The Traveller's Magazine
It seems Cambodia’s most popular tourist attraction, Angkor Wat, is suffering some a serious case of overexposure… at least in terms of its visitors. At least 5 foreign tourists have been arrested and deported for taking nude photos at sacred sights.
Local authorities have zero tolerance for visitors stripping down to their bare bottoms to take photographs at Angkor Archaeological Park, the sprawling UNESCO site that attracts around 2 million visitors a year. The site holds an enormous spiritual and historical significance to local Cambodians and seeing naked tourists posing by its temples is understandably unsettling.
Angkor Wat is the most sacred temple in the country, and the place that has inspired countless tourists to book flights to Cambodia. This month along, guards arrested two twenty-something Americans snapping photos of each other naked in the temple of Preah Khan. They were sentenced to a six-month suspended sentence, a fine of $250, deportation and a four-year ban from the country.
In January, it was three French tourists that were deported for the same thing.
