Where can I find info on the July 27, 2003 election?
Here.

Where can I find info on the February, 2002 election?
Here.

Is Angkor.com associated with any Cambodian political party or group?
No. Angkor.com is not associated with nor does it support any Cambodian political party or group. It may sometimes seem like there is more Sam Rainsy Party news on the site merely because the SRP has a bigger web presence and produces more English-language material.

I have a question about the Khmer language or Khmer fonts.
See here.

How can I get a copy of the "Sister Civilizations" poster on your main page?
The Thai Tourism Authority sent it to us. A brief press release about the campaign is here. We have never seen this image on any website or heard much more about the campaign. It may have been created for use only during a German tourist convention in 2000. There was initially a plan to have all the nations in this region pool their tourism advertising, but only Thailand and Cambodia ended up following through. The image is a hint at what could be if the nations in the region could recognize their common heritage and intertwined history. UPDATE: October 17, 2002 - James Bambauer writes: I don't know much about the effort behind it, but I did see the very same poster displayed two weeks ago in the visitor's information office in Hong Kong, so I guess it's still an active campaign. If anyone knows of a better link concerning this program, please let us know.

Please remove the "Sister Civilizations" poster on your main page. Stop associating Cambodia and Thailand. Thais are trying to take over Cambodia and we are enemies.
For every Westerner who writes in that they love the "Sister Civilizations" poster, we get a Cambodian who writes in very disturbed by it. Cambodia has been squeezed between much larger neighbors (Thailand and Vietnam) for centuries and have suffered for it, so there is an undercurrent in Cambodian political life that Thailand, Vietnam, or even China considers Cambodia the "apple of its eye" for some reason and wants to take over Cambodia. This is especially used to bash Premiere Hun Sen and his links to the Vietnamese invasion force that ousted the Khmer Rouge. Another recurring theme in Cambodian politics is the registration and possible removal of Vietnamese colonists (actually economic migrants) from Vietnam. This is a mainstay of the Sam Rainsy Party. There is even a Cambodian movement that claims most of south Vietnam for Cambodia.
The borders of Cambodia are exploited--mainly by greedy Thais who have erected casinos right over the border for Thais to gamble in. It is true that these Cambodian border regions are, for all intents and purposes, Thai-controlled. Tensions are stoked from time to time by Cambodian politicians which resulted in the burning of the Thai Embassy in early 2003.

What are the best sites for Cambodia and Angkor?
See here for our hand-picked list.

Do you have any info on a documentary that was on Discovery Channel about Angkor and its supposed relationship with astronomy 12,500 years ago and the Pyramids and other ruins, and constellations, etc?
We remember seeing that show, probably during the summer of 2000 on Discovery Channel Asia. We do not recall who made the documentary, but the info is pure fantasy. The documentary was trying to say that Angkor must have been a part of an ancient civilization that included the Pyramids and other monuments around the world--and this is "proved" by some relationship to the way stars looked in the sky 12,500 years ago--but that's all garbage. There is no relationship between the Pyramids and Angkor Wat--particularly if the claim is they are all 12,500 years old and part of one world civilization.

There was a little about this theory in Skeptical Inquirer focusing on the Egyptian pyramids: A classic example in Hancock's [Graham Hancock--proponent of an Atlantean theory that most ancient monuments were part of a worldwide civilization thousands of years ago] arsenal is the argument from star alignment to "prove" the existence of the Lost Civilization. This "method" proposes, for instance, that three of the Egyptian pyramids at Giza align with the three belt stars in the constellation Orion as those stars lays in the sky in 10,500 B.C., some 8,000 years before the pyramids were built. The alignment can be therefore adduced as "evidence" for the Lost Civilization, which master-planned the site in the remote past.
But there are at least sixteen stars in the Orion constellation; why "map" only three with pyramids? There are over eighty pyramids in Egypt; why do no others map constellations? We have hundreds of other types of monuments from ancient Egypt (cities, temples, tombs, palaces); why do none of these "map" constellations, if such was the order of the day in siting Egyptian architecture? We have abundant inscriptions from Egyptians telling us about their construction of monuments; why is there not a word in them about monument star maps? Could the alignment with Orion's belt be coincidence? Could it reflect the proponents' ability to discern patterns more than the intentions of the ancient builders? ('The Shield of the Open Mind,' by Garrett G. Fagan, Skeptical Inquirer, November/December, 2001)

About the time Discovery Channel Asia was showing the documentary about this theory, they were also showing a series of religious documentaries that claimed major events of the Bible (like a worldwide flood, etc) had been "proved" by archeological finds. The shows ended by extolling the literal truth of the whole Bible. For awhile during the summer of 2000, someone buying shows for Discovery Asia did not know the difference between science and religion.

What's this I hear about the Angkor monuments and the upcoming "Galactic Alignment"?
More crackpot garbage. It is the latest new age fraud designed to cash in on the gullible. This time it has to do with the Mayan calendar that ends in 2012 thus signaling the end of the world, end of time, coming of enlightenment, or something along those lines. Some details can be found here. The Khmer civilization is already amazing enough without having to embellish it with stuff like this.

Is the Angkor area safe?
In 1998, when we started putting Angkor info online, there were many travel warnings to post, but now the third-world style banditry is nearly gone. It's still a good idea to exercise caution, but fears of Khmer Rouge style lawlessness are probably a thing of the past. You'll have to find another country for your danger fix...
A few cautions:
Don't go out at night (especially in the capital)--you can be assured of being robbed.
Don't go to some remote spot and start walking across the fields (you could get blown up).

Is Ta Phrom temple (the one covered with roots) is easily accessible?
Yes.

When's the best time to go?
The temples are covered with green moss during September, October, November, December which makes for beautiful photos, but that's also when the temples are crawling with huge groups of tourists. February through April is the hot season. The moss is brown and the temples are a bit less crowded. Roughly May to October is the rainy season.

Do I need permission to take commercial photos?
Technically, if you take photos for commercial purposes, you are supposed to have a license. To get more info contact here. If you do not get a response, let us know and we'll keep looking.