Word: angkor
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Fancy a cool, bird's-eye view of the magical temple ruins of Angkor Wat? For $11 it's yours. The bright yellow Angkor Balloon, tel: (855) 12 520810, is moored a kilometer west of Cambodia's treasured monuments, which were built between the 9th and 13th centuries by the god-kings of the Khmer empire...
...While the 10-minute balloon ascent may feel altogether too brief, the maximum altitude of 200 m offers a fresh perspective on how all the temples and waterways of the complex fit together. At ground level, it's not easy to appreciate the extent to which Angkor was fed by the waters of Tonle Sap, Cambodia's huge central lake, about 25 km away. Not even Henri Mouhot, the French adventurer who rediscovered the country's cultural shrine in 1859, got a view this good...
...with an innovative project in Cambodia granting street kids a chance to work in the upper echelons of the hospitality industry. Shinta Mani, tel: (855) 63 761 998, is a crisply designed, 18-room, $130-per-night boutique hotel, which opened last year in Siem Reap, 6 km from Angkor Wat. But it also doubles as a vocational training institute, and its first classes, for some 16 youngsters, began earlier this month. The students?some of whom previously survived by scavenging in the city's refuse heaps?will learn everything from tidying beds to scrambling eggs. Shinta Mani...
...country has lost so much so quickly as Cambodia, whose jungles hid cities built by the mysterious Angkor Empire between the 9th and 14th centuries. Peace has proved far more destructive than war to the turbulent nation's antiquities. While the relic-rich northwest was under Khmer Rouge control through the mid-'90s, Western dealers couldn't reach many of the prime sites for fear of land mines and cross fire. It was only with the full cessation of civil war a few years ago that foreigners could once again freely visit the relic sites around the legendary Angkor...
...Culture and Fine Arts--but it's a comically grand title for a man whose entire staff consists of himself. Tranet, of Khmer-French parentage, returned from exile in 1993 with the sole mission of protecting Cambodia's heritage. "Our history is so important to us that we have Angkor Wat on our flag," says Tranet. "So why are we as a people, as a government, as a country, allowing our heritage to slip through our fingers...