We cannot for the life of us remember the name of this one but it was very tall. The rectangular raised-garden-like thing at the bottom of this picture was a crematorium. We joked that if you fall from the top off the stairs you fall to the right place.
The Pink Temple. Aptly named for its color - this temple is the oldest one we saw - constructed during the ninth century. This was a Hindu temple dedicated to shiva.
This temple trotting was more or less what we were expecting the remainder of the day to be like. It wasn't. They were both pretty far out from the greater Siem Reap area and the Land Mine museum was on the way back. Cooper had expressed interest early on, so when Cheat offered to take us there we gladly jumped on the opportunity. This was the first of a new kind of "wow.". We thought it might be a cool display of weapons and maybe show some history of the war. While both those thing were present, it was about so much more. Akita, the museum's founder (and also a CNN hero), has spent years clearing land mines from Cambodia. He has also in this time started a foundation that takes in orphaned and land mine disabled children, gives them an education, and then a scholarship through university. Their stories are eloquently displayed in one of the rooms. I found it very valuable to be educated on this issue. If you have some time, I think you would benefit from some research on this issue as well.
Information at the entrance of the museum.
One of the MANY cases filled with disabled land mines. There were many of Vietnamese, US, Russian, and Chinese origins.
wall of information on the children residing at the institute. They each wrote their own stories.
From there we went to the Tonle Sap lake- the largest lake in Southeast Asia. This means "fresh water lake" in Khmer. Like all the water we've seen thus far in Asia, it is very brown in color. We hired a boat to take us to the floating villages. The people of these villages move their homes from the river to the lake and then back again depending on whether it is the dry or rainy season. while amazing to see, it was also very difficult just because of the extreme poverty that was present.
View from the top of a docking station.
A boat being constructed before our very eyes.
Kids on their way home from school. It's probably needless to say but kids learn yo swim at a very young age.
That night we went to an apsara show. Apsara is a Khmer style of dance. It was bit cheesy (like going to a luau in Hawaii) but nonetheless a tourist attraction you don't exactly want to miss. I left a bit early as this was the worst of my illness but Alex and Cooper powered through. Possibly the weirdest part, they reported back, was at the end when a group of Chinese tourists rushed the stage.
Our takeaway from today is how lucky we are to have been born into the lives we've been given. We hope to find little ways to give back.
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I am going to Santa Barbara for the week end does that count?
ReplyDeleteyour writing is impressive......loving all your observations!
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