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Published: June 12th 2018
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The Super Bowl had the convenient kickoff time of 6:30am Cambodia time. Being that I was still jetlagged I woke up wide awake at 4am. One of the Americans from my tour had done some research and had found a sports bar with huge TVs that was open and was showing the game. In order to make sure we got good seats we had arranged to meet in the hostel lobby at 5:30am. Once together, we set off down the darkened lanes of Siem Reap. Absolutely no one was up. The streets were empty. The day before where there had been a whole lot of people arising for the sunrise tour. At this time of the morning however, the city just was dark and quiet.
Opening the door entering SCORE Sports Bar and Grill I felt like I was stepping across the threshold into a whole other country. My own. The place was already packed. In fact, all the prime tables were taken. We settled instead into four seats at the bar. I looked around at all the American football fans who had eagerly arisen to see the game. The funny thing was I also noticed an odd assortment of
drunken British characters, obviously still on the piss from the night before. They couldn’t believe their luck upon finding so many people out awake and drinking. They seemed even happier to be there than we were!
I was very pleased to see that the bar had a breakfast menu. I was hungry so I decided on a big stack of pancakes with sausage. Sitting at the bar I could definitely sense the drinking atmosphere in the air. Even at this early hour all around me were people drinking beer, but beer doesn’t really go with pancakes. But what did? Ah ha, I know! A white Russian should pair with them nicely.
It was ironic because a couple sitting next to me and my new friends from the hostel turned out to be from the same county in New York as me. So, we had a good knowledgeable group with which to watch the Super Bowl together. Patriots vs Eagles, Let’s get it on. The game was highly entertaining, especially Nick Foles’s one upmanship of Tom Brady as he caught a touchdown pass after Brady had failed in his attempt. The Patriots lost. The white Russians had given way
to an uninterrupted string of beers. I was buzzed and all was right with my small corner of the world.
As we left the bar around 10am I was completely blindsided by a bright wall of white sunlight. Good thing I had had my sunglasses perched expectantly on my head throughout the game. The four of us wandered back to the hostel, wished each other the best, and went our separate ways. Feeling pleasantly sloshed and enthusiastic I impulsively signed up for another tour that was leaving at 12:30pm. I then crashed out in my room for a bit and waited.
The tour I had signed up for was to the floating villages of Tonle Sap. The temples could wait. I thought maybe that there wouldn’t be that many people on this particular tour, not being a single temple on it, but I was wrong. There were actually more people, a van full of about 15 of us. And not only that, but the friendly German girl of monkey-mango fame was going on this one as well. So good time vibes were in the air. We all piled in and after an extended time bumping along dusty orange
backroads we arrived at our destination, a riverside boatyard. The guide popped out, hired us a boat and we were on our way up the river toward the village of Kompong Phluk.
The village came into view as we veered around a bend in the river. It was a remarkable scene as the villagers went about their daily lives in the smoke-filled air with the hovering structures providing a picturesque backdrop. Their buildings are all built high on an intricate system of stilts. This is because during the rainy season the water rises dramatically and it’s all the houses can do to stay above the water. It had been a long time since the rainy season had ended so the buildings towered above us. It didn’t make too much sense to me, but there were also a lot of open fires. With so much wood about the whole thing smacked of a fire hazard.
Eventually we pulled up to a riverbank and were all made to jump off the boat a long way down into the awaiting mud. I felt particularly sorry for the delicate Korean girl in the high heels. We were then left to wander around
the village. There was an extraordinarily vibrant colored temple which was in complete contrast to its muddy surroundings. We also stopped in to look at a school classroom. I was the first in and was met with large cheers. My height probably had something to do with it, but I have also always been a natural in front of a classroom. However, upon exiting the class I began to think. How many times a day does this poor teacher have her class interrupted? Some of my group wholeheartedly agreed with me on the subject, while still others did not want this exercise in moral quandaries to interrupt their holidays.
We eventually moved on to another area down the river, where some group members rented small paddle boats to be paraded/paddled through a jungle creek. Me and the rest of the gang climbed up on the roof of our boat. There we sat and laughed together on the top of the boat waiting for the sunset while enjoying each other’s company. When the jungle paddlers returned our boat pushed out into the sea to watch a bright red sun descend into the watery horizon. Our boat bobbed in the sea,
a soft lavender breeze blew across the water. The day amazingly kept getting better and better.
When we got back to Siem Reap a bunch of us, having got on so well, went out to dinner together. It was nice to be eating out as part of a group apart from my usual solo ways. For dinner I ordered both the squid in black pepper sauce and the frog in ginger. Each dish cost less than $3. Ordering two dishes allowed me to be both an adventurous eater and doubled my chances of actually receiving an edible delicious dish. The squid in black pepper sauce was the winner. After dinner the German girl and I went for a drink at the rooftop Starr Bar. She was quite the conversationalist for someone so young. Looking out over the rooftops of Siem Reap and sipping a Mai Tai was the perfect ending to an unexpectedly busy day.
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Tonle Sap & Kompong Phluk
The impact of tourism on village life...interesting you could interrupt a classroom. Was there any talk of any effect on the village of dams being built across the Mekong in Laos which were expected to affect river heights downstream such as those in Tonle Sap?