The "temple phenomenon" in Cambodia

Dear tourists to Cambodia,

I dearly respect that traveling and/or backpacking is not what it used to be. Being only 25 years old myself, I cannot hope to understand the raw adventures available to itinerant Westerners in the early part(s) of the 20th century, nor can I even imagine the sort of encounters we have come to know so well in Rudyard Kipling's classics about India. But remember and consider that the model of tourism emerging from Las Vegas, Caribbean resorts, cabins in the Alps, and cosmopolitan skyscraper hotels was not practically intended for underdeveloped places with patrimony to protect. These places have attempted to engineered their environments so as to avoid large scale exploitation and/or they embrace it as part of an historical narraitve (e.g., Las Vegas). In Cambodia, we are essentially borrowing our raw experiences of temples we visit from the environment, local development, and from the integrity of the Cambodian patrimony itself.

I am aware of the trade-offs: tourism also brings awareness and funds for restoration and, in some channel or another (though perhaps not he best one), some foreign currency into the country. While I am sure that every footfall on the grounds of Cambodian temples wears away at the stone, I am not suggesting that tourists should be banned from the site (although consider the fact that the grounds of Stonehenge have a buffer of some 10-20 meters). I am, however, suggesting that models for tourism at least nominally aim to provide some sort of balance between the expectations and demands of tourists and the need to consider the long-term restoration without distorting imperatives from visitors. In other words, I want to avoid a situation in which Cambodia, as a developed country in the 1950s, looks back at the damage to its temples and says, "was there a different way?"

The temple of Banteay Chhmar is one of the more far-flung of the Angkorean establishments and I believe the restoration is aiming at a far more thoughtful equilibrium. Consider this New York Times article. In the meantime, we throng to the blockbuster sites, which are actually sacred religion grounds, all hoping to achieve some sort of raw experience of antiquity. Ironically enough, we crowd now because we think the crowds in the future will be more intense. But crowding is crowding, and Angkor Wat is a rat race, whether we experience it with 1,000 other tourists or 3,000. But, to get an experience of the exploitation being wrought, visit a thousand-times-touched elephant relief in Preah Khan or, better yet, visit the untreated sewage flowing into the Tonle Sap fishing villages. Visit abandoned fragmented villages and paddy lands surrounding Siem Reap sold off by farmers, and outfitted with walls and weeds, awaiting some unknown glory days while their residents crowd the towns.

If I've made you feel bad, just remember that there are countless Thai generals out there with concrete stolen patrimony rotting in their gardens. Their respect for Cambodia and its history may be less than ours, but the aggregate effects may not be much different if we don't begin rethinking models for antiquities tourism with an ecological and culturally-sensitive stance.