It is an isolated spot seven km from the border with Vietnam, accessible only by boat up a shallow tributary to the Bassac River. About 100 families scratch a meager living from soil that is flooded half the year. The normally quiet village has been in a ferment since May 5, when work crews digging dirt to raise the foundation of a new pagoda uncovered an old, hollowed-out log. Beneath the log were bones, unlike any they had ever seen. But the researchers must decade.
Villagers say they have compelling evidence.
Some have a strange shiny black coating, as if they had been burned. There is also a handful of black, glossy scale fragments, like something from a very large fish. And the bones have mysterious powers, the villagers claim. But it was bad luck for me. Sok Dany and her family we plagued by headaches, fever an general restlessness.