It is especially famous for its (sometimes dirty!!) detail work.On our way to Banteay Srey, we stopped by the Cambodian Landmine Museum, a small set of buildings run by a man named Aki Ra who laid many landmines himself during years as a child soldier under the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese, and is an expert now in the ongoing process of trying to rid Cambodia of the UXOs which maim and kill thousands of Cambodians every year. He and his wife use the Landmine Museum as a base to support more than 20 children, many of whom have been injured by UXOs.
After Banteay Srey we decided to push on to a unique site called Kbal Spean which is made up of a series of carvings along a river bed. To reach Kbal Spean we took the tuk-tuk even farther, along deeply rutted and muddy roads, past flooded countryside, to get to the turn-off. From there, the site was about a mile hike in, along a great jungle path which eventually led us to the river as well as a fantastic waterfall.
We could only get a small picture of Kbal Spean's full scope because the rushing water of the wet season obscured many of the largest and most intricate carvings (look close, you can just make out some carving-work...), but our driver led us from spot to spot along the river to find some of the smaller stone bas-reliefs.
After a long and bumpy trip back towards Siem Reap, we turned down a small country road to find one final spot, Banteay Samre, a big sprawling temple which was nearly deserted and made especially dramatic by the rain clouds gathering overhead and the heavy humid quietness as we walked around. Tired from another long day, I was happy to finish off our Angkor tour with such a perfect final temple-wander.
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