ANGKOR OVERWHELMED BY MARAUDING HORDES OF TOURISTS:-
AS Cambodia has settled into peace and opened to the world, the temples of Angkor have in recent years gone from stone to gold for the national government. This year, a deluge of tour operators is expected to cart in nearly one million foreign visitors, a six-fold increase since 2000.
Including Cambodians, the number of visitors to the archaeological park will reach a record two million this year and at least three million by 2010, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which identified Angkor as a World Heritage site in 1992.
The growth has put the Cambodian government in a difficult position, forcing it to balance the potential to make money against the need for preservation, restoration, and study. Preservationists and archaeologists here fear that the frenzy to commercialize Angkor, now also a hot set location for films such as Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider ," is winning out over the need for preservation.
Nowhere is that clearer than at Phnom Bakheng, located atop the highest peak of Angkor, where a number of new guidebooks advise visitors not to miss the sunset from the temple's summit. Tips like that have led to a daily siege by an armada of tour buses around dusk. On a recent afternoon, about 4,000 visitors, speaking Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, English and a host of other languages, scampered to the top of the temple, stepping on pictorial stones and manhandling ancient statues.
"The problem we're facing is that the pace of visitor growth is accelerating far faster than the ability to manage such huge crowds," said Teruo Jinnai , UNESCO's top official in Cambodia. "There is no doubt that this is beginning to cause damage to the temples and that it has the potential to become much worse if nothing is done."
Six months ago, the US-based World Monuments Fund (WMF), which is doing major restoration work at Phnom Bakheng, roped off the rapidly deteriorating main stone path leading to the temple area because of a combination of trampling tourists and rain runoff. Inside Phnom Bakheng, statues and carvings in low relief have sustained new damage from tourists. Fresh graffiti have been sprayed alongside sandstone carvings of flying celestial nymphs and Garuda warriors. On one side of the temple, piles of sandbags placed last year to hold up a retaining wall have been damaged by tourists who have climbed and descended the temple's sides without waiting their turn on a number of steep stone staircases.
"In the 10th century, this was a perfect creation, a structure built with mathematical and religious harmony and where the king and a few of his monks would come to worship," John Stubbs , the WMF vice president for field projects, said as he surveyed the crowds on the temple summit. "But now, look at this," he said. "It simply was not built for these thousands of people to be here at once. Tourism is a double-edged sword. We want everyone to appreciate the importance of Angkor's temples, but not like this."
The Cambodian government has come under fire over Angkor. Only a few local and foreign businesses appear to be benefiting from the economic boom generated by the ruins, by far Cambodia's largest tourist attraction. The concession to run the admissions centre - which generates tens of millions of dollars a year that preservationists say is rarely pumped back into the site itself - was granted to a politically connected company run by a powerful Cambodian businessman. Many of the street vendors who now peddle trinkets inside the park have come from the capital, Phnom Penh, rather than nearby villages.
As a result, the rural province surrounding Angkor remains the third- poorest in Cambodia, despite the opening of a string of five-star hotels and shopping arcades in the nearby town of Siem Reap, according to a study released in 2005 by the Cambodian Development Resource Institute.
The concerned government agency APSARA claims it has not enough funds to properly manage the temples. On the other hand, the government has found the means to push forward on initiatives designed to lure even greater numbers to the park. In recent weeks, authorities launched a pilot programme with Korean tour operators for a night-time ‘sound and light’ show at Angkor Wat. A Japanese tourism company has been granted rights to hold large, moonlit banquets inside the park at US$60 per person. "Angkor has become a sort of cultural Disneyland," said Khin Po Thai, a long-time Angkor guide and preservation activist. "We are overwhelmed by the crowds we have now, but they are still trying to bring in more and more people. No one ever sees where the money goes. It certainly doesn't go back into preservation."
AS Cambodia has settled into peace and opened to the world, the temples of Angkor have in recent years gone from stone to gold for the national government. This year, a deluge of tour operators is expected to cart in nearly one million foreign visitors, a six-fold increase since 2000.
Including Cambodians, the number of visitors to the archaeological park will reach a record two million this year and at least three million by 2010, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which identified Angkor as a World Heritage site in 1992.
The growth has put the Cambodian government in a difficult position, forcing it to balance the potential to make money against the need for preservation, restoration, and study. Preservationists and archaeologists here fear that the frenzy to commercialize Angkor, now also a hot set location for films such as Angelina Jolie's "Tomb Raider ," is winning out over the need for preservation.
Nowhere is that clearer than at Phnom Bakheng, located atop the highest peak of Angkor, where a number of new guidebooks advise visitors not to miss the sunset from the temple's summit. Tips like that have led to a daily siege by an armada of tour buses around dusk. On a recent afternoon, about 4,000 visitors, speaking Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, English and a host of other languages, scampered to the top of the temple, stepping on pictorial stones and manhandling ancient statues.
"The problem we're facing is that the pace of visitor growth is accelerating far faster than the ability to manage such huge crowds," said Teruo Jinnai , UNESCO's top official in Cambodia. "There is no doubt that this is beginning to cause damage to the temples and that it has the potential to become much worse if nothing is done."
Six months ago, the US-based World Monuments Fund (WMF), which is doing major restoration work at Phnom Bakheng, roped off the rapidly deteriorating main stone path leading to the temple area because of a combination of trampling tourists and rain runoff. Inside Phnom Bakheng, statues and carvings in low relief have sustained new damage from tourists. Fresh graffiti have been sprayed alongside sandstone carvings of flying celestial nymphs and Garuda warriors. On one side of the temple, piles of sandbags placed last year to hold up a retaining wall have been damaged by tourists who have climbed and descended the temple's sides without waiting their turn on a number of steep stone staircases.
"In the 10th century, this was a perfect creation, a structure built with mathematical and religious harmony and where the king and a few of his monks would come to worship," John Stubbs , the WMF vice president for field projects, said as he surveyed the crowds on the temple summit. "But now, look at this," he said. "It simply was not built for these thousands of people to be here at once. Tourism is a double-edged sword. We want everyone to appreciate the importance of Angkor's temples, but not like this."
The Cambodian government has come under fire over Angkor. Only a few local and foreign businesses appear to be benefiting from the economic boom generated by the ruins, by far Cambodia's largest tourist attraction. The concession to run the admissions centre - which generates tens of millions of dollars a year that preservationists say is rarely pumped back into the site itself - was granted to a politically connected company run by a powerful Cambodian businessman. Many of the street vendors who now peddle trinkets inside the park have come from the capital, Phnom Penh, rather than nearby villages.
As a result, the rural province surrounding Angkor remains the third- poorest in Cambodia, despite the opening of a string of five-star hotels and shopping arcades in the nearby town of Siem Reap, according to a study released in 2005 by the Cambodian Development Resource Institute.
The concerned government agency APSARA claims it has not enough funds to properly manage the temples. On the other hand, the government has found the means to push forward on initiatives designed to lure even greater numbers to the park. In recent weeks, authorities launched a pilot programme with Korean tour operators for a night-time ‘sound and light’ show at Angkor Wat. A Japanese tourism company has been granted rights to hold large, moonlit banquets inside the park at US$60 per person. "Angkor has become a sort of cultural Disneyland," said Khin Po Thai, a long-time Angkor guide and preservation activist. "We are overwhelmed by the crowds we have now, but they are still trying to bring in more and more people. No one ever sees where the money goes. It certainly doesn't go back into preservation."
