Finding Cambodia's Ancient Cave Paintings

By Peter Ford

Veal Veng was once just one village in a chain that stretched south from Phnom Kravanh town deep into Cambodia’s Cardamom mountains. Now the village, a jumble of wooden and bamboo huts, is the only one remaining and serves as the gateway to a collection of rock paintings believed to be drawn as early as 2,500 years ago.

Getting to the site in Pursat province, described by experts in a paper released last year as a unique site deserving “special attention,” is no easy feat.

Traditionally reached along a single track by buffalo-drawn cart — which is still the only method of travel during the height of the rainy season — the 25-km journey between Phnom Kravanh and Veal Veng is mostly now done by motorbike. The recent damming of the small Stung Pram river to form a large reservoir, which according to local authorities is to aid farmers during the dry season, led not only to the destruction of a number of houses and farms, but has added a 30-minute ferry ride to the journey.

Driving slowly along the deeply rutted tracks, the only other travelers were loggers, brazenly harvesting the remaining valuable timber before it is destroyed by the reservoir. That, at least, is the excuse Veal Veng village chief Khvek Dim said the loggers are using. He laments the loss of trees and wildlife from his simple hut in the center of the village. Mr. Dim has known about the paintings on the sheltered rock-face about 20 minutes south of the village, along the track that used to lead to the even remoter villages, for as long as he can remember. As a child he would sit by the paintings to shelter from the rain, tracing his finger over the depictions of elephants, deer and other unidentified animals.

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