Page 3 - Cambodia Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

POPULATION HISTORY Cambodia has a population of Until the mid-19th century, the outside world knew almost nothing of the approximately 14.5 million interior of Cambodia. From the 16th and 17th centuries, rumors began to people. Prior to Pol Pot's time and surface in Europe - based on tales from Portuguese and French the holocaust of the Khmer missionaries- about a magnificent city, hidden somewhere in the middle Rouge, Cambodia had an of the jungle. Then in 1861 French naturalist Henri Mouhot stumbled estimate population of over eight across the overgrown ruins of Angkor. The local people thought it million. This number dropped to inconceivable that their ancestors could have built the incredible temple- around five million by the late mountain complexes and told Mouhot they were the work of a race of 1970s but has since rebounded giant gods. due to a high birth rate and the return of refugees from Thailand. Today, the Khmer people are very proud of their rich cultural and artistic heritage, perhaps because the cultural refinements and sophistication of TIME their forebears stands in stark contrast to the nihilistic depravity of the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s. Sadly, more people now associate the Cambodia is GMT plus 7 name "Cambodia' with the Khmer Rouge 'Killing Fields' than with VISAS Angkor Wat. United States Citizens require a For centuries Cambodia has been in a state of continuous social and Visa. Your passport must be valid political upheaval. Since the demise of the Angkorian Empire in the 15th for at least 6 months from the century; the country has been at the mercy of its much larger neighbors, date of arrival into Cambodia. Thailand and Vietnam, and of various foreign powers - China, France, the US and the former Soviet Union. This history of foreign domination is INSURANCE starkly overshadowed by the so called "Pol Pot time'. Between 1975 and Because the standard of 1979, Cambodians suffered one of the worst human tragedies to afflict emergency treatment in any country since World War II - more than a million people died out of a Cambodia is not as high as in the total population of about 7 million. West, it is advisable in addition to normal medical insurance, to take Cambodia's importance in the evolution of Southeast Asian culture and out a policy which covers history is far greater than its limited size and political power would evacuation. suggest. Lying on the trade routes between China and India, Cambodia has been the center of several powerful empires - Angkor being the most famous - and later the centerpiece of struggle between Europe and nationalist movements. The tragic history of Cambodia continues today with the ongoing struggle between democratic forces of a UN supported government, the Vietnamese desire to control events in their troublesome neighbor, and the communist war of insurgency waged by the Khmer Rouge. THE FUNAN EMPIRE Knowledge of Cambodian history prior to the Funan era is limited to Neolithic artifacts uncovered near Tonle Sap and Bronze Age implements excavated near Phnom Penh and the seaport of Oc Eo. Historical records begin with the rise of the Funan Empire in the 1st century A.D. until its incorporation into the Chenla state in the 6th century. Centered along the lower reaches of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers, and prosperous owing to its location on the east-west trade route between China and India, Funan eventually extended its political power south to the Malay Peninsula and east across most of present-day Vietnam.