Angkor National Museum off to a rocky start

The Thai-owned Angkor National Museum is off to a rocky start, as the Phnom Penh Post discovers, in the wake of critical reviews since its opening in June.

Thai-owned museum weathers criticism
Phnom Penh Post, 02 October 2008

She is obviously fervently Buddhist, and she is the museum’s managing director, Sunaree Wongpiyabovorn. Perhaps she’s praying for guidance because she is about to engage the enemy, the media, in the form of The Phnom Penh Post.

It’s taken over three months for her to agree to speak to the Post, and she is quick to decline being photographed, saying she wants to avoid “the flames of publicity”.

She admits she feels that she’s been burnt by the media, and since its inception the museum has endured a withering blast of bad press, culminating in a savage indictment in the International Herald Tribune on July 2.