A temple, a landmine museum, and houses on stilts

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Certainly we had not seen enough temples yet, so this morning, after filling up on bacon and papaya at the Tara Angkor buffet, we were off to Banteay Srey, “Citadel of the Women”, an 11th century Hindu temple, one of the best preserved in Cambodia. Its unique pink sandstone is not seen anywhere else in Angkor, and has contributed to the preservation of the amazing bas relief historical carvings of the lives of 11^th century Khmer people. Battles, domestic life, birth, death and everything else are depicted on the walls in scene after scene of everyday goings on. Carol kept taking pictures of the trees depicted… art project ideas.

On the way back to lunch in Siem Reap, we stopped at the Landmine Museum, which is a tribute and fundraising effort for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Cambodians injured or killed by the 10 million landmines laid during the various wars since 1970. One purpose of landmines, especially the small, hard-to-detect ones, is to maim instead of kill. Why? Because to force the enemy to care for their injured is far more time consuming (detrimental) to the enemy than having them take a few minutes to bury their dead. Mr. Aki Ra, the founder, continues to work today as a de-miner, since 4 million landmines remain in the fields throughout Cambodia.

In the afternoon, we were off on a 90 minute drive over rough, deteriorating dirt roads to Tonlé Sap Lake, actually “Large Fresh Water River”. It is a river that flows into the Mekong River during the November-to-May dry season, and then flows the other way the other months, going from 2,000 square kilometers up to 12,000 (yes, that is 6x) as it rises 3-6 meters. The towns of 2-3000 inhabitants on the muddy inlets surrounding the lake have houses on stilts that are that high to accommodate the depth change, and wooden bridges cross from side to side. Twenty-five percent (3 million) of all Cambodians live near this river-lake.

This description does not, however, capture the rural and protected nature of these places. Except for the motorboats, mopeds, and fish trucks, these places are frozen in time in some past centuries – really. Oh, there is a cellphone tower.

I have never seen this before. Kids fishing in the rivulet, some naked, visqueen covered stick frames hovering over the same water serving as toilets, and every manner of entrepreneur buzzing by in a rudimentary motorboat. This, all near a large gilt temple or perhaps local municipal structure. The water was brown; litter was everywhere. One in five children die before age 5 because they haven’t built up immunity to the diseases and pollution in, for example, the water that surrounds them.

On the way back we stopped at a roadside vendor stand. The closest thing in the USA is a fruit vendor you see on the back roads. “Avocados 10 for $1” or the like. This one was cooking sugar palm sap to make candies, which were pretty good – one-inch pucks of sugar that taste like light molasses. Oooh – and we also saw a cashew tree, which we have never seen before, and a cashew nut growing – very strange looking (see photo)!

Oh brother, the food is so good here! The hotel buffets are wonderful! And every restaurant we have gone to for lunch or dinner has been a fixed menu with Thai food of all different sorts. But this will be the subject of another separate blog. Oh yes, and of course, there is plenty of bacon with every breakfast!