Advertisement
Published: April 25th 2008
Edit Blog Post
We left the option open to wake up early today and head out to the temples before the crowds, but none of us bothered to get up early enough. Dylan was fighting a bit of a sore throat and cold, Jaz had made it clear that she wasn’t going out on any 6:00 am temple trips, and Steve and I just plain let ourselves sleep in.
The weather was no different than every other day here this time of year - sunny and hot, just as we’ve become used to. Our only definite plan for the day was a half-day tour to the Tonle Sap Lake outside of Siem Reap to see the floating villages and scenery along the way.
The Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in southeast Asia, and is pretty fascinating in its own right. In the dry season, the lake shrinks to an area of about 2,700 square kilometers with a depth of only one meter, but as the snows of Tibet begin to melt in July, the Mekong River rushes forward and pushes water backwards up the Tonle Sap River to fill the Lake. At the height of the wet season, the lake
covers 16,000 square kilometers and is up to 14 meters deep, flooding fields and forests all around. It is a significant source of freshwater fish for the whole country, and several million people make a living in one way or another related to the lake.
The lake is populated by floating villages, similar to some of the floating fish farms that mom and I saw so often on the Mekong River. In fact, many of those living on the lake are Vietnamese by origin, along with some Cambodians, Chinese, and
Cham (Muslim descendants of the Champa empire, who no longer have a country of their own.)
We booked the tour through the guesthouse where mom and I had stayed earlier on the trip, and along with the four of us, there was an Autralian man and and a Singaporean couple along for the afternoon. We had a very nice guide who was more than willing to engage in discussion with Steve about politics and corruption and Cambodian history, as well as talking to all of us about what we were seeing.
The drive to the lake took us through what was essentially a miles-long road construction site.
There seems to be a huge project to build a big road from Siem Reap directly to the lake, and by the looks of things, they’ve been working on it for a while and will continue for a while longer before it’s done. It was the first time we’ve seen bulldozers and other heavy equipment here, and our guide told us that until ten years ago, such equipment didn’t really exist in the country. The road was dusty and dotted with mountains of dirt, and lined with some of the worst poverty I’ve seen on this whole trip.
There were clusters of palm-frond huts along the dry dusty road, none bigger than 10 x 10 feet. The floors appeared to be made of bamboo slats and the front side of most of the huts were open. There was little inside but some scraps of cloth for bedding, a hammock or two, a few bowls or pots. Adults and children alike were lying inside to escape the worst of the heat and dust, and a few children ran around outside along the road. A few groups of men sat playing cards, but it didn’t appear that there was any other
form of entertainment available. The ground below and behind these stilted huts was littered with plastic bags and other debris, which was unusual to see. (This has been surprising given the country’s apparent love of plastic bags - you get one with every single purchase, even when you suggest that you could just put your new item in one of dozen other bags you’re already carrying!) There was a general air of despair and deprivatio. Though I’ve seen other communities with few obvious resources, I always felt there was a sense of energy and pleasure despite the conditions - there have been children playing, adults puttering about, people waving at passers-by. Here, I felt nothing but a lack of anything - no energy, no play, no interest, no purpose. Things looked unkempt and uncared-for in a way I haven't seen before.
While the boat trip onto the lake was interesting, and we caught glimpses of some of the floating lifestyle that we hoped to see (floating homes, floating schools, floating stores, floating basketball court!), it was also distressing. We stopped for a while at a large structure that served as a restaurant, gift shop, makeshift museum, and crocodile farm.
It offered an opportunity for tourists to stop and have a drink or some food and sit back and observe the lake around them. It also served as a spot for begging women and their children to pull alongside in small wooden boats and attempt to sell bananas or photo opportunities. Their plaintive and never-ending calls, “Banana, one dollar, (something unintelligible)!” were relentless, but more upsetting were the small children in the boats with them, posing holding large snakes, while their mothers begged for money in return for photos. One little boy stood naked in the boat with a 5- or 6-foot snake draped around his shoulders. He looked hot and bored and a bit bewildered. Another little girl was dressed up in some colorful clothing with her hair done up, also holding a large snake, whose head she frequently held in her mouth for added effect. While we were there, a group of well-dressed Korean tourists came along and took turns posing delightedly with her for photos, smiling broadly while she posed with the snake in her mouth. Each mother also had one or two even younger children on their boat with them, sleeping across their laps or crawling
What is this picture worth...?
To her mother, it's worth a dollar. But what does it actually cost? around.
So, were they exploiting their children, or just doing whatever they could to make a buck and feed their children? Does paying for photos just encourage them to continue putting their children in this role, or is it the only option they have no matter what? I don’t know the answers. I don’t even know all the questions. I know that it makes me sad to see, and that I don’t know quite what to do with that sadness.
Because there was no solution to the sadness about the sights of the day, we went straight into denial in order to cope. We went back to the hotel for a swim and a cocktail before going back out to take advantage of the Aussie BBQ at the Villa Siem Reap. (No kangaroo this time - just good old chicken, burgers, and sausage, along with some potato salad and coleslaw.) While at the pool, we chatted for a while with a couple from Australia and New Zealand, comparing notes on temples visited and bargains had in the markets. It was interesting to hear their take on getting the best prices - she laughed about her tendency to get
herself riled up about paying a dollar more than she should have for something. We have found ourselves more comfortable with bargaining as time has gone on, but hardly feel we have to squeeze every last cent out of a vendor and get the lowest possible price. As the vendors often say when a price is agreed upon: “Good price for you, good price for me.” I’m sure we could get things more cheaply, but the dollar or two will never be missed by us and might be appreciated by someone else.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.298s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 58; dbt: 0.145s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
john
non-member comment
rock bottom
Hi Jess: Maybe you have covered this in other posts, but I am responding to your comment about the deepest poverty you have seen so far. Given where you have been already, one might suppose that you had seen the worst of the worst - the side streets of Bangkok, for example are pretty appalling in Vermont eyes - but it is in Cambodia that you have seen the worst. I recall reading that in human populations if plague or some disaster kills all the young or the old or the young and the old, the population will survive. But, if the disaster attacks the middle - the adult generation, the population will not survive. Maybe I am simplifying my memory of this reading too much, but that is how it comes through now. So, I am thinking of the year zero in Cambodia when Brother Number One set about killing such a great number of the adults, especially the competent ones (at least as defined as those who had obtained an education) and who also set about destroying all traces of previous records, history, culture, human infrastructure. What is left of such an atrocity? I do not doubt that the people of Cambodia have as much, if not more, capacity for the human spirit as any culture (how else explain the vibrancy of the people and villages you have seen ever since arriving in Asia?) but what you are seeing, I think, are the echoes of the killing fields. The children who came of age during the terrors are not raising their own children, except without benefit of having been raised themselves. They are survivors of a people who were sent into a savage experiment and who knows how many generations it will be before they recover? Who knows if they will recover? Once again, thanks for taking us along on your journey, John