Eco project in Koh Ker Village

Two hours north of Siem reap, off the beaten path, in the ancient temple complex of Koh Ker, forest temple treks are led by locals Dieb and Ty who have grown up in Koh Ker during times of violence and civil unrest. They have recently Grade 9, the highest level of schooling available to them. there is no high school in the village so they and other young students from Koh Ker live in a dorm, about thirty minutes away. This dorm is supported by the foundation where all their living costs and food are provided throughout the year. Dieb and Ty, although now high school graduates, continue to live in the dorm while they pursue their training as guides and build up the business - the brochure states: 'Working in partnership with the Ponheary Ly Foundation, they lead treks to places that others don't know about. You will go deep into the forest to discover hidden, ancient Angkor temples and to the villages where the guides grew up with no school and living only off the forest - your participation in their business will be helping the guides launch their business, improve their English and crate a brighter future for themselves and their families and their community' - you can see more about these treks on Trip Advisor.

Koh Ker is a very remote village where rice farming and tending the temple grounds are the main occupations. It was one of the last places in Cambodia from where Khmer Rouge bandits continued to operate. Dieb told us that one hour after he was born, his mother heard gunfire and fled with her baby from the village - it took them seven years to get back to the village to rejoin his father and older brother. One of Ty's sisters was killed by a landmine and all over we saw signs declaring that the land had been cleared and made safe..

We walked at first through the dried up paddy fiedls and found it so hard to imagine the floods that come each year to turn this desert into a green and fertile plain. As we moved on through the forest our lovely guides  told us about the plants and trees and their culinary and medical uses. I was delighted to see the ferns - a great reminder of home! We also saw Mahogony trees and you can see their seed pods and seeds in one of the pictures.

Gradually as we moved on we could see shapes through the trees - these are the three temples in the forest, built in 921 A.D., incredible constructions of tiny brick made by the workers of local clay and then faced by sandstone drawn, probably by elephants from about 20km away. Dieb pointed out the bullet holes in the walls and explained that many battles and skirmishes had taken place here - a landmine had also been thrown into on of the temples.

Returning to the village, Dieb and Ty told us that they had both started school under some trees in the middle of the village, 'this one was grade one and that grade two'. Now there is a modern primary school, no electricity of course and great poverty persists. Each week the staff of the PLF foundation travel up to Koh Ker to make lunch for all the students and staff and pretty much anyone in the village who shows up. I am planning to go with them to help next week so will report!

We then moved on to visit one of the most dramatic temples in this area - the pyramid temple. We walked a series of tumbledown temples and then beheld this miracle of preservation - or amazing construction:

The views from the top were quite spectacular over the whole forest and country side - very barren and dry just now but transformed, as our guides told us to a lush green everywhere when it rains.