The killing fields of Choun Eak lie quiet, emotionally unsettling primarily because of the silence, the peace, the lack of any palpable feeling of the horror which once consumed all that lay in its path. The prison of Tuol Sleng in Central Phnom Penh is more troubling, more visually stunning. On the walls hang pictures of the horrors, and instruments of violence fill entire rooms with a palpable sense of pain and tragedy. For years the name Cambodia conjured images in the west of torture and genocide, of a country gone awry, of refugee camps filled to overflowing with a population desperate to escape civil war.

The towers of the Angkorian temples soar in grandeur over the verdant rice fields, guardians of a glorious history and harbingers of prosperity for the people of Siem Reap. What national pride remains in Cambodia is a product mostly of these ancient stones, remnants of a time when the Khmers ruled the region and built monuments to their belief throughout their territory.

The temples draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, and the world media has embraced them, bringing visual evidence of their majesty to newspapers, magazines, and television screens world-wide. The media coverage has turned Cambodia into a place to see and to be seen. The temples have become the tangible embodiment of Cambodia, bringing recognition and interest in a way that the Khmer Rouge once did, defining a nation to the world.

With the vast majority of publicity focusing on either the temples or the killing fields, the rest of Cambodia is noticed on an international level primarily by aid organizations and investors. The true beauty of Cambodia in fact lies not just within the temples, just as the struggles of today, though perhaps caused by the killing fields, exist outside of their physical boundaries.

Cambodia is a country of stunning impact both sensory and emotional, a place eager to lay its soul bare before who are willing to explore the country and themselves. It is not an easily understood place, but one which can easily be adored, and its offerings number far more than ancient temples or history lessons in atrocities. To attempt to understand Cambodia one must travel to the temples, but beyond them as well. One must experience the mayhem of Phnom Penh, but also the tranquility of the small provincial capitals and the villages between. It is on the outskirts, out of the eye of the media and away from the hustle and bustle of city life, that a fuller understanding of Cambodia can first be approached, and the lessons this country has to teach can best be learned.

Poipet. A miasmic town of dust, heat, and disturbed decay. There is little evidence here of the dilapidated majesty of the ancient Khmer Empire. The main street, the terminus of Cambodian National Highway Six, is lined with plush casinos for border hopping Thais, but also with beggars and cripples, victims of outside forces and the collective dementia of the last fifty years. The transport hub in town revolves on a road around a statue meant to project the beauty and grace of Khmer heritage. The mangy patch of grass is littered with drug addicts sleeping off their chemical balms, the detritus of their lives scattered about them under the watchful eye of the guardian. Creaking carts whose loads dwarf their human engines move slowly back and forth across the border, fueling a booming border trade, the lifeblood of an active but unhealthy town.

Taxis, buses and Toyota Hi-Lux trucks eagerly await passengers, disappearing now and again behind a veil of red dust, kicked up by the construction of more casinos and the massive trucks rumbling through, on their way to Siem Reap to deliver the goods which support the tourist industry. Nationality tends to determine mode of transport here. Those from outside of Cambodia travel encapsulated in the safety and serenity of enclosed vehicles, whisked in an air-conditioned vacuum through the beauty of the Cambodian countryside. Cambodian nationals, well-wrapped in their traditional kramas, clamber into the backs of pick-up trucks, hauling with them the fruits of their visit to the market on the Thai side of the border. Watermelons, chickens, gasoline, bags of clothing, nearly all are cheaper here than anywhere else in the country. All manner of goods find their way into these trucks, wedged in between the piles of passengers traveling east.

Few people are fond of Poipet- certainly not the majority of its residents but it offers a living to many people, and that cannot be overvalued in Cambodia. Most visitors, foreign or Khmer, are in Poipet for a purpose, and so are the residents. Beggars and businesspeople, tourist touts and casino workers, all find their livelihoods here. This is Cambodia, as much as, and in many ways more so, than the temples of Angkor and the clogged streets of Phnom Penh.

Phnom Penh is a city in transition. Plagued or blessed with new development, depending one's perspective, the city throbs with life. With a continuing yet undeserved reputation as a city too dangerous for many tourists, growth here is driven by business and residential construction as well as international aid support. Tourism is a goal, to be sure, but it is so far confined to sections of the city.

The river front, where the Tonle Sap and Mekong river meet, is the first truly developed tourist quarter in Phnom Penh. Here the paved road is lined with cafes on one side, and the riverfront with a bricked promenade on the other. Wicker chairs and tables cover the sidewalks on the café side, allowing visitors to sit and watch life go by on the other side of the street, where Khmer families come to stroll along, make offerings at one of the riverside shrines, and generally enjoy the slow pace of the riverfront evenings. Hawkers have sprung up to serve the masses. Lotus pods, green mangos, cashew nuts, and fried or grilled fish and meat are on offer everywhere. Near the shrines caged birds sit, ready to be released by visitors from Cambodia and abroad seeking to increase their Karmic score. With the colonial architecture serving as a backdrop, and the rivers meandering along, the city feels as though it is a place which has been caught napping.

A trip through the clogged streets to Ta Khmau, a suburb just outside of the municipality quickly dispels that notion. Here the streets are lined not with cafes but with garment factories. Inside the largest and most visible, rows of fans turn slowly over the heads of a thousand or more women, silently sewing jeans, shirts, and whatever else is put in front of them. Cambodia has gone to some length to brand itself as having a labor-friendly garment industry in hopes that countries will choose to locate here rather than China, where factories are cheaper to operate simply because of the volume of labor and industry there. The factories here are run mostly by Chinese, Taiwanese, and Filipinos but they employ an almost entirely Khmer work force to do the manual labor, the stitching of cloth and cutting of fabric. These jobs, which tend to bring in about thirty to forty US dollars each month, are coveted by the non-English speaking population here. They offer better wages and working conditions than the construction jobs around town, and for women an unfortunately rare opportunity to earn a sizable income without resorting to prostitution or investing in English language classes.

Phnom Penh is the most modern city in Cambodia. In 2002 a shopping mall was built, the first of its kind in Cambodia. Visitors flock to the Soriya Shopping Center to ride the escalators, shop in air conditioned comfort, and eat at Burger World and Lucky Burger, the Cambodian approximation of western fast food. Phnom Penh is still a small market town. Down a side street or lining a boulevard, under a tent or in a massive concrete edifice, markets selling foodstuffs, clothing, and anything else that could come to mind are ubiquitous in Phnom Penh. Throughout Cambodia the market maintains its importance as a place not only to buy and sell goods, but as a social gathering place. Market stall owners in Cambodia sell goods and dispense gossip with great fervor, and while commerce is primary, the telling of tales and sharing of jokes is nearly as important in life at the market. For all of the favoritism given to males in Cambodian society, this essential piece of Khmer life is dominated by women. In the same way that the taxi stands, moto-dop, and cyclo corners offer a place for men to socialize, the markets are a place where women can meet and talk. Strolling along through rows of brightly colored vegetables, the visitor is overwhelmed not only by the sights and smells of the market, but also by the women and girls chattering and giggling as they do their business. There is little of this found in the Soriya Center, and its charm is lessened thus.

Phnom Penh is also famous for its night life, and justifiably so. While the rest of the country tends to retire early, Phnom Penh morphs into a town of bars and clubs set here and there throughout the city, attracting Khmers with means as well as foreign residents and visitors. Massive music clubs have sprung up in the last few years, and the ubiquitous dens of iniquity for which the town is famous continue to thrive. Outside the city limits an entire village serves as a brothel, and sex for sale is rarely more than a stone's throw away within Phnom Penh proper. Bars, nightclubs, and restaurants add small-scale prostitution to the large massage-style brothels. Narcotics of most kinds are readily available, and with the lack of any real law enforcement, Phnom Penh at night turns into a hedonistic playground.

Cambodia's leadership has big plans for Phnom Penh. An attempt to build the world's tallest building here is currently being considered, despite the fact that no current building is higher than ten stories. The poorer slums around the city are being inexorably dismantled and replaced with hotels, casinos, and more upscale housing. Some of the least appealing manifestations of government policy have exhibited themselves in this arena. Slum dwellers unwilling to move have found their homes burned to the ground, their possessions scattered to the wind, and themselves moved to the outskirts of town where unoccupied land still exists. Phnom Penh doesn't have the boom-town feel of a Bangkok or Shanghai, but instead feels like a small town waking up, stretching its arms, and ambling with a yawn into the future.

"Mosque donated by the honorable..." The words are emblazoned in the cement of most mosques in the country, followed by a name. Written to proclaim the generosity of one or another of Cambodia's government officials, they call attention to the reality of Islamic life in Cambodia. Reading between the lines it is easy to see that this community with its calls to prayer, different clothing, and even a different language, exists only at the whim of the majority rulers.

Cambodia's Muslims began as refugees, ethnic Chams, fleeing from the destruction of their empire in what is now Vietnam and Laos at the hands of the North Vietnamese nearly five hundred years ago. The influence of their traditions is rife in the border areas with Vietnam, lessening to the west, but still strong in belief if not in numbers on the outskirts of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. The official government line is acceptance, and even occasional support, but like so many similar situations around the world this acceptance is heavily monitored. Most Muslim communities in Cambodia have two leaders, one who has been placed in the community by the government and one who has risen as a natural leader based on the trust of the community. While the government appointee has control of money and education, the leader chosen by the people receives his power from their willingness to trust him, and to rely on him as a counselor and a spiritual guide. It is often an uncomfortable union, with the titular head of the community receiving very little of the people's confidence but being necessary to receive government support and acceptance. In some ways it is successful, as the government appointees are without exception highly educated in the language and mores of the Islamic community, but there is also a pervasive sense in these communities that any knowledge conveyed by this leader will be tinted with the influence of the current government line drawn for the Muslim community, rather than adhering to Islamic precepts.

Ethnic Khmers are very suspicious of Muslims. In a country where poverty is defining, religious and racial differences too often serve to produce scapegoats. Khmers have very little understanding of the Islamic faith, and often portray Muslims as violent, thieving, and recipients of government largesse. In many parts of Cambodia the Islamic population blends seamlessly with the Khmer population, but only because so many Muslims choose to forego their traditional garb in order to blend in with their Khmer counterparts. Siem Reap has many Muslims working as tuk-tuk drivers and moto-dops, but the other drivers are often unaware of their religious beliefs. In other parts of Cambodia, like Kampong Cham, the number of Islamic people is high enough that acceptance and coexistence is a necessity rather than a choice. Regardless, religious faith is a simmering issue in Cambodia, and one not likely to be resolved without some conflict as long as fundamental understanding of other faiths is so rare among the Khmers.

The small scythes swing in steady rhythm, rising and falling against the blue sky and green fields. Here, in a small village in Battambang province, outside of the city, life continues largely unchanged by the increased flow of tourists and investment. Rice needs harvesting, and then it needs planting. Little else occurs here, far from the eyes of the world.

Villagers in Battambang grow rice primarily to serve their own needs. The rice which will go to the markets around the country, the rice for which Battambang is renowned, is mostly grown on land owned by wealthier Cambodians, many of whom reside elsewhere, often in cities. The crew of a few dozen villagers out now in the morning sun is a hired crew, each person paid about eighty baht (two dollars US) a day for their work. It is a reasonable wage here, in a country where thirty dollars a month is still enough to live on in the cities where the cost of living is much greater. Low wages are not what worry these men and women, but rather scarcity of work.

Since planting and harvesting take place only once each year in most of these fields, there are limited possibilities for extended employment. With the addition of modern agricultural machinery to the equation, the threat of no work looms large.

Development has traditionally meant the introduction of labor saving ideas and devices to third world countries, with the goal of allowing people to work less hard, to not have to spend fourteen hours in a rice field during the harvest season, or walk each day to a well miles away from home. In some cases this is obviously desirable- the availability of potable water in each home is an admirable goal. Other cases are less clear, though. If all of these men and women are saved from having to spend fourteen hours in the rice fields, they will also be saved from having to determine what they will do with the income this generates, whether to spend the few Baht they receive on food or on medicine. The money they earn outside the rice fields is negligible, a few baht or riel for some firewood they cut, or some surplus from their own trees or fields. The rice, while owned by others, is their only real cash crop and source of income.

There are many places in the world where one can go to the poorest parts of a country and see numerous satellite dishes aimed at the sky, bringing life from elsewhere into the lives of the native population, bringing advertisements urging consumption to the eyes of the children. Cambodia is not yet one of those places, though it may be headed that way as living standards improve. For now, this is a country where income is generally used by the very poor in important, useful ways. Each tractor that arrives threatens these people, allowing those who have to have more, and each tractor threatens a way of life that is necessary to the survival of a population which has nowhere else to turn.

The roads of Cambodia are remarkable. Any foreigner enjoying a few hours traveling by road will alight from their chosen mode of transport with an exclamation of pain, looking for a bed or a massage parlor. The few roads which have been improved here are designed to serve tourists and big businesses. The roads around the temple complex are excellent, resurfaced regularly and in a manner which allows them to survive the onslaught of traffic. National road #6, as maligned as it may be by the tourists who travel it, is still relatively good right now. The secondary roads are the ones which delay the improvement of life for the average Cambodian. Goods grown in villages fifty kilometers from Siem Reap can spend all day on the road to market, and with most villagers unable to purchase motorized transport, goods are purchased in the villages at advantageous prices and delivered to markets at a premium by the middle men, the people who can afford to own a truck.
In any developing country roads are one of the first things which must be improved to reduce poverty. Entire villages are held economic hostage by the transport industry, unable to sell their own goods at market, and often unable even to find out what prices are being given at markets. Their only contact with the outside world is the buyer, who comes out from the city with an empty truck intent on filling it with low priced produce to bring to market. Owning a car or truck is a profitable line of work here, and will be until the roads are upgraded. However, there is little focus on making long-term improvements to secondary roads, as building roads is an expensive venture, and in a country with a rainy season, any road built half-heartedly is guaranteed to disintegrate under the onslaught of the rains.

The morning is hectic on the docks of Kampong Som, (Sihanoukville). Boats of all sizes head into the docks, unloading the catch, selling to buyers from throughout the country or delivering to pre-arranged transport links. Catches of shellfish, shrimp, and fish flop madly about on the decks and docks, awaiting their fate. Shirtless men scurry under the hot sun, sweating intensely as they rush to consummate transactions. Cambodia is a land hungry for fish, and while a great deal is harvested from the Tonle Sap, there is enough demand for seafood here and in Phnom Penh to ensure the continued existence of the traditional ocean fishing industry. The industry has changed, as the wooden boats used for small-scale fishing are now interspersed not only with larger foreign-built fishing boats but also with massive container ships and tankers, bringing Cambodia into the international shipping network at a level previously unseen here. The fishermen have adjusted to the large boats, but the visual images are still startling to the observer as traditional modes of life occur quite literally in the shadow of these modern hulking monuments to change.

Kep, lying a few hours east of Kampong Som by boat or car, offers a respite from the industry of Cambodia's main port. Kep has historically been a backwater, a resort town offering a quiet getaway to the French colonials and before them to the wealthy Cambodians looking to enjoy the seaside. Kep remains a resort town in a sense, though it is not recognizable as such to western eyes. During the week the town is quiet, mostly, with fishing going on but very little in the way of visible commerce. On weekends, though, the crowds begin to come from Phnom Penh. Kampong Som has become the playground of tourists, but Kep remains largely a Khmer destination. The beach is rocky and small, and not the sort to compete with the white sands of Kampong Som, but it is dotted with picnic pavilions. Khmers are great picnickers and any site likely to see large numbers of Khmer visitors needs facilities. These thatch-roofed picnicking platforms are served by vendors of exquisitely fresh seafood, gathered from the surrounding waters. On a Saturday or Sunday the beaches fill, covered with happy chattering Khmers coming from all over the country to enjoy Kep's justifiably famous seafood and atmosphere.

During the French years, Kep was a different sort of seaside resort. Favored over Kampong Som by those looking for a less industrial beach town, the French who could afford to filled the area with colonial houses, built mostly on the hillsides overlooking the ocean. Traveling along the roads of Kep it is impossible to escape the dilapidated grandeur of the former French empire. Vacant villas look out onto the beaches, and while much of the town has been colonized now by impoverished Cambodians squatting by the sea to be close to the fish which provide their livelihood, there are also newly built villas. The police and government of the province and of other far flung provinces as well, are drawn to build here. Like any other place in the world, seaside property is at a premium, and the status incurred from the ownership of a beach front villa in Kep is significant.

Just a few kilometers east of Kep lies Vietnam. The border is well policed but also porous to any traffic carrying cash. Goods flow through this border from Vietnam, but in the next few years it is expected that the border will be opened to tourism, and at that point Kep is likely to grow, to outgrow its laid-back charm and become something of a tourist town. Already guesthouses have begun to appear, and the local people are bracing themselves for an influx of visitors. For now, Kep remains a quiet town, on the fringe of Cambodia‘s growth.

The Tonle Sap lake lies just out of Siem Reap town to the South. In fact the Tonle Sap lies just outside of a number of Cambodian towns. The richest source of freshwater protein in the world feeds much of Cambodia's population. It also serves as a conduit for people and goods between Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, but its network of supply and the lifestyles it supports offer a striking contrast to the modernity of Kampong Som, and the quiet backwater of Kep. The boats which ply the Tonle Sap are still lagging in technology, and with the exception of the ferries carrying people between Phnom Penh, Battambang, and Siem Reap, most of the vessels plying the lake's waters could come from another era. Hand built from wood and sealed with resin from local trees, the fishing boats are similar to those which dot the seascape off of Kep shore. There is a sense, though, of industrious commerce which is lacking in Kep, and a day on the lake offers visual evidence of the importance of the Tonle Sap to Cambodia's economic well-being.

With the increasing traffic to Siem Reap from Poipet there is less reliance on the lake for transport of goods. Tourist boats still ply the lake each day, traveling between the capital and the tourism capital, giving travelers a chance to see the lake while getting to the next logical destination. The cigar-tube river boats drone angrily through Chong Khneas, a floating village of somewhat better means than most, and on down the lake. The majority of the journey serves to underscore the immensity of the Tonle Sap. Land is not visible in any direction for a few hours, and little if any life is seen along the way. Most of the lake commerce occurs around its edges, in small villages of fishing families. Ringed with mangroves which provide a breeding ground for fish stocks, the lake serves also as a home to tens of thousands of birds, some of which number among the world's rarest. Egrets, Pelicans, even Sarus cranes, find a home here, protected nominally by new government regulations and NGOs focusing on preservation of wildlife. Cambodian's have begun to wake up to the fragile importance of the lake to their livelihood, and while the exceptionally harmful harvesting of mangroves for firewood and the poaching of bird eggs continues, most people feel a large degree of hope for the perpetuation of the lake's role as Cambodia's fish bowl.

Traditional lifestyles still permeate the Tonle Sap's waters. With the exception of Chong Khneas and perhaps Prek Toal (situated on the water route to Battambang) most of the villages on the lake are hard to access. Over the course of each year the lake changes in size by two thirds of its high water volume. Roads and villages are quite literally swallowed by the lake from July to early November, and when the lake does recede the roads are understandably devastated. Most families still fish, often in the dark hours using battery-powered electric lights to draw fish to their nets, and each morning sees a flow of fishing boats returning home, hopefully laden with dawn's early catch. Change is not fast coming to the Tonle Sap Lake, and though many have speculated about its potential as a water sports mecca of sorts, it is hard to envision this happening soon.

The village sits, waiting for the rain to lift it above the smell, the detritus of Cambodian village life which has accumulated on the sandy ground around the ramshackle houses. Dusts swirls around the boats which have come to unload their fish, and children play amidst piles of trash. The odor of Prahok, or fish cheese, which is both produced and peddled in many of these villages, permeates the air, singeing the nostrils of foreign nationals and causing a wrinkling of noses even among the locals.
Cambodia is not a place which has by and large learned the value of public sanitation. There are things more important to a populace which is generally unsure where its next meal will come from, than the cleanliness of their villages. Cities have begun to become cleaner but here in the floating villages, during the dry season, trash piles tend to collect. In the rainy months, the trash is washed away, thrown into the lake instead of onto the ground. The dispersal of waste is notable mostly during the dry season, when it becomes clear just how much garbage is disappearing into the lake during the floating months.

These villages are amphibious. From some time in May to January or so, they float, tethered to the lake bottom but unattached to the mainland. Gardens, pigsties, chicken coops, schools, petrol stations, clinics, restaurants, all float upon the lake, serving the population and eliminating the need to go ashore except to exchange goods with the mainland markets which are more extensive than their own. It is here that many of the fractures in Cambodian society are most visible.
There are few places where Cambodians and ethnic Vietnamese live side by side, but many of the lake villages are a mix of the Islamic Chams, Vietnamese, and Cambodians. The only unifying characteristic of these groups is their shared poverty and a general disdain for each other. Not surprisingly one of the main fault lines for real and potential conflict runs along these borders. Indistinguishable to many visitors, the villages which are mixed are divided into very clear sections, and there is astonishingly little interaction even among neighbors. Fishing is responsible for the livelihood of most of these people, and each blame the others when the catch decreases, and each claim that the others are responsible for harmful fishing techniques like Cyanide fishing, shock fishing, and TNT fishing. In reality responsibility for over fishing and environmental degradation is shared. When there is too little to support a village population, tempers flare, and this has as recently as 1999 led to horrific massacres of entire Vietnamese villages on the lake. Conflict between these groups seems to always be just below the surface, and with the increasing regulation of resources causing shortages there seems little chance of the situation improving without assistance.

Six P.M. is the start of Siem Reap evening rush hour. As the sun begins to sink, the roads clog with motor bikes, tuk-tuks, buses, cars and trucks ferrying people from the temples to the hotels, restaurants, and bars which will occupy their evening hours. Dust threatens to swallow the town, swirling under the new street lights which have transformed the city from a palpably third-world destination to a city lapping quaintly at the edges of modernity. As darkness falls the town begins to throb with life, the latest Khmer hits and foreign imports pulsing outwards from the snooker halls and discos which feed the demands of those employed by the tourism industry. Reggae, classic rock and modern dance music pours forth from the bars aimed at backpackers. In the quieter venues fine cuisine from all over the world is served to the more well-heeled tourists amidst the trappings of the country's artistic heritage.

Siem Reap is a town that is beginning to understand the amenities tourists want when they come to see the temples. Backpackers, mid-range tourists, and upscale visitors are catered to. Japanese, Korean, Italian, Vietnamese, Russian, French, Thai, Indian and Chinese restaurants blanket the town, offering a multi-cultural experience in a largely mono-cultural country. To the short-term visitor, the town seems defined by tourism. It takes a longer, more varied stay to see that underneath the fairy lights and English language billboards, Siem Reap is still a Cambodian town.

A journey five kilometers out of town in any direction away from the temples transports one fifty years back in time. Taxis turn into ox carts, hotel gardens into rice fields, and paved roads into dusty dirt tracks. Buffalo and Cows dominate the landscape, and traditional wood houses rise idyllically above the paddies, set amidst fruit trees and sugar palms. Children walk back and forth to school bedecked in sparkling white blouses and shirts amidst the ubiquitous swirling red dust. Old women chew betel nut by the roadside, watching as motos and bicycles drive slowly by, gently negotiating the sandy roads bringing goods from Siem Reap to the villages. During the planting and harvest seasons the landscape is punctuated by masses of villagers planting or cutting as the season calls for, working like ants over the land. The only calling card tourism has left here is increased land prices. Siem Reap has begun to urbanize its surrounds, and anyone who can afford to is buying land and hoping to capitalize on the coming sprawl. Villagers are suddenly offered sums of money they never dreamed of possessing, sell their homes and move further from town, trading their land for more land further away, perhaps a larger piece, and maybe a motorbike in addition. The plots which now house five star hotels around Siem Reap were rice fields just a few years ago, and until a saturation point is reached the town will expand, pushing further into the diminishing countryside.

An international rush is on to see Angkor before it is spoiled, before the flocks of visitors turn it into an ancient Disney world. To those who saw the ruins years ago, that battle is often considered to be already fought and lost. Angkor Wat's towers at sunrise bring to mind the equally famous tower of Babel, with voices calling out their appreciation of the visual revelation exposed by the sun's rays in an eclectic array of languages from around the world. Ta Prohm, perhaps the most photographed of the temples, sees a sea of visitors each day, and repeat visitors inevitably lament the loss of the innocence and solitude of earlier experiences there.
The temples of Angkor are stone, though, and while they are fragile and have been at times endangered by events and environment, they are fundamentally the same, year after year. There is certainly value in seeing them in solitude, and also in seeing them in the company of a thousand fellow visitors. What is certain, though, is that in the lifetime of anyone alive now, the actual temples will be much the same as they are now, if not more impressive. Restoration and maintenance efforts are notable and for the most part successful, and there is little evidence to say that the temples are in any significant danger of disappearing or lessening in grandeur within the lifetime of anyone reading these pages.

The enduring nature of the temples is not representative of Cambodia as a whole. The country is changing rapidly. For the time being, the changes are mostly taking place in urban areas, but the rural landscape is changing as well. Farmers are moving farther from urban centers as land value increases. Young people are pushing for more opportunity, and the number of schools in villages has increased dramatically in the last few years. Access to education has caused the population to ask more of their leaders, and while they are in no position to demand anything from a despotic government, the emergence of a moderately well educated middle class will eventually drive reforms in leadership. The generation of Cambodians who survived and remember the Khmer Rouge years is a largely content group, at least in terms of material needs. There has been some speculation that a mental breakdown is likely as this group ages, but for now it seems that they are satisfied with life, happy enough to live under a system which is rife with corruption as long as it continues to prevent civil war and allows the clearing of land mines. When change comes, it will come from the current generation of high school students, the children growing up with enough to eat and no recollection of the largest per capita genocide in history.

With change will come the disappearance of the circumstances which allowed the images contained in this book to be captured. While nobody is entirely certain what Cambodia will look like in the future, it is clear that it will not look like this. The moments, landscapes, faces, and lives contained here will someday be lost forever. Cambodia has much to offer the world visually- a stunning array of scenes and lifestyles ranging from modernity to ancient times. It is a country too often defined only by its ancient wonders and its modern horrors. So much of what Cambodia offers lies outside of this, in a Battambang rice field green under the tropical sun, in a fisherman meticulously repairing his net, and in a small boy wet from a swim. So much of what we need to learn from Cambodia comes from the searing, painful image of an AIDS victim lying mostly abandoned in the Russian hospital, and so much of the hope from the eyes of Maryjan, the AIDS victim living a life she owes to a group of people committed to doing good work in the world. Her eyes are defiant, filled with resolution, and they speak volumes, proclaiming that mine is a life worth saving here among the forgotten. These are images worth seeing, understanding, and cherishing as they fade into the future.