For 16 years, Srey Mom has run a roadside restaurant just a short distance from Angkor Wat, the largest temple complex in the world and Cambodia’s top tourist attraction.
The ancient ruins of the Khmer empire have drawn more than 600,000 foreign visitors since the start of this year, generating just under US$30 million ($46 million) in ticket sales. The opening of the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport in October is expected to see those figures increase even further.
Locals living inside the 400-square-kilometre historic site have relied on rice farming and, like Srey, on tourism for a living.
