Dancing in Cambodia

8216;Kingdom of Cambodia8217;, it said, in blue and gold letters on a grey cement archway. Grasping your backpack firmly, you negotiate a price for the 120-km ride to Battambang, in the north-west of the country. Within minutes, Poipet is lost in a haze of red earth and you are embraced by virginal countryside 8212; jade rice fields that stretch beyond the imagination, curling red ribbons of mud slicing through paddy stalks, streams that glitter invitingly in the late afternoon sun, disappearing pathways that lead to hamlets embedded like jewels in the earth, the distinct fragrance of firewood roasting under wooden houses on stilts, cottony clouds rimmed with gold and wooden bridges with missing planks that are relics of French colonial rule.

BATTAMBANG

The 8216;second largest city in Cambodia8217; is a sleepy and charming town, with a mood that is distinctly French. Home to some beautiful pre-Angkorean temples, Battambang also houses the Killing Caves, 20 km from town.

8216;8216;Khmer Rouge would throw people down from the hole in the roof of the cave,8217;8217; says Inn Salon, moto driver and tour guide. 8216;8216;They get no food and young people look like old people8230; They crawl because they are weak. If they do not die, they are pushed from roof. If they still not die, they cut off their head or shock them with wire,8217;8217; he adds. His mother and sister were among the 2 million people 8216;8216;taken away8217;8217;.

Piles of skulls are tightly packed into cages in the Killing Caves. The stone-rest where the victims8217; throats were slit is a silent but eerie testament to the bloodletting.

8216;8216;Till 1985, the caves smell. No one can come here. It smell too much. Then they clean it up,8217;8217; Inn Salon drones on, as bleached bones and hollow eye sockets stare at you in a mutually hypnotic gaze. Their stories were never told. Relatives are still not quite sure what happened to them. Pages of history spill from dank niches in the Killing Caves but for the tourist, it will be a while before the 8216;evidence8217; sinks in.

SANGKER RIVER

The Gateway to Angkor has one of the most scenic approaches 8212; you literally glide into Siem Reap floating on Cloud Nine. If you believe in self-denial, you8217;ll take the airconditioned cabin inside the speedboat but the roof offers the best vantage point. Of course, hang onto your hat as the backdraft is fierce, and make sure your other hand firmly grasps the rail. Sliding off the smooth surface is something you don8217;t want to attempt when Angkor awaits.

SIEM REAP

It8217;s a 12-km moto ride from the Siem Reap pier to the centre of town. Driving north, you pass a roadsign that announces 8216;Psah Chas Old Market,8217; 8216;Royal Residence8217;, 8216;Angkor Wat8217;. Just like that! It is only after you blink twice that you realise you8217;re on the brink of visiting the ruins of the ancient Khmer Empire, one of the Forgotten Wonders of the world.

As a novice, you don8217;t quite know what to expect when you enter the 400-sq km temple complex. So, when you finally set eyes on Mt Meru, the central tower of Angkor Wat and home of the gods, your reaction is not one of stupefaction. You first check with your tour guide whether you should indeed be gazing at the stone edifice in front of you with complete awe. Could this indeed be the fabled 8216;lost world8217;?

Bearing an umbilical connection with India, from where Hinduism first travelled to Cambodia 2,000 years ago, the complex comprises scores of gigantic temples. Angkor Wat, built by Suryavarman II in the early 12th century, is the biggest of them all. Strolling through the shrines, galleries and sanctum sanctorums and 8216;reading8217; the stories told by their carvings and architecture, you try to imagine what life must have been like for the 8216;god kings8217; and their 8216;subjects8217; 550 years ago.

TONLE SAP

It is by far the most refreshing of the three ways out of Siem Reap and into Phnom Penh. So pass up the arduous eight-hour ride on Route 6 and the alternative, 20-minute flight between the two destinations. Grab a front row seat on the roof of a speedboat and 8216;fly8217; the distance. Six hours later, peel yourself off the boat. You8217;re almost blinded by the glare and nicely roasted. If that sounds masochistic, consider this: how often do you get to ride a river that flows in opposite directions?

The Tonle Sap, or Great River, is an arm of the Mekong River that absorbs the latter8217;s monsoon floodwaters and irrigates more than one-third of the country. During the monsoon, it flows north. In November, it reverses direction and begins to subside, melting into the Mekong delta in Vietnam. The river8217;s unique reverse action bestows upon Cambodia a bounty that8217;s invaluable: two crops of rice a year.

PHNOM PENH

Rising from the ravages of war, Cambodia8217;s capital city received a complete make-over a couple of years ago. But it8217;s not difficult for the hopeless romantic to spot the jewels: the yellowing Art Deco colonial structures and the odd, wooden house on stilts, another disappearing gem in the cityscape.

For the backpacker, Cambodia is Paradise Found; for the rest of the world, it8217;s still Paradise Lost. Alas, it won8217;t take too long for that to change.