Our final day we headed further afield towards the 'Lady temple' of Bantai Srei. But on route we made a stop at the Cambodian Landmine museum.
After all the hard hitting history at Phnom Penh with the Khmer Rouge and killing fields, we were then introduced to another horrific historic event (1970 US carpet bombing of Cambodia) that resulted in 2,700,000+ tons of bombs landing. There were 65,000 bombing missions, with each B52 carrying 107 bombs (a small village could have been hit by 321 bombs in 15 minutes).
The bombing of Cambodia resulted in the loss of approximately 600,000 lives and contributed significantly to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
With hundreds of thousands of these bombs not detonating instantly and still littering the countryside today, it has meant that the after effects of this event have long continued. It is said that 1 in every 300 Cambodian people is a landmine victim.
The museum was set up by Aki Ra, a bomb disarmed who had dedicated his life to locating and disarming landmines, and today the museum relief centre (located behind) is home to many of today's young victims.
After a few hours taking all of this in, and contemplating the impact it has had on the country, we were ready to lighten our minds with another temple stop.
Bantai Srei is 37km North of Angkor Wat, but it was totally worth the journey! Known as the lady temple and for its intricate carvings, we spent a good amount of time exploring and taking in all of its beautiful details.
The stone is a beautiful pink hue (perhaps why it gets named the Lady temple?) and its deep detailed carvings of elephants, Buddhas and decorative designs were spectacular to see. We couldn't imagine just how long it took to build, let alone calve this temple!
The new visitor centre was also a great source of knowledge and information to help give more understanding and photographs up close of the finer details that are easily missed!
We headed back towards Angkor Temple stopping at Bantraey Samre which was actively being restored. We even got chatting with the restorers who were showing us their work. Really interesting to see the restoration side of things and what's involved in taking care of these amazing sights.
Chris did a quick jump out the tuk tuk to see Ta Keo, which allowed you to climb up the original steep steps.
And we all did a quick whistle stop tour of the two smaller temples that we can missed on our tour of the shorter route yesterday - Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon (almost identical across the road from each other) on our way back to catch the sunset.
We had wanted to go up the hill to see sunset over Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakheng, but sadly so did everyone else in the area, so it was full (only 300 people allowed up) by the time we had arrived (5pm). We then also found out that if we had wanted to be in with a chance we should have arrived around 3pm... oh well! So we turned around and scooted back to the main entrance of Angkor Wat to enjoy one last Angkor (beer) at Angkor. A perfect end to our 3 day temple tour!
 |
| 600,000 lives lost |
After all the hard hitting history at Phnom Penh with the Khmer Rouge and killing fields, we were then introduced to another horrific historic event (1970 US carpet bombing of Cambodia) that resulted in 2,700,000+ tons of bombs landing. There were 65,000 bombing missions, with each B52 carrying 107 bombs (a small village could have been hit by 321 bombs in 15 minutes).
The bombing of Cambodia resulted in the loss of approximately 600,000 lives and contributed significantly to the rise of the Khmer Rouge.
 |
| Locations of the 65,000 bombing missions |
With hundreds of thousands of these bombs not detonating instantly and still littering the countryside today, it has meant that the after effects of this event have long continued. It is said that 1 in every 300 Cambodian people is a landmine victim.
 |
| So many different types of landmines |
The museum was set up by Aki Ra, a bomb disarmed who had dedicated his life to locating and disarming landmines, and today the museum relief centre (located behind) is home to many of today's young victims.
 |
| Aki Ra disarming bombs by hand |
After a few hours taking all of this in, and contemplating the impact it has had on the country, we were ready to lighten our minds with another temple stop.
Bantai Srei is 37km North of Angkor Wat, but it was totally worth the journey! Known as the lady temple and for its intricate carvings, we spent a good amount of time exploring and taking in all of its beautiful details.
The stone is a beautiful pink hue (perhaps why it gets named the Lady temple?) and its deep detailed carvings of elephants, Buddhas and decorative designs were spectacular to see. We couldn't imagine just how long it took to build, let alone calve this temple!
 |
| Calvings of Bantai Srei |
 |
| ELEPHANTS! |
The new visitor centre was also a great source of knowledge and information to help give more understanding and photographs up close of the finer details that are easily missed!
We headed back towards Angkor Temple stopping at Bantraey Samre which was actively being restored. We even got chatting with the restorers who were showing us their work. Really interesting to see the restoration side of things and what's involved in taking care of these amazing sights.
 |
| Bantraey Samre |
 |
| At work |
Chris did a quick jump out the tuk tuk to see Ta Keo, which allowed you to climb up the original steep steps.
 |
| Steep climb |
And we all did a quick whistle stop tour of the two smaller temples that we can missed on our tour of the shorter route yesterday - Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon (almost identical across the road from each other) on our way back to catch the sunset.
 |
| Chau Say Tevoda |
We had wanted to go up the hill to see sunset over Angkor Wat from Phnom Bakheng, but sadly so did everyone else in the area, so it was full (only 300 people allowed up) by the time we had arrived (5pm). We then also found out that if we had wanted to be in with a chance we should have arrived around 3pm... oh well! So we turned around and scooted back to the main entrance of Angkor Wat to enjoy one last Angkor (beer) at Angkor. A perfect end to our 3 day temple tour!
 |
| One final Angkor.... |
 |
| ...at Angkor! |
No comments:
Post a Comment