Day 3 (Day 2 here)
Set off at 8am to visit 2
places, a half day tour.
This is an open air museum located in the outskirts west of Siem Reap. You can hire a guide who is usually one of the victims of the Khmer Rouge reign of terror. The museum shows the weapons used when Cambodia was in a state of war for about 29 years -- from 1970 until 1999.
Many of you would have seen the movie "The Killing Fields". It shows the sheer hell that innocent Cambodians suffered during that period. Pol Pot was the one behind this regime of terror and he was supported by the Chinese military.
The population of Cambodia was 7 million at the beginning of the Pol Pot regime of terror; the population was less than 4 million when the war finally ended. Most of those 3 million people were either bludgeoned to death (bullets cost too much), or they were literally worked to death or starved.
Pol Pot separated families -- when his army takes over a village or town, they would send the women to one camp, men to another and children to another. Pol Pot's army placed tens of thousands of land mines throughout the Cambodian countryside, especially heavlly near the borders with neighboring Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. They also would put mines in the city streets for children to pick up and detonate. In retaliation for these mines, the regular Cambodian troops also set land mines.
Today, most of these land mines have been removed except in the northern part of Cambodia near Thailand. Tourists are warned not to venture off well-traveled paths or roads anywhere in Cambodia. With good reason. The war ended only after Pol Pot died of a heart attack in 1998 and his army no longer wished to fight, although even today there are still a few remnants of the Khmer Rouge out in the jungle of northern Cambodia. In 1999 peace was finally declared.
Pouk Silk Farm
Next we adjourn to the Silk Farm, about 16 km west of
Siem Reap in the Pouk district. After a 20 minute drive, we reached an eight hectare farm give a
unique insight into the different stages involved in silk production, from the
mulberry tree orchards, silkworm breeding, the spinning mills and the dying and
weaving processes.
Artisans D Angkor has presented the art of silk making and weaving in a very professional manner and they really make one understand the hard labour and many hours behind the stunning silks óne find in Cambodia.
Our guide was very interesting and well informed explaining not only the process of making the silk but about the workers etc too. Also nice to have a wee ice-cream outside after too :-)
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