Day 6: The Land Mine Museum

Siem Reap - Monday 20/12

After a long day yesterday out on the lake, a much shorter day today with some R&R time in the afternoon to relax by the pool.

We travelled a short distance out of town first thing to visit the Land Mine Museum, a facility set up by a man known as Aki Ra to show the history of land mines and other armaments that have been dropped on Cambodia that continue to cause deaths to this day. The centre also includes a rehabilitation centre for the poorest kids that have been injured themselves or orphaned by land mines.

Aki Ra is a former "boy solider" himself, who was recruited into the Khmer Rouge and then defected to the Vietnamese and then the Cambodian army. After a life in the army, he realised the devastation that so many armies had caused to his country and now dedicates his life to clearing land mines. His personal vision is a Cambodia free of land mines.

Aki Ra has personally cleared tens of thousands of mines and has now set up an organisation that employs a number of people to continue this work. The Land Mine Museum is a sobering experience that reminds us of the many countries that have waged war in Cambodia over many decades. This includes the United States who inflicted massive damage on Cambodia during the Vietnam war but still today have not signed the Ottawa Treaty, an international treaty to ban the use of land mines and other weapons

We believe we may have the very special opportunity to meet Aki Ra when we visit the north of Cambodia in a few days time - this is sort of the local equivalent of meeting Nelson Mandela, so if it happens we will be very privileged.

Following the museum visit, we visited the Banteay Srei temple, one of the oldest temples in Cambodia having been built in 967 AD. This is a very small temple, but is unique as it was constructed mostly from pink sandstone. This not only gives the temple a unique colour, but sandstone is quite soft and easy to carve, it has some of the most intricate carving work of any of the temples we visited (even though it is the oldest).

After our final temple visit, we returned to Siem Reap town for lunch at the Peace Cafe. This cafe was setup by an Australian under the auspices of Fair Trade and is now run by locals. The Peace Cafe is all vegetarian so was very much enjoyed by Ellen R !

The afternoon was for lazing by the pool and we will head out for an early dinner in Pub Street this evening before the girls hit the markets again.

Tomorrow is another R&R day before we head up toward the Thai border, so our next blog will be in a few days time.