Temples and Land Mines

I've finally found my way to Cambodia and that means temples, and lots of them! As I mentioned in my previous post, I've met up with my roommate from Jakarta. There were complications with my flight, getting the information to her, and knowing if she received it. Finding each other involved Kristina showing my picture around the airport, in a "child on the milk carton" fashion. We did eventually reunite and spent the evening catching up on the past few months over a delicious meal of Indian.

My first full day in Siem Reap was spent going to the temples of Banteay Srei, Kbal Spean, Pre Rup and the Land Mine Museum. It was an awesome day mixed with a some heart wrenching stories. Kristina arranged for a tuk-tuk to take us to all these places as they are much further than the temples surrounding Angkor Wat. It was a lovely ride filled with stunning views of mountains and rice paddies. 

Detailed carvings

Banteay Srei

Banteay Srei is also known as the pink temple or the temple of women. The name for it translates into 'Citadel of the Women'. It is said to have been carved by women as the carvings are too detailed and delicate for the hands of a man. It is also known as 'Pink Temple' because the stone it is made from has a pinkish tint to it. Banteay Srei is quite a small temple compared to Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in carvings. I've seen a lot of ancient and not so ancient carvings in my time here in SE Asia, and honestly, this temple contains the best I've seen anywhere. Banteay Srei is estimated to have been built 967. Despite being almost 1000 years old, left to the jungle for hundreds of years, and being partially destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, the carvings still look 3D and are in amazing shape! 

Spirit Guards

Most of the spirit guards surrounding the temples are missing their right arm. They are sandstone replicas of the original statues found there. I'm not entirely certain why they are missing their right arms, but if memory serves correct, the Khmer Rouge again had something to do with it. This temple not only survived the Khmer Rouge Regime but also a Frenchman's attempt to steal important statues and sculptures in the early 1930s. He and his accomplices were caught before they left the country and he only served one year in prison. 

Top of the river at Kbal Spean

River carvings

Our next stop of the day was Kbal Spean, a beautiful area that doesn't actually contain a temple. It's a 1.5km walk up to the beginning of a riverbed where there are carvings in the stone in the river. The river leads to a waterfall and all along the river, there are carvings of Vishnu, Shiva, and random animals such as a crocodile and turtle. Because of the uphill hike and distance from the other temples, we didn't encounter too many other tourists, just a handful of locals. It was extremely peaceful and we surmised that the area must have been bathing pools the people of old. It is amazing to me that these carvings have lasted in the water for as long as they have. Some of them have water rushing over them constantly during the rainy season yet most of the carvings do not look like they've been affected by this. 

As we meandered our way down to the waterfall, a lovely site guide took us under her wing and began pointing out all the different carvings in the riverbed and on the boulders surrounding the river. Without her help, I wouldn't have noticed 3/4 of these as many of them were in places I wasn't expecting. There were huge patches of the riverbed that had been carved to look like tiles. This is what made Kristina and I come to our conclusion that it was used for bathing back in the day. 

Mines from Aki Ra's collection

Our next location of the day was a bit of a tear jerker but inspiring story of Aki Ra, a man born in 1970, turned child soldier, Vietnamese defector, Cambodian Army Solider, civilian, unofficial de-miner, owner of an NGO and orphanage. Aki Ra believes he was born in 1970 but is not entirely certain. By the time he was 5, both his parents were dead and he was a child soldier in the Khmer Rouge. It was during this time that he learned to plant land mines and could do hundreds in a day. When the Vietnamese Army entered the war picture in Cambodia, Aki Ra defected, and fought against the Khmer Rouge with the Vietnamese until they pulled their troops out. He then joined the Cambodian Army and continued to fight against the Khmer Rouge. When the civil war ended, he started digging up landmines and defusing them on his own with no assistance or recognition from the government. 

Aki Ra

To go about finding and defusing the mines, he would poke the ground with a long bamboo stick. He would do this in neat rows to deem an area safe. Once he found a mine, he would dig it up and use pliers to remove the detonator. Upon doing this he would use a couple of different methods to remove the TNT. All of this work was done in flip flops, shorts, and no protective gear in sight. His years of planting mines as a child, teen, and adult provided him with a wealth of knowledge on the different types of mines. In all the years he defused mines, he and everyone he worked with never blew one up or was injured in any way. I'd say this is a major feet considering how unpredictable they can be! Now to be sanctioned by the government and have his organization recognized as an NGO, Aki Ra has to follow international safety standards for defusing and removing land mines. This means he can no longer walk around in flip flops and poke the ground with a stick. Nor can he remove the detonators with pliers. Now he has to wear a massive protective suit and blow the land mine up where it is found. At his museum, he says these safety standards have slowed his work and he can no longer remove hundreds of mines in a day. 

Behind the museum is an orphanage for children who are victims of land mines. It provides them with an education and offers them a chance to go to university or some sort of trade school. Aki Ra has made an incredible transition from child solider to a man driven to help rid his country of the legacies of war and to help those that have been affected by it.