Day 2 started out at the same time as the previous day, but this time we were headed to a bigger loop of the Angkor Wat complex.

Our first stop was Preah Khan temple. Ta Prohm from the first day was built for the King’s Mother, whereas Preah Khan was built for his father, whose tomb was at the center.

The second temple we visited, Ta Som, was on an island surrounded by one of two lakes within Angkor Wat. Chantri told us that it was built for medical purposes and that there were four different corners of the temple representing earth, wind, fire, and water. Depending on the year you were born determined which part of the temple you visited to be healed. While we were there we saw a family taking turns praying at different sides of the temple, perhaps following these traditions.

Our last stop of the morning was the distant temple of Banteay Srei about 45 minutes outside of the main area. We learned that it was built before Angkor Wat and the colors of the temple were more pink and orange when compared to those of Angkor Wat. The carvings were also much more detailed and better preserved than the ones we had seen in Angkor – one reason Chantri noted is a lot of the wars in the area were closer to Angkor Wat whereas this one was far enough out of town it didn’t see as much war.

We grabbed lunch at a restaurant close to Banteay Srei before making a quick stop at the Cambodia Landmine Museum. There’s still thousands of unexploded landmines throughout the country especially near the Thailand border. It was a very interesting walk through in seeing how one gentleman named Aki Ra went from setting and placing landmines in the 1980’s to helping the UN in the late 90’s clear the landmines in Cambodia. As a young boy his parents were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime (he has no idea how old he is), and he was conscripted as a child soldier where they taught him to lay mines. As a kid he could not conceptualize how much carnage he was creating by laying mines so in his adult life made it his life mission to help those affected by land mines and defuse as many as possible. He would go around without fancy tools and use knives/sticks to defuse mines (incredibly dangerous), and over time built the museum/organization that helped bring resources toward the effort and even adopt injured and abandoned kids who had become mangled from stepping on old mines.

We were given the tour by a man who had, as a child, been playing in the forest with his siblings when he stepped on a mine that blew off his leg and killed his siblings. He eventually ended up meeting Aki Ra and joined the landmine defusing/education effort and also teaches kids English on the side. He showed us piles upon piles of defused mines and unexploded bombs from the United States, UK, Russia, China, and various other countries supplied during the numerous wars in the country’s modern history. They also have a fake forest area with examples of how mines might look when a local person encounters them – many of the accidents he described are simply civilians that have no idea what a bomb or mine looks like and unintentionally setting it off. This was really eye opening seeing and hearing how brutal these weapons are, but perhaps the silver lining is that the organization currently has no adopted kids as they’ve defused so many mines and civilians are becoming more educated. Most of the remaining mines are in the Thailand border region today.

Our last temple of the day was Pre Rup Temple. Most of the temples had several sets of stairs to climb that were all just a bit too narrow which made climbing down them a little scary. 

After grabbing the pictures we wanted, we headed back to the TukTuk to drive back to our AirBnb. Grant noticed during the drive that the back of his leg was pretty itchy and started to hurt a bit. We took a look and it seemed he’d gotten some heat rash and foliculitis on the back of his leg from all the sweat rubbing on his pants while walking around. Grant had brought some “just-in-case” steroid cream, so we could at least put something on it when back at the AirBnb.

It was so nice to have a pool to go back to and swim in after walking around in the heat. We cooled off and rested for a bit before heading to dinner. We had asked Chantri if he wanted to join us for dinner but he declined once we got downtown after previously accepting our invite. We noticed during our travels that most of our guides would decline any offer to join us for a meal, even if noting we would treat.

Since we didn’t enjoy our previous dinner on Pub Street, Grant found a local Italian restaurant nearby to try. Turned out to be some of the best Italian food we’ve had all trip. Grant grabbed a pizza while I enjoyed some gnocchi. Afterwards, we headed off to try the fish massage. We had seen it the night before and decided to give it a try! The first five minutes in the water was nonstop laughter. It was a weird sensation having fish “biting” at your feet but once you got used to it after a while, it became somewhat enjoyable. We had several people stop and stew while we were doing it and some even asked how it was. At a price point of $3 for an hour including a free beer or water, why not give it a try?

We only did about 45 minutes of the full hour as we wanted to grab another bowl of rolled ice cream. We grabbed it just in time for Chantri to pick us up and enjoyed it on the ride back home. We packed up our bags as best we could do we could quickly change and be ready for our 5 AM  pickup for sunrise that we decided to go ahead and do.