Phnom Penh looked like an underdeveloped provincial version of Bangkok. The people were no different to Thais to Barton’s inexpert eye, the landscape was the same, as was the climate, it was not surprising considering it was barely an hour’s flight south-east from the Thai capital.
The next day he explored Phnom Penh, visiting the royal palace and other tourist spots, most of which were within walking distance from his hotel on the bank of the Mekong River. The atmosphere was less urgent than that of Bangkok’s, more easy going, the city was of course much smaller.
That evening back at his hotel he found a message confirming he would be picked up early the next morning by a car and driven north to Siem Reap. It would have been of course easier to take a direct flight from Bangkok, but Barton had wanted to see the capital and the rural area to get a feel for the country before visiting the ancient ruins of Angkor, he figured it would help him to appear a little better informed when he met Sophie.
After a surprisingly long four hour drive he arrive in Siam Riep and was delivered to the guesthouse off Wat Bo Road, a splendid French colonial style villa surrounded by tropical gardens and shaded by large trees. He was welcomed by an amiable major-domo and shown to a luxurious corner apartment, furnished in traditional Cambodian style, decorated with antique oriental bibelots and paintings, and complete with a spacious en-suite bathroom. The first floor room overlooked the lush tropical gardens that lay to the back of the villa and a perfectly maintained swimming pool complete with chaises longues and a fully equipped bar.
Once refreshed he checked out the location of the hotel where Sophie and her mother planned to stay during their visit. The Raffles, which stood in the Old French Quarter overlooking the Royal Gardens, was a testament to the site’s history in comparison with the majority of Siam Riep’s recently built tourist hotels. The hotel was about a kilometre’s distance from the guesthouse. The major-domo insisted Barton take the car, which he told him was at his disposal, the dry season was not only very hot it was also very dusty.
Barton discovered an old colonial hotel that had first been opened in 1932 as the Grand Hotel. After suffering wars and Pol Pot’s cruel Khmer Rouge regime it was now restored to its past splendour and renamed Raffles Grand Hotel. The restoration was in the traditional Raffles style with its legendary sedate colonial air.
The desk called Sophie’s room and informed her Barton was in the lobby, five minutes later she emerged from the lift looking enthrallingly fresh, wearing a light summer dress, a pleasant change from the majority of the women tourists he had seen dressed in shorts and jeans.
She kissed him lightly on the cheek.
‘Hello Tom, welcome to Angkor,’ she said greeting him with a glowing smile.
‘Tell me about it, I arrived just a couple of hours ago.’
‘Fantastic and we’ve only seen a couple of the temples.’
‘What’s your mother doing?’
‘She’s going to some archaeological lecture,’ Sophie replied a little dismissively.
‘I don’t want to spoil her visit by taking you away.’
‘Don’t worry about that, she’s very independent and in any case she’s met up with friends who are working here with UNESCO on temple restorations.’
Barton contemplated the ruins and the twisted roots interlocked with the massive stone building blocks, the ruins of a temple abandoned to what was now dense and omnipresent jungle. Angkor had once been the thriving capital of a powerful civilization, where it was said a million people had lived, a vast city visited by the ambassador of the Emperor of China. The outlying ruins were for the most part neglected, visited only by the more courageous tourists who ventured beyond the well known temple sites..
The Khmer civilization had spanned four centuries before suddenly disappearing, abandoned to the forest and forgotten for centuries. Without explanation. Barton had read Jared Diamond’s book Collapse that explained how civilizations rose and fell as they consumed and exhausted their environments to feed and clothe their ever growing populations.
He wondered whether the economic crisis that now threatened was poised to envelope the industrial world and whether the effects of global warming were harbingers of imminent collapse. He was not too convinced about global warming and financial collapses were not new, but Diamond’s observations certainly provided him and many others with food for thought.
The planet’s political elites had not only failed to resolve its growing economic dilemma, they failed to foresee the crisis even when it was staring them in the face. Only a year earlier politicians, together with the majority of pundits, had dismissed contrarians out of hand scorning them like Malthusian doomsters.
Jared Diamond wrote of environmental, economic and political stress, the meaning of which was becoming clearer and clearer to Barton since he had commenced his random odyssey that had led him to Dubai, India, Thailand and now Cambodia. The political demonstrations he had witnessed as a detached visitor on the streets of Bangkok were a reaction by the people to their corrupt government, the desperation seen on faces in the streets of Phnom Phen was most certainly a reaction to pervading poverty.
The deranging question was whether the American Dream, abundance and comfort for everyman, now struck by a sudden malaise, was sustainable or not. Barton was forced to admit his experience was very limited, but from what he had observed in India pressures on the environment had reached a state of no return and collapse was inevitable if things did not change very quickly. Even in Cambodia’s rainforests, he had read, illegal logging had reached alarming proportions, and was condoned by corrupt officials.
Barton had little faith in the institutions designed to save the planet, saving the forest meant nothing for the soon to be three billion Indians and Chinese, not to mind Africans and those forgotten by civilization. Surviving was more important to the disinherited. That very morning a local English language newspaper reported thousands of Chinese workers had rioted at the news of a takeover deal, beating a manager to death. A manager who had earned four hundred thousand dollars a year and whose retired workers were paid a piteous forty dollars a month.