Giant bats & giant rats in Cambodia

Our one stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap - home of many wonders including Angkor Wat, which you likely already know about. Less widely-recognized is Siem Reap's giant fruit bats, also known as Flying Foxes, seen previously on our trip in the Komodo Islands. Their disgusting poop was all over the sidewalk near the Royal Palace in Siem Reap.

The palace gardens also featured a Buddhist temple, where we saw crowds of people honouring their ancestors through offerings, incense and prayers. Mathai worked off some of his karma by releasing a caged bird. I'm not convinced this is true merit-making, because the bird was likely caged in order to be purchased and freed...

Also less recognized is but another highly amazing Siem Reap feature is the giant rats who help clear landmines that still maim and kill people, 40+ years after they were laid down.

The Khmer Rouge was a radical communist movement that ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Under Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge killed up to two million of their fellow citizens. During these years, most of the country’s professionals, artists, scholars and other non-farming skilled people were tortured and exterminated, to rid the nation of foreign ideas. People in the cities were relocated to the villages to learn farming and absorb the ways of 'unadulterated' rural people. People who lived through this period experienced starvation, cruelty, brainwashing and constant fear. The Khmer Rouge continued their guerrilla warfare, and laying land mines for over 20 years.

Perhaps 4 million land mines still litter the lands of Cambodia. Anything over 15kg can set one off.

The hero rat program is an innovative solution to clearning land mines. Giant African rats, weighing far less than 15kg are trained to sniff out TNT. It takes humans with metal detectors three to four days to clear explosives from a tennis court-sized area, but for APOPO's "hero rats", it's just 30 minutes.

This land mine clearing program was SO inspiring. And, the rats are pretty cute :-)Okumaya devam et