There was a World Scout Jamboree in Thailand in January 2003. At the time, I was interested professionally in Scouting (as well as personally). I made it a point to stop at Scout offices abroad, staying at the Scout Hotel in Hong Kong, and meeting Scouters along the way. My troop sported foreign neckerchief slides (who else had Mongolia, or Australia ties), sometimes patrol patches (Turtle in Maltese, Red Backed Spiders in Australia, great looking Canadian patches), and I was relatively fresh from an Asia Pacific meeting in Hong Kong in 1998. I had even earned a title as an International representative of the W.D. Boyce Council.
At the same time, I had been thinking about a way to return to Angkor Wat (and Phnom Penh) in Cambodia. Carolyn was willing to go, since I had returned safely in 2001. I would miss minimum time at IWU. Let’s go.
A day at the Jamboree let us wander and see Scouts from all over. Including Dr. John Inman, whom we knew from Canyon Camp. He was an active Scouter in a venture crew and national and international Scouting.
The real adventure began when we went first to Phnom Penh. Poor devastated Cambodia still had some pockets of French grandeur. The Raffles currently owns the old colonial hotels. We did see the museum where, increasingly, the treasures of Angkor were being housed, and duplicates replaced them in situ. The market for stolen art dictated some security if possible. There was also the Royal Palace, and the killing fields which had decimated the population.
From there it was deja vu for me–the wondrous ruins of Angkor Wat. By this time, the rebels were pretty much suppressed, the Aussies on summer vacation the most numerous troublemakers.
The jungle always wins. Given time. Some of the buildings have been stabilized with the ficus gripping tightly. But the `12 century Hindu turned Buddhist shrine reflects what’s left of the Khmer greatness. For now.