Our Next Trip Took Us To The Cambodian Land Mine Museum,

it is located 7 km south of the Bantey Srei Temple complex in Angkor National Park,

I have copied and pasted this as it says what you need to know better than I could write it, 'the Landmine Museum offer tourists and Cambodians the chance to see (safe) landmines up close, understand how they work, and what they can do to help rid Cambodia and the world of their continuing threat,'

we parked the van made our way inside, it is $3 admission,

The Landmine Museum was founded by ex-child soldier Aki Ra as a way to tell the world about the horrors landmines had inflicted on his native Cambodia, He used the proceeds to clear landmines wherever he could find them, children are looked after at the facility, but help is always needed, even for basic things such as clean drinking water,

it is chilling to think of the damage these bombs could do if one was found in a field, the aim of the museum is to find and make safe any unexploded ordnance or land mines that are still out there, and there are lots,

the facts are chilling, 'ten years ago around 4,500 people were maimed or killed in land mine and UXO explosions every year, since 2000 this figure has dropped dramatically and has remained at the relatively constant value of 800 per year, farmers, wood collectors and school children are the most common victims, of the survivors, 25% require amputations',

I am not sure what happen to this one,

 

all of these have of course been made safe,

the sign says it all, in case it is too small to read, 'A Mine Field Cleared Is A Rice Field Forever!',

 

the museum though small is packed with information,

self help groups are in the field at almost all times,

what appears to be a benign gazebo in the centre of the pond in fact contains a stock of horrors,

 

pieces of sophisticated equipment,

designed to do one thing,

to maim,

not to kill,

the theory being that if you wound a soldier it takes two others to help him back to a field hospital,

 

the problem is that Cambodia has had so much conflict over the years that millions of mines are still out there,

doing exactly what they are supposed to do,

unfortunately doing it too well,

most are anti personnel,

some like these caltrops have been used for a couple of thousand years, but they are easy to find with a metal detector but modern mines are not so easy to find,

the museum also traces the history of the Khmer Rouge, their weapons and their dress,

 

the last time I was here signs like these could be seen along the road side, now thankfully areas around roads and towns are slowly becoming safe again, but it is a slow process,

other horrors include man sized gin traps,

and these frag and blast mines,

everything you need to know about mines,

 

how to set them up for maximum effect,

whilst we were there Bill Morse, who has devoted so much to the museum gave a talk to visitors,

he explain clearly and concisely how the museum came into being,

 

Aki Ra was given his first gun when he was about 11 years old and told to kill, he was laugh at by the other soldiers as the gun was nearly as big as him, it was a AK47, in his words he thought it was an adventure, till his friends were maimed one by one, after the war he made the decision to clear Cambodia of mines,

Bill went to explain how difficult it was to locate mines, from memory to find 600 mines they had to dig 7,000 holes, most of course were just pieces of junk, but the next one just might be a real mine,

the team,

and some of the many kids the museum have helped,

 

both Jeff and I made a contribution, if you if you are in Cambodia have a mind to, pop in and say hi, better still pop in say hi and leave a little something in the box,

Bill's dog, barks occasionally so Diana is keeping away from it,

we seem to be seeing lots of over loaded vehicles today, first this three wheeler,

then a normal motorbike,

next stop the elephant temple,

there is not much of the building left,

but on each of the corners on each terrace an elephant gazes into the distance,

 

the view is of course now blocked by tress,

 

supports have been place on some of the buildings,

these are deceptively high,

that is Da to give you some idea of scale,

but some have not stood up to the elements well,

here just a few walls,

this one no roof,

efforts have been made to stabilise the structures like this staple,

 

or by using wooden 'A' frames to shore up the buildings,

but some do not look at all stable,

one of the elephants on silent sentry duty,

 

one on the next terrace down,

this ones view blocked by trees,

 

the one on the next terrace up has trees still in the way,

Diana by what I think is a lion,

a window with a broken column,

one elephant in the distance,

 

one close up,

our next stop is to Neak Pean,

it is an island in a artificial reservoir,

it is a long walk along a newly made walk way,

Diana strikes the pose,

and again a bit further along,

the island has a pool on each sided and is considered to have healing powers,

the four connected pools represent Water, Earth, Fire and Wind,

the statue in the centre of the pools, also we were told there is a hot spring in one of the pools, but unfortunately as it is a bit unstable we could not go close to the sides of the pools as they had been fenced off,

on the way back we stopped at this band of musicians and bought one of their CDs,

I was playing it as I was writing the blog a little earlier.