After completing our tour of all the major temples in Cambodia, we decided we wanted to see some cultural sites around the city. The first thing that we had on our list was “Wat Mai”, the Killing Field Memorial.
We got the story about this Buddhist temple from a Korean tour that happened to be going on as we arrived. Score another success for eavesdropping. He explained that there was going to be a school built at the location, but when they started to dig, they actually discovered a mass grave with over fifty bodies. They enshrined these bones into a temple so that people could pray for their souls, as well as remember the event in their history to share with visitors.
After this somber reminder of Cambodia’s past, we wanted to go to another place that deals with an aftermath of the fighting that has hurt so many people. We wanted to go to the Aki Ra Landmine museum. This posed a problem, because it wasn’t on a map we owned, and our tuk tuk driver didn’t speak English. The direct approach of asking to go to the landmine museum didn’t work.
Seeing as I make my living trying to communicate with people that only have a very vague idea about what I am saying, perhaps it was natural that I resorted to something I did in the classroom to get the idea across. I drew a circle on the ground, then walked in it. Then I pretended I had stepped on a landmine and my leg had exploded.
I can only wonder what the tuk tuk driver was thinking at that very moment. “These crazy tourists want to go see landmines in the ground!” His eyes said volumes.
My wife tried to clear up the confusion. “No, no no. We want to see a landmine museum. Museum…uh, like this.” She pantomimed a large box. “MUSEUM?”
The guy still looked a little confused. “They want a box of landmines? A room full of landmines? What?”
We got into the tuk tuk worried that the step we took getting out might be our last. Our tuk tuk driver took us to the inspection point for our passes to visit Angkor Wat. This place had people that spoke English who translated for our driver where to go. It turns out we had gone past it while traveling to Banteay Srei earlier. Oops. That’s what all those buses were visiting!
We arrived there while yet another Korean tour was in progress. There were plenty of signs in English, Korean, and a few other languages, so we had no need to listen in on their tour. In fact, the tour only stopped there for 15 minutes, which wasn’t nearly enough time to see everything.
Aki Ra, the Cambodia founder of this museum had an amazing story. He was a child soldier that fought in different rebel groups, then decided to remove the landmines around the countryside after witnessing what they did to people. He and his Japanese wife adopted a dozen children, most suffering from injuries related to landmines.
His museum is dedicated to landmine awareness. Landmines harm people in regions that suffer conflict for decades after fighting ceases. There is no such thing as a “humane” or “smart” landmine. Even landmines that should automatically deactivate after a certain period of time can malfunction and kill or maim anyone unlucky enough to encounter them. (American Landmine policy available here. More info.)
After the landmine museum, we returned to the city. We went to eat at The Red Piano, which is a somewhat famous place for foreigners in Siem Reap. They had some autographs of Angelina Jolie on display. Her movie Tomb Raider was very popular since it was shot in Cambodia, and she had also adopted a Cambodian boy from Battambang.
We killed time by shopping. My wife, the ruthless bargainer, got me a hammock with strings for $2 dollars. People expect you to haggle. She also got souvenirs for her coworkers and family members. After that, we went back, grabbed our bag at the guest house, and went to the airport. We bid farewell to our tuk tuk driver, and set up shop in a Dairy Queen (!) at the airport to kill time before we left on the red eye flight back to Korea.
