting for survival. Houses built on bamboo stilts skim the water, faded tarpaulins cover verandas slung with hyacinth-rope hammocks. Women tend steaming pots, lids rattling, over stoves. Children, who can swim before they walk, leave for school in punts.
The men fish, or squat, smoking, watching for a water rat to kill with a slingshot. A thick, inescapable smell of concentrated fish laces the air, the main ingredient of teuk trei, or fish sauce, which I'll take home but fail to reproduce the scented, tangy flavours of sumlar ngam ngouw (chicken soup) and other dishes I'd eaten at the Abacus Restaurant on Pum Khun Street in Siem Reap.
Girls with hair the colour of plums wave at me, even though they know I won't buy their bags of charcoal. Still, they pull their boat towards mine, handing me slices of mango, but disappearing, beyond reach, as I try pass them some money.
The people are poor, certainly, but there's a vibrancy to what appears to be a thriving community, with a Roman Catholic church and Buddhist temple beside each other, a busy supermarket and cafés selling frog fried with garlic and rat stewed with ginger.
The floating villages embody the opposites and incongruity of Cambodia. It's a place of fragrance and beauty, of colourful temples and magical music; a place where I experienced only generosity and kindness from everyone I met. But there's sadness too, of course, because it's impossible to forget 1975, when the Khmer Rouge perpetrated genocide, and banned money, school, hospitals, law, religion and families.
As a visitor, knowing how to deal with Cambodia's past is difficult. I wasn't sure whether to visit Choeung Ek, the killing fields museum, or Tuol Sleng S-21, where thousands were tortured. But so many conversations I had with temple guides, porters and waitresses referred to the past that I realised it was something one had to acknowledge and try to understand.
On a baking afternoon I went to the killing fields and the school, and the piles of skulls, buried bones and hundreds of photographs of people on their way to death were as dreadful and harrowing as you'd expect. Afterwards, I realised these were necessary visits: in this beautiful and confusing country, no one remains unaffected by the past.
But there's an optimism too, in the sense of a country getting to grips with becoming the place it knew it could be. Phnom Penh and Siem Reap are very different, but both embody this spirit. The capital is a tangle of broad avenues and teeming markets, where the memory of the country's past as a French colony is evident in the numerous grand colonial buildings, peering incongruously from behind lines of motorbikes, many piled with entire families, or tuk-tuks racing down the street like children's toys.
By evening the Mekong dominates the city, as boats lit by lanterns bob past cafés spilling across the banks, places where families gather, teenagers on bikes sell baguettes and an older generation play chess, their grandchildren playing excitedly around their feet.
DID YOU KNOW?
Such is Angkor Wat’s significance in Cambodia that it features in white at the centre of the country’s flag
In the tropical gardens of the Royal Palace, beneath the glimmering towers of the Silver Pagoda, is a life-size gold Buddha studded with diamonds. It's jaw-dropping, but I preferred the sense of the messy, living spirit of the city at the hilltop temples of Wat Phnom, where Cambodians come to pray for luck in everything from love and life to job interviews and exams. Offerings of grilled meat and eggs surrounded by grubby stacks of money pile the altars. Hundreds of Buddhas cover the temple floor, glittering with coloured lights, and stacks of plastic plates wait for offerings. Outside, girls sell cages of birds, which are released for good luck and fly over the city that roars beneath the hill, even after the sun has gone down.
Siem Reap is more sedate, around 190 miles to the north-west, a necessary stop en route to Angkor Wat. Laid out on a grid, it feels like a provincial town, but with a proliferation of new restaurants and bars. Of course you should go to Angkor Wat, because nothing about the temples, rising from the jungle, disappoints, except, perhaps, for the number of visitors. The scale is staggering, and there's a palpable sense of excitement in watching the sun break over the temples.
Stranger, and less visited, are the temples of Beng Mealea, about 35 miles east of the city. These temples are surrounded by a huge moat, the jungle twisting through the remaining stones, so that you clamber along wooden walkways, with a sense of the strange, massive jungle all around.
I was lucky too, as I was travelling with Cox & Kings, which organises safari-style camps as accommodation. Arriving by night, after a long journey down potted roads, I fell asleep to the chirp of the jungle and woke to the screech of swallows outside my tent. As the light thickened, I could make out a massive step pyramid through the trees, reminding me of Mayan temples I'd seen in Mexico.
There were no other visitors, just monkeys and red kite to accompany me as I scrambled around the ruins. I hadn't expected a safari camp near Siem Reap, but this is Cambodia, where children play basketball on water, and where almost everything surprises.
WHAT TO AVOID
Crossing Phnom Penh on foot is exhausting and best avoided. Instead take a moto (motorbike taxi) or cyclo (the distinctive Cambodian cycle rickshaw), which can be picked up on the pavement.
For an English-speaking moto driver, try the ones who wait around the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (00855 760280; Pokambor Street; www.fcccambodia.com). For the best cyclos, try the Cyclo Centre Phnom Penh (9D 158 Street; 991178).
Local delicacies in the market include spider and beetles, and sadly there are places to try snake and turtle all over Phnom Penh; avoid illegally hunted animals such as pangolin and bear.
In the cities it’s best not to eat with your fingers. Locals will not object if you use your right hand, but not your left, to pick up a piece of meat such as a chicken leg.
It’s considered rude to use a toothpick without covering your mouth with one hand.
GETTING THERE
There are no direct flights to Cambodia. Thai Airways (020 7491 7953; www.thaiairways.co.uk) offers flights from Heathrow to Phnom Penh, changing in Bangkok, from £700 return.
PACKAGES
Cox & Kings (020 7873 5000; www.coxandkings.co.uk) organises eight-night tours of Cambodia from £2,845 per person, including private transfers, guides and excursions, a return economy flight and two nights at Raffles Le Royal Phnom Penh (Landmark Room), three nights at Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor (Landmark Room) and three nights at the Temple Safari.
Seasons (01244 202000; www.seasons.co.uk) offers a seven-night journey through Cambodia from £2,570 per person, including flights, b & b, transfers and excursions, with three nights in Siem Reap, two in Phnom Penh and two at an eco-resort at Koh Trat, in the south-west of the country.
THE INSIDE TRACK
The killing fields at Choeung Ek are eight miles south of Phnom Penh, on Monireth Avenue (daily 7am-5pm; £3). The entrance to the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh (daily 7.30am-5.30pm; £3) is off Street 113.
Angkor Wat is essential, but other temples are often quieter and as rewarding: 12th-century Ta Som, once a hiding place for the Khmer, is known for the two massive Bodhisattva heads in the roots of a kapok tree. Neck Pean, or “entwined serpents”, has a series of pools linked by walkways, thought to represent a mythical Himalayan lake.
Chong Kneas is the closest floating village on Lake Tonle Sap to Siem Reap, where you’ll find fishermen, boat-makers and crocodile farmers at work.
For a stilted village, visit Kompong Khleang, especially in the early morning, when the fishermen and schoolchildren leave the village. Boats (£30 for 2-10 people) can be taken from the port at Chong Kneas.
Visitors cannot drive cars in Siem Reap, but you can visit Angkor Wat by tour bus from the bigger hotels. Better still, take a guide. Friendly and punctual, English-speaking Kim San organises single or multi-day trips of the area, including Angkor Wat, Beng Mealea and the floating villages (00855 12 448456; www.angkor-guide.com; from £45 for day tour for 2-4 people).
THE BEST HOTELS
OK £Clean, dormitory beds or basic rooms in one of the friendliest hotels in Phnom Penh, just off the Mekong riverfront. Basic bar and restaurant, and the owner will help organise visa extensions (986534; hello0325@hotmail.com; from £1).
Mahogany ££Traditional Siem Reap guesthouse and one of the oldest of its type in the city. The friendly proprietor, known as Mr Prune, is an encyclopedic source of knowledge (963417; 593 Wat Bo Street, Siem Reap; from £14).
Raffles Hotel Le Royal £££
The grandest hotel in the capital, situated in a colonial building dating from 1929, with a big pool. The Elephant Bar is a good place to go for happy-hour cocktails (5pm-7pm) for Cambodian glamour (981888; www.phnompenhraffles.com; from £135).
THE BEST RESTAURANTS
Khmer Surin Restaurant ££Excellent stir-fries, including morning glory and shrimp, and a lively, student crowd. Afterwards nip next door to the massage rooms for the best foot massage in the city (No 9, Street 57, off Sihanouk Blvd 12302 Phnom Penh; 363050).
Restaurant Bopha £££On the banks of the Mekong, this terrace restaurant serves excellent Khmer food, including delicious chicken with banana flower soup and water buffalo, which is like a leaner version of beef; traditional Apsara dancing most evenings, 7pm-9pm (Sisowat Quay, by Siem Reap ferry; bopha-phnompenh.com; 427209).
Foreign Correspondents’ Club £££ In the old French governor’s mansion, this is a Cambodian institution, with a terrace overlooking Pokambor Avenue by the Siem Reap river. Stick with the Khmer dishes, including excellent fish amok (Pokambor Street; www.fcccambodia.com; 760280).
FURTHER READING
The Gate by Francois Bizot: French ethnologist Bizot was captured and imprisoned for three months in the jungle by the Khmer Rouge. He befriended his captor, Comrade Duch, perpetrator of some of the most horrific atrocities in Tuol Sleng.
Rivers of Time by Jon Swain: famous as the journalist in David Puttnam’s film The Killing Fields, Swain lived in Cambodia from 1970 to 1975, during the arrival of the Khmer Rouge in Phnom Penh.
First They Killed My Father: a Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung: Ung was five when the Khmer Rouge arrived, born to an educated family who were all in grave danger, but who survived by posing as illiterate peasants. Ung escaped to Thailand, but not before her parents and two of her six siblings were killed.
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