Some of you will know that one of the few things that I really excel at, is attracting mosquitoes. They absolutely love me so, as Cambodia is considered a Malaria risk, I did the research and bought the best reviewed repellant Jungle formula maximum strength – No. 4 – lasts 9 hours. 

Last night we went out for the first time and this morning I am covered in bites. That repellant is as much use as mudflaps on a tortoise. 

I’m still waking up at precisely 4:28am, so our 6am start to visit Angkor Wat was no problem. 

First port of call was the local laundry. 

Determined to travel light, I only took enough clothes for one week and then I have them washed. 

Yesterday I realised that I had ‘simply nothing to wear darling’ so I popped my washing in the hotel laundry bag and then noticed it was $5.60 to wash a single shirt! I totted up all the items and it was well over $100! It’s cheaper to buy new here! (‘Genuine’ Ralph Lauren Polo shirts, only $5 sir! 😊). 

I Whatsapped Sukon, our Cambodian guide, he knew a local laundry, and I dropped everything off. 

The whole lot came to three dollars! More than Hanoi though. Must be a tourist trap here!

I’m ashamed to say that I had never heard of Angkor Wat until I researched this trip but I soon found out that it’s considered one of the seven modern wonders of the modern world and for good reason.

It is a complex of 72 major Hindu-Buddist temples (and over two hundred more minor ones) set in 402 acres, surrounded by a moat of over 3 miles and protected by an inner wall 2.2 miles long. 

It is the largest religious structure in the world. Construction began in 1150 on the orders of King Suryavarman II as a Hindu temple and it was the capital city of the Khmer Empire and latterly the kings mausoleum.

According to the reports of a Chinese explorer of the 12th century, the temples were covered in gold and silver and precious stones.

It became a Buddhist temple in the 1200’s after the Kymer/Cham war but fell into disuse in the 19th century and was largely forgotten and left to be reclaimed by the jungle as you’ll see in the photos.

We visited the three main temples, 

Angkor Wat, Tiprohm and Angkor Thom.

If it’s starting to look familiar, it’s probably because you saw the movie, Tomb Raider. It was filmed here before its star, Angelina Jolie adopted most of the children in Cambodia, installed them in her French vineyard chateau and sold it to the Russians without telling poor Brad (allegedly). 

It’s completely spectacular, it even has photogenic monkeys.

We spent hours here and some people spend weeks. There is so much history which I’m not going to go into because (a) there’s too much of it and (b) There was more than could fit into my brain so most of didn’t go in, but please Google it, it’s very Interesting.

After Angkor Wat we visited the Landmine museum (I misread it as ‘Landline museum’ and expected to see a collection of old Cambodian telephones).

The story of the Landmine exhibition is almost as astonishing as Angkor Wat.

I said yesterday that I’d mention the recent history so here is an extremely condensed version but it’s very important for context:

The civil war was fought by the Communist Party of Kampuchea (Better known as the Khmer Rouge) supported by North Vietnam and the Viet Cong, (remember them?) against the Government forces of the Kingdom of Cambodia, who were Supported by the US and South Vietnam. 

So, pretty much the same as the Vietnam war. Communists v Capitalists.

It lasted 8 years from 1967 to 1975 and was one of the most brutal, savage and cruel wars ever fought. 

The Khmer Rouge were victorious and established ‘Democratic’ (Haha!) Kampuchea. 

30% of all property had been destroyed, almost 300,000 people killed and two million displaced.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, it did. Much, much worse.

The leader of Democratic Kampuchea was Pol Pot, a murderous dictator (probably in the top three all-time list) who perpetrated Cambodian genocide and, in the following four years, he wiped out over a quarter of the population of Cambodia, around 2 million people.

It ended in 1978 when Vietnam invaded, occupied the whole country in two weeks, toppled Pol Pot, ended the bloodshed and put in place a new government (which it still has a strong influence over today).

(According to the Cambodians who I have talked with, there’s a much more sinister side to this alliance but that’s for another day….)

The terrible legacy however of these and previous wars is that Cambodia today still has somewhere between 4-6 MILLION live landmines across the country (some estimates say 10 million), which are still killing people every day, 45 years after the war ended. It has 40,000 amputees , the highest rate in the world. 

The Landmine museum is the story of a Cambodian child whose parents were both killed in the civil war. He was recruited by the Khmer Rouge and became a child soldier at 10, given an AK47 and told to go shoot everyone. He also laid thousands of landmines. 

He saw the horrors of war, particularly as the landmines mutilated most of his friends. (They are designed to mutilate, not kill, as it costs a lot more to treat the wounded).

He defected aged 17 and after the war trained as a de-miner and worked with the UN. 

He took the name Aki Ra from a Japanese journalist, (it means Clear or Ideal) and in his one-man crusade has personally cleared over 50,000 mines. He set up his museum in 1997 to make the world aware of the legacy they leave behind and was instrumental in the Ottawa treaty banning landmines which most countries now adhere to.

He’s been honoured all over the world for his work and there he was, just sat at his desk, in the corner of the museum, smiling but not introducing himself. We had no idea it was him until our guide told us who he was. He is very humble and unassuming and responsible for saving thousands of lives.

Our next stop was to Herorats, an organisation that trains rats to sniff out landmines.

I’m distraught, what if my dinner the other night was one of their star pupils? So upsetting. I vowed never to eat Octopus again after watching ‘My octopus teacher’ on Netflix and I now solemnly swear that I will never eat another rat. 

Fruit Quiz

No winners yesterday.

Nicky, you were correct insofar as you said that you couldn’t win twice in a week 😀

You were close though, so maybe half a point. It’s called a Calamansi which is sometimes called a Philippine Lime or Philippine Lemon but it’s actually a hybrid between a kumquat and a mandarin orange.

Okay, lets go easy on you today. Two points up for grabs…

I’m very excited about tomorrow, we’re going to see the elephants!

27th November 2024

Siem Reap