Angkor Wat / Siem Reap - Cambodia: 10th October 09

We were picked up at 9am by Tom and his Tuk-Tuk. This is going to be our last day of temple visits as we bought the 3 days ticket. We started with a 2 hour drive through the countryside to the hills of Kbal Spean. After a 45 minute walk up the hill through the jungle (quite precarious at times!) we reached the famous carved river bed. There used to be temples here and the monks carved deities and patterns into the river bed during the dry season. Below the carvings are a couple of small pretty waterfalls. Nice place, with lots of butterflies as well!

After that we went to Banteay Srei. It’s a smallish temple but is famous because of its intricate carvings and great preservation, it’s a lovely place, made of pink sandstone and everything looks like it has miniature proportions.

On the way back to town we stopped off at the Cambodian Landmine museum – this was set up by a guy called Aki Ra. From the age of 10 he was a Khmer Rouge soldier, trained to kill and plant landmines. At the age of 17 he defected and joined the Vietnamese army, who were fighting against the Khmer Rouge. Once the Vietnamese had gone, he joined the UN and was trained in landmine clearance.

He has become a leading figure in the effort to clear Cambodia of land mines and has spent many years independently travelling the country disabling devices and providing education on the dangers to local communities. He has also taken in children who have been maimed by landmines. He currently houses over 20 orphans on the site of the museum and runs it to ensure that the danger of landmines is understood by the next generation. We found the museum very inspiring, there are estimated to be more than 3 million live landmines remaining in Cambodia. The museum aims to increase awareness of the landmine situation in Cambodia and through its demining programme make the country safe for its people.

In the evening we got together with Shirley and Gareth for cocktails and were joined by 2 Brits, Clare and Nicola. The 6 of us went for happy pizza and normal pizza and then went to have a fish foot massage – yep, a foot massage by fish. You put your feet in a tank and loads of small fish come and nibble them – they only eat the dead skin cells. It was great, it felt really nice and our feet are nice and smooth now – they should bring this to England!