Baksei Chamkrong is a tall pyramid temple that we visited by accident because Kerri can’t speak Khmer.
The stairs are very steep.
At the top is a lazy Buddha.
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Cambodian Monkeys
There were lots of long tailed macaques around the ruins in Siem Reap.
The babies were especially cute.
This is probably important to survive stretching out Mom’s nipple when feeding.
Of course it doesn’t help when Mom decides to get up and walk away leaving baby bobbing up and down clinging on with only his mouth.
It must be much more comfortable for both of them when baby gets a good grip first.
Of course sometimes they just left the babies behind, racing to catch up.
The grown up monkeys were cute too.
They like to steal food from dumb tourists.
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Butterfly Sanctuary
We visited a butterfly sanctuary to take a break from the ruins.
This guy is their biggest butterfly.
Almost all of their butterflies are bigger than at home, but this guy is huge.
They look like birds when they fly by, until you notice them fluttering.
These are not monarchs.
But they kind of look like monarchs.
Lots of butterflies were mating.
Some were fresh out of their cocoons and drying their wings.
They also had some giant stick insects.
But other than that it was just butterflies.
Oh, and one large bee. But he may have snuck in through the netting.
More butterflies making more butterflies.
Lots and lots of butterflies.
This is the last butterfly.
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Banteay Samre
We drove further away to get out to this temple.
It did not have the best preserved lions.
It did have roofs similar to Angkor Wat with the flaming pineapple shape.
The carvings and columns were well preserved.
Lots of pillars in the windows here.
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Landmine Museum
The landmine museum is a collection of munitions collected around Cambodia. Many by a single individual who defused at least 50,000 landmines personally. His story is quite fascinating, but long so I will not write it all in here. That’s what Google is for.
Due to a number of wars and proximity to Vietnam and Thailand many parts of the country were blanketed with mines, or has unexploded munitions scattered through the forests. Some are harder to spot that others.
A major problem with bombing areas is that many bombs fail and just lie in the ground waiting to cause problems in the future.
These are all examples of shells that were defused in Cambodia.
The munitions can be dangerous for over a hundred years. Just recently there was a WWII bomb found in Germany that caused an evacuation to allow for defusing.
Many devices were designed to maim instead of kill because injuries cost more to a military.
Unlike the movies there is no click, just a bang once triggered. Due to the efforts of several NGOs the number of people killed or injured by landmines in Cambodia is just over 100 a year. This is still too many and people are working everyday to continue clearing these cheap destructive devices.
