It was the Year of the Lord 1586 and Portuguese capuchin monk António da Madalena was the first Westerner to admire the largest temple complex in the world, Angkor Wat, with his own eyes.
Today, millions of people a year visit Angkor Wat. But with the exception of this ‘world wonder’ is no one interested in Cambodia. The country with the rich cultural Khmer tradition continues to lose ground. No longer literally, to neighboring countries, as in all centuries after the fall of the huge Khmer empire in 1431, but economically and culturally. There are also practically no more products that put Cambodia on the international map. But as of 2014, an agricultural product has emerged that previously never grew in Cambodia: cacao. Is the ‘brown gold’ able to turn the tables for Cambodia?
Read all about it in the article on bartalks.net: does cocoa have a chance in Cambodia?
Stefan Struik 