11 they would only have to pay for their transportation expenses, such as their round-trip fare by ship. It was decided that six students including myself would accompany him. That was a period prior to the liberalization of overseas travel (1964), an era when a dollar was worth 360 yen. Nevertheless, on my entering the Bank of Japan to apply for the purchase of dollars, the person at the bank on seeing me snapped, “we are at a time when collecting foreign exchange is an urgency. Do you really mean to say a mere non-working student like you intends using dollars?” With those sermonizing words, the issue came to an end. From Yokohama we sailed on a French mail steamer to South Vietnam, and this being my first overseas study voyage I had the feeling of going on a sightseeing trip. After passing through Saigon (present-day Ho Chi Minh City) we journeyed by steam locomotive towards Hue, and while Professor Rietsch conducted his lectures, for a period of around three weeks I interacted with Vietnamese university students, and visited scenic spots and places of historical interest in the former capital. Later we returned to Saigon, and there after having made arrangements to hire a low-cost shared taxi we entered the city of Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and after an overnight stay at Phnom Penh we headed towards Siem Reap, a town located near Angkor Wat. In Siem Reap, the Far East Academy has been engaged in conservation and restoration activities on monuments such as Angkor Wat, since 1907. I think it was in the course of a lecture by Professor Rietsch entitled French Cultural History, but I had heard of these archaeological site restoration activities of the Far East Academy, as instances of the cultural contribution tasks that France was carrying out overseas. The EFEO has its basis on the Indochina Archaeological Research Committee established in Saigon in 1898 during the French Indochina era, a research institute with headquarters in Hanoi since 1901. In 1908 the Angkor Conservation Office (Conservation d’Angkor) was begun in Siem Reap, and it was engaged in
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