CAMBODIA - Tourism Helps Revive Cambodia From The Ravages Of War

Jan 8 2007 (Bernama)

The first sight of Angkor Wat, a magnificent Hindu temple made of stone blocks and intricate stone carvings, leaves visitors awestruck.More astounding is the fact that the ancient temple has withstood the test of time since the 9th century.A 14-member delegation from Malaysia led by Deputy Tourism Minister Datuk Donald Lim Siang Chai visited the temple during the Visit Malaysia Year 2007 (VMY07) campaign in Cambodia recently.Located in the Siem Reap district, about 308km to the north of the capital city of Phnom Penh, Angkor Wat was once the flourishing Hindu empire of the Khmer people under King Jayavarman II.The temple structure based on Khmer and Hindu architecture took 30 years to complete and was once the Khmer people's cradle of civilisation.But the glorious distant past of the Indochina nation is overshadowed by a more recent dark past. The atrocities during the Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1979 under Pol Pot saw the annihilation of up to 1.7 million people or 21 percent of the nation's population then.

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