2024-12-31
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Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.
I'm Gill McGivering this week on Assignment in Cambodia.
It's around six in the morning and I'm standing in hush darkness with a.
Crowd of a few hundred tourists from.
All over the world getting ready to greet the dawn.
A canopy of bright stars stretches overhead.
We've gathered inside the compound of the world's biggest religious monument, the 12th century Angkor Wat temple in northwest Cambodia.
A first soft light is steadily growing and there it is.
The sun is rising into view because behind this ancient temple and it's all reflected in the lake, it is magical.
Angkor Wat is the most famous of dozens of temples studied across the vast jungle of Angkor park.
More than 30 years ago, the park was designated a World Heritage site by the UN's cultural body, UNESCO.
About 100,000 villagers live inside the park's boundaries.
Many now accuse the Cambodian authorities of using that World Heritage status as an excuse to seize their land or force them from their homes.
Others say they're being threatened and harassed because they refuse to go.
Cambodia is an up and coming tourist destination and this area, Angkor park, is a big money spinner for the authorities.
Every one day entry pass for the temples costs $37.
Angkor Wat is the star attraction.
Officials have predicted that if they develop this region carefully, then in ten years time they could see seven and a half million foreign visitors every year.
That's an explosion compared with today.