In Cambodia, Lost Retreats Once Again Found
Kep province – On a sunny weekday in Kep, a seaside village about halfway along Cambodia’s coast, the crab market was heaving. Women in straw hats and rubber boots stood knee deep in the surf shouting out prices, periodically darting into the sea to pull writhing specimens out of wicker baskets. Children of all ages ran through the stalls; it seemed as if the entire town had congregated in this one main square. Nearby, suspended over the water overlooking the South China Sea, rickety open-fronted restaurants were perched on stilts. It was a scene that felt quaintly out of time. It was just life as it had always been and always would be. But of course this wasn’t true. Not far away, new bridges and roads were being completed; luxury resorts, casinos and golf courses mapped out; shopping malls planned. All this in an area of Cambodia occupied by the Khmer Rouge as recently as 1995. Like so many places that have dropped from, and re-emerged in, the traveler’s gaze, this area of southwestern Cambodia is in the midst of a now-familiar cycle. First come the backpackers, lured by tales of simple coastal villages and untouched island beaches. Next come the pioneering hoteliers, establishing in-the-know outposts of taste and luxury. Finally the big money arrives and, with it, the big plans. … But Cambodia has other needs, too. The average family makes the equivalent of only $2,100 a year, and development can put money in their pockets. On one of my last excursions I went to visit a resort that is attempting to serve the triple needs of tourists, locals and the land itself. Specifically, we headed to the Vine Retreat, a hotel and restaurant that opened a couple of years ago on a working pepper plantation close to Kep. The owner, David Pred, found the plantation by Chamcar Bei village, now the site of the Vine, through his work with Bridges Across Borders, an organization that has, among other things, established a local school and health clinic. Overlooking pepper fields, the property is lovely, with a few beautifully decorated rooms that cost less than $50 a night. After a meal of curry and fresh juice at the hotel’s organic restaurant, we visited the school, passing kids on bikes who called out to our toddler. Without the school, which opened its doors in 2007, Mr. Pred said, the children would be working on family farms. Later, I spoke to him about the dual impulses of progress and preservation. “Aid groups alone are not going to be able to lift Cambodians out of poverty,” he said, …
