A Moving Experience With An Antique Khmer House

[churchill]

Having saved one old Khmer house in 2006 by moving it 300 kilometres, Darryl Collins is set to repeat the feat in Siem Reap.

Darryl Collins (left) and Hok Sokol on the steps of the almost-disassembled Khmer house.

SIEM Reap-based Australian art and culture historian Darryl Collins is at it again - moving house.

But unlike ordinary folk who simply move possessions and belongings, Collins moves the entire house. With the aid of Khmer architect and colleague Hok Sokol, he embarked on his first moving experience in 2006.

This was a herculean odyssey involving relocating an entire 100-year-old historic Chinese-Khmer wooden house from an island in the middle of a river in Kampong Cham - disassembling it, then carting it more than 300 kilometers to Siem Reap, where it now stands, resplendently restored.

Last month he applied for the house to be given a Southeast Asian Heritage award, an annual prize handed out by the regional UNESCO office in Bangkok each September, and is now awaiting the result.

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