Fishing Village & Phnom Penh

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Hello There!!

Its been quite some time since we've been able to manage any time in front of a computer to blog. So here goes: It's mid-January; we're finishing our visit with friends, Chris & Katja, in Vienna; we're about to head to another continent to meet more friends; so, its time to catch up........


.....A long time ago, in a continent far, far away......Back in time to Cambodia.

So, where did we leave off? Ah, It was early December and we were in Siem Reap. Totally overloaded with visions of Buddha, stairs in the temples, and persistent street peddlers, right? Yeah!

Following our final Angkor-sojourn out to see the rural temple of Banteay Srei and the countryside, we returned to rest at the Freedom Hotel before venturing off with Neam to the fishing village - A must see, we're told.

At about 4pm we jumped in the car and headed away from the temple landscapes, for once, making our way south to the edge of the lake. We have mentioned that most tourists are regaled with same itinerary of sightseeing. The fishing village proved to be no different - plenty of tourists.

There were plenty of visitors there waiting to catch numerous tourist boats and marvel at the lives of the unique fishermen and their families here. That's just it though - here the people and the culture of modern-day Cambodia were on display, not the ancient temples, etc.

So, now it was time to enter into a distinct part of modern Cambodian society. First off, The entire community is dirt poor. The word squallor comes to mind. Wild chickens and feral dogs on the loose, and not to mention plenty of wandering children.

We drove slowly along the 2km long lane to the boat docks. On the way, passing dirty huts on dirty roads with all the tour busses just kicking up more dust.

Alas, the people didn't look unhappy, per se. The adults all seemed to up to something and all the children were playing in the streets - waiting for any foriegner to hit up for money. It was nearing the end of what was surely just another dawn to dusk workday.

We arrived at the dock to a crowd of needy adolescents waiting for a handout. Neam had us introduced to our captain and his mate - neither name can be remembered - and we were off. Just us! We had the long skinny boat all to ourselves.

Our captain and guide offered up a bit of information to us. The floating village is comprised of Cambodians, Vietnamese, and Laotians - all in different little 'hoods' within the waterways on the periphery of the lake. We we're told about the seasonal movement of the lake's edge.

The lake's water level overwhelms the countryside during the rainy season, while it recedes quite a distance in the dry. We were visiting in between the two, so the village was beginning to drift further toward the main body of lake water.

On the water, these people lead fairly similar lives to their counterparts on shore. They even have TV Antennas rising into the sky from nearly every floating house/shack.

Must say, it is a pretty unique sight. This is a pretty large community of people here. There are churches, schools, hospitals and stores all established on the water. We stopped into a waterside bar for a drink and a look at their crocodile farm.

While enjoying a drink in the afternoon heat, we found ourselves prey to some adorable children floating around in barrels, begging for money. 'Mista. Lady. One dolla, please!! One dolla!,' they were crying. It certainly tugs on the heart strings.

Speaking of sights, the sunset that day was gorgeous. Didn't really get a good picture of it, but it was quite a remarkable cascade of red and orange light against the water and the land.

The tour of the fishing village and its floating inhabitants was definitely worth it. A big bite of the real South East Asia experience. We'd only be gone from the village for less than 12 hours, because our transport boat to Phnom penh left from the same place. See you soon, fishing people.


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This brings us to the next part of trip. We left Siem Reap early the morning of Friday, 12.09.2005. Our destination was Phnom Penh, the capital, and biggest city, of Cambodia. Our mode of transportaion was a long, skinny speedboat. Cheaper than flying and a great way to see the countryside.

Passing by the floating village once again, we were out on the lake and headed south. A five hour trip, and we both tried to sleep a little bit on the way. Problem was, the area of the boat open for laying down was a chamber of exhaust fumes from the engine. Not an easy place to rest, but we managed a little.

We spent the remainder of the boat ride outside on the deck and the gangways of the boat. It was a beautiful and sunny day to stand outside and watch the scenery fly by. We could have even climbed on the roof and lay down, but the boat was doing 30 knots and there were no guard rails to keep you safe while getting up there.

So we just posted-up on the boat's side and watched the civilians acknowledge us from their boats or from the shore. Most of them smiled and waved, but a few sneered and turned their backs. Who can blame them?

Finally, we entered phnom Penh. the scene at the dock was madness. We had to retrieve our bags from the rear of the boat and skirt the side all the way to the front to disembark. Pretty tricky not to fall in with two huge backpacks. still, we made it just fine.

The power of connections!! Our driver form Siem Reap, Neam, had phoned ahead for us and told his associate, Sopheap ('Sop-hip') to pick us up and be our guide. He waved a sign saying "Golden Hodgson"!! - gotta love him.

But, for lack of sleep, we chose to postpone our tour of the city until the next day. so, Sopheap drove us through the city by the central market, to our hotel - The Holiday Villa. Pretty good online deal, as far as hotels have gone.

We checked in and were delighted to learn that there were ATM's in the city, after being without in Siem Reap. We got out some US $dollars to replinish our reserves and went out to lunch.

We found nice streetside bistro in the Riverside district - which is where the majority of expats stay and most of the restaurants and bars are. During our outdoor lunch there was no shortage of peddlers (mostly children sadly) trying to sell us anything they could. We were advised against doing business with the street peddlers because they are manipulated by older bosses to do the work that makes only the bosses rich.

On the way back to the hotel after lunch we walked by the central market. Its a massive mosque-looking structure where the locals come to buy/sell/trade. Its also a hub of transporation for the locals. We saw plenty on pick-up trucks overloaded with cargo and passengers about to go to some part of the town or the country.

A note about transit in Cambodia. There are very few stoplights. Traffic simply goes with the flow - Its very zen, and seems to work. When crossing the street, you just have to start to cross and rely on the traffic (mostly mopeds) not to strike you - and they don't, of course.

Back at the hotel we relaxed a bit and watched even more just-released American movies bootlegged on public TV.

That evening, we took a cab to a Thai restaurant which we picked from a complimentary tourist map of the city. Lemongrass was the name and it was fairly good. We enjoyed authentic cuisine and more than enough Angkor beer for two.

Everything was rosy, until about 2am, when Holden woke with a good case of food-poisoning. No rest for the wicked - he was up all night battling what we suspect was the bad Curried-Beef.

Still, the next morning it was time to meet Sopheap to cruise the city and see the sights. That's just what we did. And boy did we see something!

First stop - the Museum at Tuol Sleng, aka S-21 the former Phnom Penh prison compound for the Khmer Rouge in the mid to late 1970's. Up to that point we had avoided asking about the Khmer Rouge regime for our entire trip to Cambodia, even though it occured so recently(as time in Cambodia goes) and we had even watched a movie "The Killing Fields" in Ko Nangyuan.

So, now there we were - in what was the central nervous system for the regime's torture network. Hallowed ground. Hard to explain the Khmer Rouge's reign. Suffice it to say it was genocide on a very large scale. Between 1.5 and 3 million Cambodians were killed by there own kind in five years of brutality!

At least 20,000 of these victims, including the more important figures were jailed in S-21 - only 7 survived!! Most were victims of awful torture and then sent to the local killing fields to be executed.

The prison-museum retained one cell block to display the jail conditions and another wing showing pictures, artwork, and accounts of the suffering. Pictures of Pol Pot, the ringleader, and his staff were all badly defaced with cigarette burns and obscenities. The pain surely lingers here.

After the museum we traveled to an even darker reminder of the regime - The Kiliing Fields at Cheoung Ek. Whoa!! In Cambodia, during the Khmer Rouge, there were supoosedly 180 of these areas all over the country. This one contained up to sixteen-thousand dead bodies, buried en masse!

Entering the reserve there is a tall memorial hall, with four glass sides, that displays many of the skulls of thse bodies which have been unearthed to date. Grueome. Even more, only half of the graves have been unearthed at this site, so you find yourself walking on bones protruding form the Earth. This was a singular experience in our lives. Hard to desrcibe.

Interesting that we visited these sites on Human-Rights day.

Well, Holden was sick to begin with and after that excursion we decided to call it a day. Room service and movies all night.

The next day we visited the National Museum and The National Palace. Like Thailand, Cambodia still has a monarchy and the citizens respect their royalty highly. thus, they like to spend their day off visiting the kings digs. We found ourselves part of the afternoon rush to visit the palace. It was nice to see, but at this point if you've seen one temple/palace you've seen 'em all.

All in all, Cambodia was beautiful and sublime. It offered history on both a fascinating and horrific scale. It is truly the real South East Asia and it was a pleasure to be there.

At this point we had to fly back to Bangkok for a couple of days and then fly off to Europe to see Turkey and Greece.

Yada, yada, yada.......On to the next blog!

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