Seemingly lost to war and jungle only a quarter-century ago, the ancient temples of Angkor are fast becoming one of Asia's top tourist destinations.
On April 1, the number of hotel rooms in Siem Reap, the town nearest the site, reached 5,000, a 50 percent jump over the number six months earlier. The newer places include the Angkor Palace Resort and Spa, the Victoria Angkor Hotel and the Goldiana Angkor Hotel. To fill these hotel rooms, entrepreneurs are opening new land, sea, and air routes to Siem Reap, now Cambodia's No. 1 tourism destination.
PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
As memories of Cambodia as a dangerous destination fade, the country seems likely to attract a million foreign tourists this year, a third more than last year.
For the buses that bring in backpacking tourists, the number of border crossings from Thailand has increased to five, from two last year. In a few months, paving is to be completed on a highway between here and Phnom Penh, the nation's capital, 200 miles south.
When the peak tourism season began last November, a fast, air-conditioned boat service was inaugurated between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. The boat trip along the Tonle Sap river and lake takes six hours, compared with 45 minutes for one of the nine daily domestic flights. And should visitors wish to bypass the capital, there are now direct flights to Siem Reap from Hong Kong; Singapore; Hanoi; Ho Chi Minh City; Bangkok; Phuket, Thailand; Kunming, China and Vientiane, Laos.
When the dry season returns next fall, Korean Airlines plans to start scheduled service from Seoul. Bangkok Air has a monopoly on flights here from the Thai capital, with seven a day making the one-hour hop. Charter flights started from Japan last December, an indicator that scheduled service may not be far away.
Phnom Penh has ample charms, with the classic gold and white roofs of the Royal Palace and the lazy, chocolate-colored waters of the Mekong River. But Kenneth Cramer, an American who publishes free guides to the two cities, says his Angkor guide is bigger than his Phnom Penh guide.
"Siem Reap is exploding," John Vink, a Phnom Penh-based photographer, said on his first visit here in two years. Over a lunch at the Cafe Indochine, he explained, "There is an incredible amount of construction."
Questions plague many here: Can hoteliers fill the beds? Can the temples withstand the crowds?
"In June, we could not sell a cup of coffee," Mathieu Ravaux, the French owner of Chez Sop'hea, as he struggled six months later to keep up with carloads of French tourists rolling up to his restaurant across from the main entrance to Angkor Wat.
Although Cambodia has never recorded a SARS case, the number of foreign visitors to Angkor was down last year through August largely because of fears that SARS would spread throughout Asia. Bouncing back, Angkor recorded 46,070 foreign visitors in December, a monthly record. The total for last year was 321,557 visitors, or 5,860 more than in 2002.
To prepare for more tourists, international aid donors have been providing financing for improved transportation infrastructure in the temple area -- new road signs, newly paved roads through the most popular temple areas and a new air terminal for international arrivals, complete with marble floors and modern thin-screen flight monitors.
To ensure the availability of clean drinking water, Siem Reap province has embarked on a US$10 million water supply project, financed by Japan. Separately, work is to start in June on a US$3.5 million sewer system and treatment plant, financed by the Asian Development Bank. With the temple area completely cleared of land mines, the biggest physical danger to visitors is crossing streets choked with motorbikes.
During the New Year's holidays, Angkor's gray temple stones echoed with the babble of Cambodian guides addressing tour groups in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.
Tickets to the temple sites are not priced to encourage off-season visits or to encourage high-season tourists to space out their visits. Most buy a US$40, three-day pass. Instead of allowing tourists to spread their visits to the temples out over a week, they have to be used consecutively. By the end of Day 2, many visitors are "templed out."
Karen Mannion, a gung-ho Irish visitor, looked exhausted. Standing in front of the main entrance to Angkor Wat, she said of her tour of the highlights of the area: "It's too disorienting. It's too much."
Agreeing with this sentiment, hoteliers hope to move Angkor tourism in the direction of longer visits, instead of greater numbers.
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