Holes Are Drilled into the Angkor Wat Temple to Attach Electric Bulbs

Holes Are Drilled into the Angkor Wat Temple to Attach Electric Bulbs – Who Is Wrong? The Sou Ching Company, the Tuy Nasy Company, or the Apsara Authority? – Monday, 25.5.2009

Posted on 25 May 2009
The Mirror, Vol. 13, No. 614
http://cambodiamirror.wordpress.com

“Siem Reap: It has been five days already that the Sou Ching company, which is responsible for collecting money from foreign tourists who visit the Angkor Wat Temple during the night, drills some holes into the walls of the Angkor Wat Temple, in order to install electric bulbs to light different places of the Angkor Wat Temple. On Saturday morning of 23 May 2009, this resulted in strong criticisms from national and international tourists, because they think that it is destroying the Angkor Wat Temple, and this action should not be allowed.

“In that morning, obviously, there were about 20 bulbs attached, fixed into the holes drilled into the walls of the Angkor Wat Temple, at the northern and western long corridors.

“Pieces of stone were found on the ground, dropped down from the drilling to set up electric lights. When journalists asked experts of the Apsara Authority and of the Sou Ching company who was drilling the holes in the temple walls, they denied that they were doing it.

“But when journalists, tourist guides, and international tourists standing near the place showed pieces of stone of the temple which had dropped down on them as evidence to the head of the department for temple conservation in the Angkor Park of the Apsara Authority, Ms. Mao La Or, they admitted they had drilled holes into the walls to install electric bulbs.

“First, Ms. Mao La Or said that nobody had drilled holes as they were accused, but then she admitted it had happened. She said so after she had called an expert of the Apsara Authority at the Angkor Wat, an expert on the weathering of stones to check, Mr. Kham Mao, to check the site, and he found that holes had been drilled into the stones.

“Ms. Mao La Or told journalists with tearful eyes that the Sou Ching company, responsible for collecting money from tourists who visit the Angkor Wat Temple during the night, had nothing done wrong, but the blame should be put on the Tuy Nasy company, because this company is responsible for installing electricity. Though she claimed so, tourist guides and national and international tourists still accused the managing officials of the Angkor Wat Temple, the Apsara Authority, of making a most serious mistake, destroying national property, because the Angkor Wat Temple is a World Cultural Heritage, listed as a World Heritage Site since 1992.

“A tourist guide from the Siem Reap Angkor region, Mr. Sar Arun, who stood at the wall into which holes had been drilled, said that they should not have done so, and it is absolutely not a good idea, because the drilling has already destroyed many parts of the temple.

“Mr. Sar Arun added the question about setting up bulbs which get very hot at the wall of the temple. It will make the priceless temple get cracks and decay, and the future life of our Angkor Wat Temple will be shorter.

“Another tourist guide from the Siem Reap Angkor region, Mr. Sim Sokunthea, said the Apsara Authority, which has authority in this sector, should not allow this. He said so while he was looking with regrets at the continuing dropping pieces of stone from the Angkor Wat Temple walls into which holes were being drilled.

“A Spanish woman, Ms. Carolina Armandi, who was visiting the Angkor Wat Temple, saw what was happening; she said that everything should be kept natural without making any changes. She wanted to state that historical things must not be changed from their original status.

“A Cambodian tourist, who was also visiting the Angkor Wat Temple, said that the plan of the Apsara Authority seems not to be the development or the conservation of the temple, but its destruction, adding that the Apsara Authority should have come to study the details and make decisions before implementing this plan of drilling.

“The same tourist continued to say that if the Apsara Authority had checked and studied the plan thoroughly, there would not have happened such destruction on our temple.

“The Apsara Authority always takes UNESCO as basic reference, but why didn’t they asks UNESCO first, before there such drilling to set up electric bulbs at the temple.

“On 23 May 2009, after there had been follow-up reactions from the general public, the working team of the Apsara Authority, led by the chairperson of the Apsara Authority Mr. Ngo Hongly, the director of the Apsara Authority, Mr. Bun Narith, and Ms. Mao La Or, led a big group of journalists to see the setting up of electric bulbs. The working team explained that they have a technique to set up electric bulbs which causes no harm to the temple. They install bulbs by using cork stoppers put into already existing holes, and they set up lights only where it is possibly, and also at the lower layers of the stone. The working team claims that the heat of the bulbs is weak and does not affect the temple.”

Rasmei Kampuchea, Vol.17, #4902, 24-25.5.2009
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Monday, 25 May 2009