Cambodia's disputed Wat Preah Vihear

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Wat Preah Vihear

In the morning, one of the staff took Donna’s bags off to reception, and she was astonished to have the same guy serve her coffee on the terrace about 20 seconds later. This completely freaked her out for a few minutes, until what turned out to be a pair of identical twins stood smiling by our table. Why we had never seen the two of them together over the past couple of days is hard to imagine - unless they deliberately played this trick for departing guests. But it just added to the Fawlty-esque quality of the place.

Leaving Pakse in the Hi-Ace, we crossed the new Mekong bridge and arrived at the chaotic Lao-Thai road border by about 9.15 am. While Udon checked us out of Laos, we browsed the vast market crammed with an interesting miscellany of goods we’d seen nowhere else in Laos - presumably aimed at the Thais who strolled unimpeded over the border to shop.

We were picked up at the Thai immigration post by our Diethelm guide, Wat, and took off on the two and a half hour drive to the Cambodian border. Just inside Cambodia is Wat Preah Vihear, or Prasat Khao Phra Wiharn in Thai, perched on a hilltop with a commanding view of its surroundings. While the earliest structures pre-date Angkor Wat by 100 years, the history of the temple is somewhat unclear, but it is known to be dedicated to the god Shiva and thought to have been largely constructed in the reign of Suryavarman I (1002-50), with further significant additions by Suryavarman II (1113-50). Due to its location on the Cambodian/Thai border, ownership of the area was disputed until 1967, when the International Court of Justice ruled that it belonged to Cambodia — which was soon after plunged into civil war. The temple opened briefly to the public in 1992, only to be occupied by the Khmer Rouge as one of their last strongholds against the Hun Sen government. It opened again from the Thai side at the end of 1998, and Cambodia completed the construction of a long-awaited access road in 2003. By mid-2008 it was again in the news as nationalistic fervour was whipped up by politicians on both sides of the border, each country claiming ownership of surrounding land following the July inscription of the temple as a UNESCO World Heritage Site .

From the entrance we walked up a steep flight of steps to the first portico under darkening skies, and by the time we reached the second portico a huge storm broke with rolling thunder, forked lightning and hammering rain. Shepherded by several charming kids with umbrellas we crammed ourselves under a ruined lintel for half an hour before the storm abated, the kids fetched more umbrellas and we set off once again in a heavy drizzle. By then, all the other visitors higher up than us had fled, drenched to the skin, and as the rain lightened further and eventually stopped, we had the place completely to ourselves. And what a delightful location it is. It occupies possibly the most magnificent site of any Khmer temple, climbing 800 meters north-south along a spine of the Dangrek range. Its four main enclosures are linked by flights of steps, some precipitous, with the final sanctuary perched high on the edge of an escarpment, overlooking the vast plain of Cambodia, some 500 meters below.

Mid-afternoon, we wandered back down, thoroughly impressed with this wonderful spot, and drove some 40 km north to a small town where we had a very late lunch in a pleasantly scruffy local restaurant. Then on to Ubon Ratchathani airport for our 8.15 pm flight to Bangkok. An hour and a half later, as we entered the immaculate lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel we all realized just how much we were looking forward to being back in a large city, and to a bit of luxurious pampering! And it did indeed feel good - the check-in was gracious, we had large rooms with balconies, looking north up the Chao Phraya River, and the service was the usual impeccable Shangri-La standard. Donna, Rami and I met up later to satisfy our comfort-food cravings for hamburgers and sandwiches at the coffee shop, while the others crashed.

Howard's Wat Preah Vihear Gallery

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