Cambodia

Every year one of Cambodia’s rivers runs backwards. When monsoon rains swell the Mekong, the Tonlé Sap River reverses and fills the great lake of the same name, which floods the surrounding forest and drains again in the dry season, leaving silt and teeming fish. The Mekong itself crosses the country through rice paddies and sugar palms. In the south-west the Cardamom Mountains rise above a short shoreline where Kampot and Kep face the Gulf of Thailand.

Indianised kingdoms rose along the lower Mekong in the early centuries AD. In 802, by tradition, Jayavarman II founded the Khmer empire of Angkor, whose rulers built hundreds of temples and an enormous network of reservoirs; Suryavarman II raised Angkor Wat in the twelfth century. After Ayutthaya’s armies sacked Angkor the court moved south. France made Cambodia a protectorate in 1863, and King Norodom Sihanouk won independence in 1953. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge drove city people into rural labour camps, where vast numbers died.

Most Cambodians are Theravada Buddhists, and many young men spend time as monks. The Water Festival, when racing boats crowd the river as the flood turns, is one of the great holidays, and the dancers of the Royal Ballet echo the apsaras carved at Angkor. Fish amok, curried and steamed in banana leaf, draws on the freshwater catch. Garment factories around Phnom Penh sew for Western brands, while rice, rubber and visitors to Angkor earn much of the remainder.