LTO Cambodia: Boeung Kak bye-bye

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Boeung Kak bye-bye

Restaurants and guesthouses line the edge of Boeung Kak lake, 2007

Long Phnom Penh's backpacker ghetto, Boeung Kak lake and its legendary budget traveler scene is on its last legs. I first visited the lakeside in 1994, staying very briefly (1 night) at the Number 9 Guesthouse, one of the two or three traveler places on the lakeside at the time. As guesthouses go, it wasn't my cup of tea, but they did serve a darn good $1 bowl of curry and the breezy view over the lake was something special. In the ensuing years Street 93 along the Boeung Kak lakeside bloomed with backpacker businesses, becoming Phnom Penh's dirty little version of Khao San Road - awash in dreads, drugs, bootleg music and cheap eats and digs at the water's edge. But back in 2007 most of Boeung Kak was sold to a developer in yet another of Cambodia's controversial large land deals. Over the last couple of years the lake has been almost completely reclaimed, filled with sand, erasing it from the map of Phnom Penh and displacing hundreds of people in the process. And, according to yesterday's Cambodia Daily, as of a few days ago the businesses along Street 93, including the remaining budget guesthouses and other backpacker places, were issued their marching orders by the city. 'Vacate in one week,' it reads. In reality, they probably have a bit more time than that, but not much.

It won't be long now.

Street 93 in 2008

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Cambodia

Cambodia is Srok Khmer, the 'Land of the Khmer,' the primary ethnic group in the area since at least the Neolithic and an Indian influenced civilization with origins near 2000 years old. Centered on the lower Mekong and tributaries the Khmer people have dominated the region for millennia. From 2nd century AD Khmer kingdoms rose and fell, culminating in unification and the 500 year reign of the Angkorian Empire, the builders of the temples of Angkor near Siem Reap. The Empire stretched from Burma to the ocean. But by the 1400s Cambodia fell to centuries of change and decline squeezed between the expanding Siam and Vietnam. Colonized and by the French in the 1860s, independence 90 years later in 1954, a brief post-colonial 'golden period' under Sihanouk, coup in 70, civil war, fall to the communist Khmer Rouge in 75, 3 years 8 months 20 days of madness, Vietnamese rescue in 1979, occupation, low level war and international sanctions in the 80s, the UN, ostensive democracy and an adventure party destination in the 90s and now mainstreaming, tourism, rapid development, rapacious capitalism and NGOs, missionaries and other international busybodies aplenty.

Southeast Asia

As the term implies, Southeast Asia encompasses the southeastern corner of the Asian continent, loosely speaking, the area between India, China and Australia. It is made up of two distinct regions: the mainland zone, a bulbous peninsula jutting into the Pacific Ocean, bounded by China to the north and India to the west; and the insular (island) zone in the Pacific Ocean. The name 'Southeast Asia' is a comparatively recent invention, first coming into use into the 20th century and still a bit indefinite in definition. Mainland Southeast Asia is generally considered to include Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and peninsular Malaysia. The mainland is sometimes referred to as Indo-China though Indochina (Indochine) also designates the 19th/20th century French colonial conglomerate of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Sitting south of the Tropic of Cancer, most of mainland Southeast Asia lies in the hot, humid tropics and sub-tropics with a climate dominated by a monsoon cycle which divides the year into two distinct seasons: a dry season and an extremely wet monsoon season. Much of the mainland is mountainous and thickly jungled, with large river systems and wide, low-lying, flood-prone plains, much of which is, in modern times, deforested and blanketed with geometrical rice paddies. Several major river valleys including the Mekong River, the Red, Ma and Ka rivers and the group of rivers draining to the Chao Praya Delta played host to the rise of early civilization in the area. The Mekong River is one of the world's greatest rivers, the seventh largest on the planet, and since pre-history has been closely associated with the land of the Khmer.