Thailand & Cambodia are awesome!

The Cambodian Landmine Museum

Before you can know about the Cambodian Landmine Museum, you have to know about Aki Ra. He was born and grew up during a very violent time in Cambodian history.

For the purposes of being clear and on point, I am going to rely on wikipedia to provide a lot of the information here. Editor's comments should be obvious, but it shouldn't really matter either way.

Aki Ra (sometimes written Akira) is a former Khmer Rouge conscripted child soldier who works as a deminer and museum curator in Siem Reap, Cambodia. He has devoted his life to removing landmines in Cambodia and to caring for young landmine victims. Aki Ra states that since 1992 he has personally removed and destroyed as many as 50,000 landmines.

Aki Ra is unsure of his age, but believes he was born in 1970 or 1973. His parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Orphaned in a Khmer Rouge camp, he was taken in and raised by a woman named Yourn who raised him and several other orphaned children. Like many others, he soon became a child soldier once his strength became sufficient to make him useful to local Khmer Rouge military commanders. When the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia with the intention of toppling the Khmer Rouge political regime, he was taken into the custody of Vietnamese soldiers. Later he enlisted with the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Armed Forces formed by the new government, the People's Republic of Kampuchea. His duties included placing landmines along the mined area on Cambodia's border with Thailand.

Having laid thousands of landmines as a soldier, Aki Ra found employment as a deminer with the UN in 1991. After leaving UNMAS in 1992, he continued disarming and removing mines in his community. Having no demining tools, he used a knife, a hoe, a Leatherman and a stick. He would defuse the landmines and UXOs (Unexploded Ordnance) he found in small villages and bring home the empty casings. Sometimes he would sell them as scrap to help fund his work.

Tourists began hearing stories about a young Khmer man who cleared landmines with a stick and had a house full of defused ordnance. In 1999 Aki Ra began charging a dollar to see his collection, using the money to help further his activities. Thus began the Cambodian Landmine Museum.



Landmines in Cambodia are a big problem and hundreds of people die every year, including many children. Many people lose their limbs and have to live out the rest of their lives with extreme physical disabilities.

This is what inspired Aki Ra to set up the museum, which is now an NGO which gets a decent amount of support from international sources, due in part to the appearance of Aki Ra on CNN as a "Top 10 hero of the year" in 2010. 27 children also live at the museum, in a complex inaccessible to visitors of course, which acts as a home that provides education and support for dozens of at-risk youth and landmine affected children rescued by the CLMMRF NGO. (A separate NGO from the museum NGO. They both rely on funding to survive)

Many of the exhibits in the museum are constructed by the children who live there, so as you can imagine the place is very anti-war or violence of any sort... but especially landmines and other weapons which are capable of causing such horrific violence to unsuspecting civilians.



The Cambodia Landmine Museum exists for 3 reasons:

1. To tell Aki Ra’s story
2. To tell the world about the horrors of landmines and explain that war is only half the problem. The aftermath of war continues long after the shooting stops.
3. To care for the children who live at the museum.

A part of Aki Ra's story is how horrible war can be, so on top of the mines there are many old weapons and bomb shells scattered throughout the place, including an interesting central display with weapons from various countries in various compartments that you can see above.









All these weapons have been handled by experts and deemed safe. Aki Ra knows what he's doing.. In order to "go legit" they forced him to stop using a stick and to start using proper equipment, as deemed by the UN or whoever, I'm not really sure.

The man has a fascinating life story and I urge you to read a bit about it.

The Cambodian Landmine Museum 2





Like I said, Aki Ra has one hell of a life story.



This is not a very good picture, you can't read any names or positions, but Aki Ra is in the top left.





I hope these last 2 posts help spread some awareness about this problem. I knew landmines were a problem in Cambodia myself, but I didn't really know the extent of the violence until I read the many informational plaques at the museum. There were stories from children, Aki Ra, amputees, orphans, windows, others, landmine statistics, historical content, other information.. I spent about an hour reading it all. I was so enthralled by it and so taken in by the emotional content that I didn't end up taking any pictures of any of the text aside from what you see above. I just went from display to display, hoping to understand more, but also feeling a bit down due to the things I had learned..

The museum left a lasting impression on me.

That's brutal. I can imagine it leaving an impression on you.

It just seems so horrible that these mines are everywhere.. and that people step on them while farming, playing, just walking, driving, etc. I can't imagine living with that sort of reality.. knowing what can happen to your friends and family and actually having to deal with people losing limbs and lives..

Aki Ra is a hero, he claims to have disarmed up to 50,000 mines personally. I can't imagine how many lives that has saved.

If anyone's wondering about his name, it's not Cambodian.. Take it away wikipedia:

The name "Aki Ra" was given to him by a Japanese acquaintance and is not his birth name. He was born Eoun Yeak, but one of his supervisors once compared his efficiency to AKIRA, a heavy-duty appliance company in Japan.

It's not the only place. There are areas of Egypt and Libya with mines left over from WWII. And other parts of the world as well.

Cutlass said:

It's not the only place. There are areas of Egypt and Libya with mines left over from WWII. And other parts of the world as well.

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Yeah.. I completely support the eradication of such weapons from any future use in any future conflict. That's a political issue that I don't want to get into right now though.

I'll post lunch pics next to lighten the mood.

Lunch

It was well past noon, but it was time to eat.. I was taken to a restaurant with no other customers to be seen anywhere. Given the circumstances, this was not suspicious to me at the time.

Please excuse my poor videography skills as I show you a part of the tuk tuk ride down unpaved roads.. This part was exceptionally level.. it gets a bit bumpier there at the end. Most of the unpaved roads we drove on were too bumpy for camera purposes.


Link to video.

At the restaurant were two incredibly nice and sort of cute Cambodian ladies. They didn't really speak much English. There was also this really cute dog, who found a cozy spot for a nap:



Here's a picture of my meal:



Lok Lak - Stir-fried marinated, cubed beef served with fresh red onions, served on a bed of lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes and dipped in a sauce consisting of lime juice, sea salt and black Kampot pepper (tek merec). It is the Cambodian rendition of the Vietnamese dish Bò lúc lắc, which means "shaking beef" in Vietnamese. Regional variants include lok lak American, found in bistro menus in Phnom Penh, distinguished by the addition of French fries (rather than rice) and a fried egg sunny side up.

The two waitresses watched me eat for a while, which I found creepy. It was also complicated to ask them for things like hot sauce, because the language barrier was just too high. (I ended up getting my hot sauce)

Then after I paid they offered me a free massage. I didn't think there was time for a massage so I declined.. Plus it sounded kind of shady. They were nice ladies, don't get me wrong, but it just seemed like a very odd request.

Turns out they were talking about a FISH massage. I'm a "try everything somewhat sensible at least once" kinda guy, so I had to try it.

Warning: pictures and a video of ugly Polish feet coming up.



The fish are apparently not fed that much, and so they try to eat the dirt off your feet.. or something like that anyway, I'm too lazy to look it up. Either way, it's little fish that nibble away at your feet and tickle you. It feels very strange.




Link to video.

After a 5 minute fish massage it was time to continue the ride back to the main group of temples.



According to my notes we stopped at 4 temples after this before heading back to the guest house, but there's only 130 pictures total or so.. and I've been posting every 5th-15th picture.. So the temple madness will soon be over.

Having said that, lighting conditions were favourable and from what I can see a lot of pictures turned out very well.

Neak Pean

Neak Pean is an artificial island with a Buddhist temple on a circular island in Preah Khan Baray built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII. It was originally designed for medical purposes and contains pools at that time thought to cure disease.

Out of all the temples I think this one had the most interesting approach.





The temple itself wasn't really much. It was surrounded by a couple of those magical pools.





On the way back..





Does this hat look familiar to you? Scroll back a bit and it might.



A happy newly married couple was there for wedding pictures. I got one.

I remember the guy at the landmine museum telling the story of when he was accompanying Aki Ra to the US for the CNN thing. They arrived and were going through customs, and he was stopped, because he'd decided to bring some landmines with him as exhibits of his work. They'd become such an everyday thing for him, he hadn't realised that there'd be a problem with carrying them through an airport into the US.

I think the fish massage is primarily meant to get rid of dead skin, rather than dirt.

Camikaze said:

I think the fish massage is primarily meant to get rid of dead skin, rather than dirt.

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Now that I think about it, that sounds exactly right.

Ta Som

I was basically all templed out at this point and ready to head back to the guest house.. but there was enough time for a couple more stops and a couple smaller temples that came recommended were on the way back.

Imagine moving all that stone with just human, and maybe some animal, power.

East Mebon

The East Mebon is a 10th Century temple which stands on what was an artificial island at the centre of the now dry East Baray reservoir.

If you're curious where exactly it is compared to the other temples, here's that map again. East Baray is in the top right.

There are two-meter-high free-standing stone elephants at corners of the first and second tiers of the temple. They really stand out.





The fat neon guy scratching his head sort of ruins this picture.





I'm glad we stopped here, it was worth it. Not too many people around and very unique scenery.





I can't imagine how amazing it must have looked like a thousand years ago, when the temple was in pristine condition and surrounded by that much water.

Nice work on that elephant.

Pre Rup

Pre Rup was built in 962 as the state temple of Khmer king Rajendravarman. It is a temple mountain of combined brick, laterite, and sandstone construction and is aligned with East Mebon on a north-south axis.

It is also the last Angkor temple that I visited.



Climbing up, I noticed female workers removing weeds on a ledge to my right.



It's almost possible to see my tuk tuk from here.











That was it.. it was time to head back to the guest house. I was sort of exhausted, but it was well worth it.

You might remember the debacle early on in the morning.. involving the fact that someone at the guest house messed up and my tuk tuk driver wasn't waiting for me at 5am? I'll remind you that the guy they woke up was a younger guy who ran through red lights and such to get me there. Well, when we got back to the guest house and I was getting out of the tuk tuk, I noticed that the main "tough" guy (who happened to be in charge) was standing in the courtyard, leaning against the side of a car. There were 4-6 other guys doing exactly the same thing, all staring at me with a 100% neutral expression on all their faces.

It was intimidating at first, but I figured they wanted to see how the new young driver handled the probably angry white tourist. Maybe that's not what was going on, but that was my on spot assessment of the situation. I wasn't angry at the driver at all, nor was I really that angry in the morning either.. and he was actually very good to me throughout the 12+ hour day... So I gave him a relatively large tip, thanked him, and made sure that the possee could see.

I'm not sure if that really did anything, but I didn't really care. It was time for a shower.

And of course food. I didn't know what I wanted to eat, but it was my last night in the country, so I wanted to indulge in Khmer food one last time.

I ended up walking towards the Old Market and Pub street, which is the happenin' part of town. There's many side streets there, night markets, street food, pubs, restaurants, and so on. It was about a 10-20 minute walk from my guest house.

On the way there I just had to take a picture of one of the many pizza places around my guest house that offered "special" toppings.



I ended up eating at a place called Khmer Kitchen. Their speciality was that Mick Jagger ate there once. And I forget what I ate, but it was actually really damn good. I would go back in a heartbeat if I could.

I had to be up at 6am for my journey back to Bangkok, Thailand, so I looked around the night markets a bit and checked out a bit of the pub street scene, but ended up in bed fairly early. It had been a very long (but very rewarding) day.

Chaos in central Bangkok

Before we get to the chaos, we'll first have to make our way through the Cambodian - Thai border... again.

It was actually a fairly uneventful border crossing, a lot less hectic than going the other way.. I ended up in a van with a pair of exchange students from the Philippines and Japan.. and a very chatty German guy who really enjoyed tasting and talking about fruit, especially new varieties of fruit. We all had tickets to get on the same bus on the other side, so we got to know each other and started sharing stories.

After the uneventful border crossing, aside from the commotion created by a monk in the line beside ours who didn't seem to have a passport, and a 45 minute wait, we were on a shuttle bus to Bangkok. Oh and along the way the German guy found a place to buy some fruit, which he was enthusiastically trying to share with the rest of us.

It was Sunday, December 1st and the protests against the government in central Bangkok seemed to be approaching some sort of a climax. Guess where I had booked my hostel? In the centre of central Bangkok, right by Khao San road.. The driver had to take an alternate route, as certain parts of the city were shut down and others were impassable due to the buildup of traffic.

It wasn't easy to get footage of any of the protests, because quite frankly I didn't even see any of that. For the most part it was just crazy traffic with occasional motorcycles with Thai flags attached to them driving by... and generally a lot more Thai flags out than usual.. There was something in the air definitely.. something I am having a hard time describing... It seemed like this was the sort of event every other person in the country was watching on TV or listening to on the radio.. (In fact, I'm pretty sure that the audio in the video coming from the taxi radio is a station covering the events. I could be wrong, but that's probably what it is.)

Most of the time my camera was away, but I was able to get some shots and a crappy video of one of the street barricades.




Link to video.

The driver dropped me off not too far from my hostel.. Technically very late, but under the circumstances it was more than acceptable. For a while I wasn't sure if I was going to make it to my hostel, or if it was a good idea to stay there even, so I was definitely glad to be finally there.

For the rest of the night I filled up on beer and Thai food at a bar/restaurant that was showing live English Premier League Football. Spurs tied Manchester United 2-2 that day and Hull beat Liverpool by a score of 3 to 1. There were two British chaps sitting at a table beside mine. They were both wearing Liverpool colours.. A very sad day for them, they left before the game was over. Chelsea also won, so all in all it was a very good evening at a decently fine establishment. It was basically the first place I walked into, not more than half a minute away from my hostel. They had live English Premier league football up on a really big TV on an outdoor patio. The chances of me grabbing a seat were pretty much 100%. It was one of those "The universe really knew what I was looking for at that exact moment and it delivered" type of moments.

As for the protests, I was told that I would be fine if I avoided outfits of certain colours, but more importantly if I avoided the large mobs of people and parts of town where they preferred to congregate. As a foreigner I had basically nothing to fear aside from basically wandering into the wrong part of town and getting randomly swept up in some craziness. The chances of that were low, especially if I wasn't stupid, so I wasn't really worried. I had a private room with AC at the hostel - I slept like a baby.

Khao San Road

Khao San Road is a part of central Bangkok that attracts a lot of backpackers. There are a lot of cheap accommodations in the area, as well as many pubs, bars, restaurants, and a large set of other stores and street merchants providing goods and services for the most part targeted at the large amounts of backpackers who end up passing through there. As you can imagine it is also well known as a centre of drinking, partying, dancing, and so on. Some call it a "backpacker ghetto".

So of course I had to check it out.

One slight inconvenience was that I had woken up with a changover. A changover is the hangover you get after you drink too much Thai beer. It drains you of energy and gives you super painful headaches. I was not expecting anything of the sort, as I didn't really drink that much.. All within regular operating parameters.. Yet there I was, in a world of pain.

I set out towards Khao San Road with a soothing lunch in mind.

I had some problems finding Khao San road.. First of all, the map I was looking at just didn't make any sense.. I figured out later that north was down instead of up, but either way I ended up making a couple wrong turns somewhere and had to ask for directions.

The directions were simple and took me down a narrow alley that ended with a staircase which lead to the second story of the building ahead. I was skeptical, but a sign assured me that I was headed in the right direction. I ended up in a hallway and then a room that seemed to be connected to some sort of a middle eastern community centre. I started questioning all this as an elaborate scam and was ready for masked men to jump out from either side, but then ahead I saw a staircase leading down.. which lead me down to street level, a couple steps away from Khao San Road.



Above: From left to right you can see street food being sold, a "you should buy a custom made suit" sales pitch in progress, and on the very right you can see a "Buy fake IDs" stand. Options include driver's licenses from various American states and other sorts of ID. I think you could even get American college diplomas.

It wasn't very busy here yet... which was good, given my headache.

See that guy on the right? He wants to sell me a suit.



There is a McDonald's on Khao San Road



Or you could have some scorpion



I settled for some sour coconut soup and a pad thai.. my go to meal in Thailand, which in this case ended up being quite spectacular. Perfect for my changover!

To make a long story short I ended up buying some souvenirs, getting a Thai oil massage, was late for a minivan pickup by half an hour due to a "misunderstanding", and at the bus terminal ended up being put in charge of several foreign travellers in terms of making sure that they understand where to go and that they end up on the right buses.

I'm leaving details here out, but all that lead to me arguing with a Russian girl named Sveta which way east and which way west are. She had them confused and it was impossible to convince her that she was wrong, not even using cold war references.. which didn't really help.

The Russians left on a VIP bus and me and newly made Swiss friend boarded another. The bus driver played an annoying traditional music mix until 1am, at which point I had almost fallen asleep despite it.. when suddenly the lights came on and according to my notes it was "stupid snack time".. which from my memories I can tell you involves wandering around aimlessly & half-asleep through a food court full of food stalls with food I didn't want to eat... until I ran into the Russian girl again, who gave me some food court tips..

At 1:30am the annoying music on the bus had stopped and it was time to get some sleep again..

I like how so many of the signs are in English.

Cutlass said:

I like how so many of the signs are in English.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that was very handy indeed. It's basically only because Khao San road attracts so many backpackers, mainly from Europe and Australia. Every single store, restaurant, and bar on the street probably has people working there who speak English too.

Ao Nang Beach

At 5:30am the radio came on again, so for a while we got to hear traditional songs of some sort and then news reports about I'm assuming the then on-going demonstrations in Bangkok. Time to sleep was unfortunately over...

At 10:30am we were finally there - Green Leaf Guesthouse, close to Ao Nang beach, one of my places of interest. This was going to be my base of operations for the next little while. It turned out being a pretty sweet guest house, with friendly staff, everything up to code, comfortable beds, really good food... The only "downside" was that it was about a 20 minute walk to the beach itself.. but I didn't really mind that.

The view from my room:



Ao Nang Beach is in Krabi province, in the southern part of Thailand, on the strait of Malacca and the Andaman sea. Phuket is the more popular destination in the area, but I was more intrigued by beaches in Krabi province.. and I wanted to avoid some of the craziness.. There'd be time for some of that later.

This map has Krabi marked as a town.. and Krabi town is a place, but that's not where I was staying.



The owner of the guest house gave me a ride to the beach in his car. Nice guy!





The beaches in the area are known for having spectacular "cathedral"-like rock formations.