Cambodia’s most popular tourist attraction — the complex of ancient temples that includes Angkor Wat — is suffering from a form of overexposure: At least five foreign visitors have been arrested and deported this year for taking nude photos at the sacred sites.
Authorities have no tolerance for people stripping down at Angkor Archeological Park, a sprawling, centuries-old UNESCO World Heritage Site that drew 2 million visitors last year. The incidents are also upsetting to ordinary Cambodians, for whom the Khmer-era complex holds enormous spiritual and historical significance.
“Angkor Wat is the most famous sacred ... temple in Cambodia, where everyone — not only tourists, but also Cambodians themselves — has to pay respect,” said Rattanak Te, an administrative assistant who lives in Phnom Penh, the capital. “It definitely upsets me and all Cambodians, because outsiders will think we — Cambodian people — are careless and do not take good care of this World Heritage [site] by allowing these tourists to do such an unacceptable act.”
This month, guards arrested two sisters from the US after seeing them snap photos of each other’s naked backsides in the temple of Preah Khan, said Kerya Chau Sun, spokeswoman for the Apsara Authority, which manages the temple complex in Siem Reap in northwestern Cambodia. Lindsey Adams, 22, and Leslie Adams, 20, both of Prescott, Arizona, were each given a six-month suspended sentence, a fine of 1 million riel (US$244), deportation and a four-year ban from the country.
Last month, three French men in their 20s were deported after they were caught taking nude photographs at Angkor complex. Another photo showing a topless woman at the site has circulated on social media, but officials believe it is fake, according to Chau Sun. Three tourists were also caught riding a motorbike naked near Phnom Penh last month, according to local media reports.
Signs at the temples and ticketing booths urge visitors to behave respectfully, and Chau Sun said the Apsara Authority plans to add posters warning them that taking nude photographs can lead to arrest and deportation.
“As a Cambodian, I am hurt ... I think especially to the poor Cambodians saving to be able to come across the country to pray at Angkor,” she said. “They don’t understand why people could behave like that.”
The massive Angkor complex contains the remains of capitals of the Khmer Empire, which existed between the ninth and 15th centuries and controlled most of Southeast Asia at its peak. For a time, Angkor was among the world’s biggest cities.
The temples are renowned for their architecture and art, with countless intricate carvings, including semi-nude spirits known as apsaras. Angkor Wat is the largest and best preserved of the structures.
The temples are much more than stone ruins for most Cambodians, University of Tasmania professor of tourism Trevor Sofield said. They are places of Buddhist worship, as well as a symbol of the Khmer heritage, he said. He added that the Apsara Authority and UNESCO should focus on educating the public about the living sacred nature of the site in addition to its historical characteristics.
Cambodian Mollyda Keo said people there recognize that different cultures and societies have differing views on the body and what is deemed acceptable. Cambodian women, for example, will only swim in a T-shirt and shorts, but are used to seeing Western women in bikinis, she said.
She said posing naked at the temples crosses the line.
“I just feel they don’t respect the culture,” she said. “You come from another culture. You should respect ours.”
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