10/12/2001 - Kao Prawihan, Wat Lan Kuat

Hello everybody!

Ok, so it's been a while since you heard from us. So, with so much to say, and with so many new pictures to send, we're splitting up our report.

In August we hopped a bus to the neighboring province to help another Peace Corps volunteer with a 3 day English camp for students and teachers in his area. As a thank-you, his co-worker took us to see the local sights. First we went to Kao Prawihan - this is another example of Khmer ruins like Panom Rung that we wrote about last time, although they're not in as good a shape. The temple buildings stood the test of time for 1000 years, but did not withstand shelling from the Cambodians and Vietnamese when the Khmer Rouge decided to hole up in the place. The ruins are technically in Cambodia, but they sit on the edge of a cliff (the cliff side facing Cambodia to the south). Well, naturally the only road up to the cliff is from the gentle slope behind - which is technically Thailand. So, Cambodians either have to hike the cliff (which a lot of vendors manage to do) or pass through Thailand to get to their own land, and everyone coming from the Thai side has to pay about $5 to "cross" the border and then walk up the monstrous 1000 year old stairway to see the place.

(Note: in the year and a half since we wrote this, Kao Prawihan has spent most of its time closed to travellers as Camodia and Thailand have little diplomatic spats about various issues - most recently a Cambodian riot that burned the Thai Embassy in Cambodia).

Kao Prawihan may look pretty good for a 1000 year old temple, but we're told it looked better a couple of decades ago. Other pictures that Denny took of the place included a modern cannon that the Vietnamese used to shell the Khmer Rouge sitting adjacent to an ancient temple, and Russian helicopter wreckage just downhill from the above picture.

The next site we were taken to was a temple. But not just any temple, because only the Thais could have come up with an idea this great. It's called Wat Lan Kuat - "Temple of a Million Bottles." And, as you can see, the entire thing is built out of recycled bottles (mostly beer bottles). Actually, it's quite stunning when the sun is shining on it, and everything is reflecting the light.

The mosaics that you see are of course, made out of bottle caps. Everything here - several temples, the crematorium, the meeting hall, the water tower, and all of the monks' housing - is made with bottles.

Anyway, that was 2 months ago now, and we've managed to get around a lot since then. We plan to send out 2 or 3 more updates in about 2 weeks when we get back home - we're off to the beach!

We hope all is going well with you and your families back home.

Denny & Lisa