Rolls of razor wire now run through the middle of the village Cambodia calls Chouk Chey, and on through fields of sugar cane.
Behind them, just over the border, tall black screens rise up from the ground, concealing the Thai soldiers who put them up.
This is the new, hard border between the two countries, which was once open and easily crossed by people from both sides.
Then, at 15:20 local time on 13 August, that changed.
The Thai soldiers came and asked us to leave, said Huis Malis. Then they rolled out the razor wire. I asked if I could go back to get my cooking pots. They gave me just 20 minutes.
Hers is one of 13 families who have been cut off from houses and fields on the other side of the wire where they say they have been living and working for decades.
Signs have now been erected by the Thai authorities warning Cambodians that they have been illegally encroaching on Thai territory.
In Chouk Chey, they argue, the border should run in a straight line between two stone boundary markers which were agreed and installed more than a century ago.
Thailand says it is merely securing its territory, given the current state of conflict with Cambodia. That is not the way Cambodia sees it.
Months of tension along disputed parts of their border erupted into open conflict in July, leaving around 40 people dead. Since then a fragile ceasefire has held, although a war of words, fuelled by nationalist sentiments on social media, has kept both sides on edge.
The BBC has been to border areas of Cambodia, meeting people caught in the middle and seeing some of the damage left by the five days of shelling and bombing.
In Chouk Chey, Provincial Governor Oum Reatrey bemoaned the economic impact on the community of Thailand's actions. He estimates they are losing one million dollars a day in customs revenue from the border closure.
No-one has yet come up with a figure for how much the conflict between Cambodia and Thailand has cost, but it is certainly high.
Billions of dollars in annual trade has slowed to a trickle. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodian workers have left Thailand, and Thai tourists have stopped going the other way. The brand new Chinese-built airport terminal at Siem Reap, gateway to the famed temple complex of Angkor Wat, is deserted.
We were also shown videos of frustrated residents pulling down the razor wire in front of the Thai soldiers on one occasion. The governor said they were now being told to avoid confrontations, but anger spilled over in another confrontation with Thai troops on 4 September.
In northern Cambodia, the temple of Preah Vihear, perched on a forested cliff-top right next to the border, is at the heart of the dispute between the two countries.
The temple has always been more accessible from the Thai side. Our four-wheel drive vehicle struggled up the steep road the Cambodians have built to climb the cliff.
Once inside the temple complex, it was clear it had suffered in the artillery exchanges of late July: two of the ancient stone stairways have been shattered while other parts of the temple were chipped or broken by shell-fire, the walls pockmarked by shrapnel.
Cambodia says it has recorded more than 140 blast sites in and around the complex, attributed to Thai shelling on 24 and 25 July.
Officials from the Cambodian Mine Action Centre also pointed out unexploded cluster munitions, a weapon banned in much of the world but used by the Thai military.
The Thai military denies firing at the temple, recognized by Unesco as a World Heritage Site, and has accused Cambodia of placing soldiers inside it during the fighting.
Despite the grim realities, many Cambodians still seek a peace that eludes them. Five thousand families were displaced to makeshift camps, fearing to return home despite deteriorating conditions in their temporary shelters.
As I live close to the border I don't dare go back, said one woman.
The ongoing conflict has created a climate of fear, stoked by waves of disinformation regarding potential future attacks. A sentiment for peace resounds through the community, yet achieving it seems a distant prospect amid the ongoing nationalist tensions.
