Early part of 2002 helicopter trip to Koh Ker for Douglas Latchford and Emma Bunker. LtoR: Angus Forsyth, village guide, Andrew Ashley (pilot), Khmer guide, Emma Bunker, Douglas Latchford, Sitthi Charoenrith. Photo courtesy of New Theory Pictures and the documentary film, LOOT.
I am swiftly reading my way through my newly-acquired hardback copy of The Man Who Stole the Gods: A True Story of War, Obsession and the World's Biggest Art Heist, by author Matthew Campbell, which I bought from Monument Books in Phnom Penh, priced at USD28.50. I recommend everyone gets their own copy. It’s the tell-all 420+ page exposé delving into the nefarious activities of Douglas Latchford and the theft of Cambodia's sacred treasures.
Prang, Prasat Thom, Koh Ker, November 2001.
I’ve got to the point where in the early months of 2002, Douglas Latchford goes to Koh Ker for the first time, by helicopter. I had made my own way to Koh Ker a few months before, in November 2001, on the back of a moto, covering 70kms in eight hours along a rutted and sandy ox-cart trail. It was a hard slog. Hence, I was intrigued to read about Latchford’s VIP visit. The book highlights Latchford stepping off the helicopter, having landed in a field on the edge of Koh Ker, and despite the end of the civil war a few years earlier, a site such as Koh Ker remained very difficult to reach, hence his choice of carrier. It suggests Latchford was one of the very first outsiders to lay eyes on Koh Ker since the late 1960s, when fighting first broke out in the region. He and one of his companions on the visit, Emma Bunker, wrote in the magazine Arts of Asia that they were “elated that we had been among the first in modern times to revisit a site that still exudes a rare exoticism. Having seen its jungle-covered ruins in situ, we were now in some sense forever part of its history.” I’d better add my name to that visitors list as well. I’m not even half-way through the book yet, so less chatting, more reading.
The Man Who Stole the Gods by Matthew Campbell (2026).
Independent researcher and Cheltenham, UK-born and bred, Andy Brouwer made his first trip to Cambodia in 1994, and that white-knuckle ride hooked him for life. He upped sticks to Phnom Penh in 2007 after more than thirty years in banking back in the UK to join Hanuman Films for the next 15 years.
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