Guide writer earns local cred

Arriving as a location scout for Tomb Raider – the movie that put Angkor back on the tourist map – Lonely Planet's Nick Ray knows his Siem Reap

TRACEY SHELTON

While travel-book writer Nick Ray doesn’t live in Siem Reap, he’s become a foremost expert on the area.

THE Siem Reap-Angkor complex has notched up another world first this month, becoming the first of three regional centres, and the first non-coastal attraction, to be featured in Lonely Planet's new Encounter books, aimed at short-term travellers.
The series was launched in May last year, initially as city guides to locations such as London, Paris and Barcelona.

The publishers decided to expand the concept to regional centres and this month released three books: one each on Phuket, Ko Samui and Siem Reap-Angkor.

"Despite the headlining act that is Angkor, Lonely Planet says Siem Reap has its newfound status as Asia's historic hotspot," the publisher stated. "And in recent times, the town has undergone a metamorphosis from a quaint village to a centre for the international jet set."

Blow-in from the big smoke
The book is compiled by Nick Ray, a familiar name to Lonely Planet aficionados as he's authored a host of guide books. With this publication, he emerges as the world's foremost expert on Siem Reap, despite not being a resident.

Ray lives in Phnom Penh, and some mutterings have emerged that it's a bloody disgrace that the world's foremost expert on Siem Reap is a blow-in from the big smoke down south.

But, as Ray asserts, he packs plenty of Siem Reap cred. While he has never called Siem Reap home, he's been a regular visitor for many years.

"I've spent a lot of time in Siem Reap on projects," he declared. "When I worked on Tomb Raider I lived there for about four months, and I tend to go there at least ten times a year."

Ray was a location and logistics guide for the Tomb Raider movie and, if one accepts the notion that the movie helped put Angkor on the international tourist map, he deserves honorary Siem Reap residency for his role in the location being chosen for the movie.

To recap Hollywood-meets-Siem-Reap history, Tomb Raider, the first Hollywood movie filmed in Cambodia since Peter O'Toole's 1964 Lord Jim, was originally slated to be a Chinese-located movie based around the Terracotta Army coming to life. But that concept was pulled when a Chinese movie featured the army.

Cambodia was next on the list because in early 2000, Cambodian expat personality and prominent blogger, Andy Brouwer, was in Gloucester, England. Read more!