Sandbags lined the entrances to most of the hotels and souvenir shops here is the protective barrier against floods that have left the country’s main tourist destination waterlogged from more than a week. Guesthouse and shop owners said the floods had forced them to shut their businesses a week ago, and thoug most are now starting to reopen, tractors still plowed through streets that looked more like streams on Friday.
“Most of the bars here on Pub Street closed when folding was at it’s worst. We stayed open, but business is not so good,” saod Chan Tha, manager of the Red Piano café, which only had one table occupied. “Business is down 90 percent,” he said. Dan Maini, a British tourist, said he had been unaware that Cambodia had been experiencing some of its worst floods in a decade before the flew into Siem Reap City on Friday morning. He said that the road from the airport had been unaffected, but when he got into Siem Reap City, the level of the flooding was a shock.
“I feel really bad for the small business,” Mr Maini said. Siem Reap’s normally bustling Old Market was bereft of shoppers, and one souvenir stall owner said business had been so bad that she had closed her shop for several days. “The water flooded my shop, so I closed. Normally I make about $50 a day, but during the flood, I make nothing,” said Bel La, 50, whose stall sells tourists trinkets and handicrafts.
Travel agents said the floods had made it difficult for tourists to travel around the town and to the temples, and the heavy rain had kept many confined to their hotel rooms. Bun Tharith, deputy provincial governor, said nobody in the province had been evacuated, but more than 200 families in two districts were stranded in their villages. The Cambodian Red Cross will deliver food packages to those districts today, Mr. Tharith said, adding that the Neak Poan, Ta Prohm and Banteay Kdei temples were closed to the public because of the floods.
Just outside Siem Reap’s central tourist zone, families living along the Siem Reap River said they worried their homes could collapse. “During the night, I feel afraid that my house will sink into the water if there is a flood water surge,” said Sok Thy, 48, whose home is already covered in stagnant ankle-deep water.
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