Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
large projector screens provided live coverage of the red carpet entrance where SUVs and
Mercedes-Benzes disgorged wealthy guests. Men in suits and women in diamonds bowed
to the happy couple and placed cash-stuffed envelopes in a large box.
The bride walked down the red carpet, diamonds binding her hair and gracing her neck.
Her dress was a perfect white. Waiters bore waves of seafood, suckling pig, and abalone;
in the center of each table stood a large bottle of Chivas Regal 18YO. When the bride's
uncle finally arrived, fashionably late, guests crowded along the red carpet to offer their
respects. Prime Minister Hun Sen walked slowly down the carpet with Bun Rany, her
face frozen into a smile above a large diamond necklace. Cambodia's first couple moved
slowly, stopping now and then to shake hands or greet children. After the prime minister's
party was seated, the cake was cut and guests crowded the front of the stage. The wives of
government officials lined up and performed the
ramvong
, the circular Cambodian folk
dance, spinning their wrists as the band broke into “Let's Twist Again” and “Sunshine
Day.” And so another elite Cambodian coupling was consummated, in lavish style.
Strangely, most guests paid little attention to the prime minister and his group once
they were seated at a table near the stage, under the stern eye of bodyguards with earpiece
radios. Hun Sen, in a bright blue shirt, sat sipping red wine, with Bun Rany to his left. At
his right hand was the foreign minister, Hor Namhong, hunched over his plate. Across the
table was another couple: a tall man in a black suit with an open-necked shirt and a wo-
man with dyed black hair, her face painted a ghostly white. They were Senator Lao Meng
Khin and Choeung Sopheap, the baron and baroness of Boeung Kak lake. They gazed at
the prime minister, their bodyguards hovering, the
ramvong
circling hypnotically on the
dance floor. Then they raised their glasses, smiling across the table as the band played on.
