Word: khmers
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...attempt to hold back the tide, Huppert rallies local villagers to build a barrier against the ocean. It's a Sisyphean task that sets her against colonial functionaries who have designs on her property, and a rapacious tycoon, Monsieur Jo (Randal Douc), a Parisian-educated Sino-Khmer, whose efforts to take land from the locals are as unrelenting as his pursuit of Huppert's teenaged daughter Suzanne (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). In their impoverished state, the women have more in common with their Khmer neighbors than the linen-suited colonial élite. As her sea wall is breached and her rice...
Most visits to Cambodia begin with the ancient temples of Angkor Wat or the Khmer Rouge's infamous killing fields just outside Phnom Penh. I'm not saying they're not worth seeing, but on our recent 10-day journey through Cambodia, we visited neither. My husband had already hiked Angkor Wat a couple of months back, and frankly, it just felt too depressing to center an entire vacation on mass murder. So we headed instead to southwestern Cambodia, to the developing coastline, in search of waterfalls and beaches. And we found that the people there were just as welcoming...
...Thai border, which until a couple of years ago was best accessed by boat. It is separated from the rest of Cambodia by the Cardamom Mountain range, a dense forest that houses endangered species like the Indochinese tiger and the Malayan sun bear, and used to be a Khmer Rouge stronghold. But a national highway built with help from the Thais, which includes four bridges spanning rivers once crossable only by ferry, has cut the drive to Koh Kong from the capital in half - to four hours...
...There were eight other travelers aboard our long-tail motorboat, seven of whom were German and most of whom were staying at Thomas' guesthouse, Neptune. Thomas, also German, did the entertaining while our Khmer captain steered with his foot and drank an Angkor beer. The first two hours took us south past islands dotted with stilted fishing villages painted in blues and greens and oranges, then through a mangrove forest, into the Gulf of Thailand. There we hit the jackpot: a school of dolphins jumping in the waves...
...this was impossible at such close range. About 15 people lined up on the "dock" (really, a front porch) and helped us clamber from our boat over theirs and into their one-room home. There wasn't much dialogue between the groups, given that none of the tourists spoke Khmer and our hosts didn't know English, but there was much smiling and cooing at the babies, one of whom was cooling off in a pot of water. We ate stir-fried veggies and tofu with a cabbage salad, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Through the slats, you could...