Mekong day 3

---

Day 3 Our destination today is Phnom Penh, Cambodia.



In the morning I got my bread and jam for breakfast as usual. Oh, and I forgot to mention the coffee here, it is put in a little metal thing on top of your cup and they pour hot water over it, kind of like an espresso I guess. You end up with about ½ inch of coffee in your very small cup. It is so strong you cannot bear it. The Israelis taught us a trick though; you ask for a glass of hot water then pour it into your cup. This made it bearable along with a lot of sugar.


Now we are off again this time our suitcases are going ahead of us to a boat on bicycles. We are being rowed down the Mekong in a boat that is hollowed out from a tree. It was really funny to watch them load all our bags on this bike with a little trailer thing on it.

We hiked through the town to the river and got on these little boats. We had a little Vietnamese lady rowing us, and they were all having a great time exchanging jokes and laughing among them. The woman that was rowing us had a great sense of humor, she even set up some stuff so I could recline and relax and then pointed to everyone to show them that I got preferred treatment. She made an extra effort to show us things along the way even though she could not speak English.

Here on the Mekong they have an actual town on the water. The people that live here are called the Vietnamese of the sea. Through history the Cambodians and Vietnamese have always been at war. The Vietnamese had invaded Cambodia and lived there for sometime. The Cambodians eventually decided to get them out of their country and for fear of their lives the people built houses and floated them down the Mekong back over the border into Vietnam and this is where they stayed.

The village was very interesting. They are commercial fisherman mostly and the floor which looks like decks actually have removable pieces in the floor that hey keep nets full of fish. They took us to one place where they actually have tanks where they breed them.
The fish they breed is called Basa and apparently in great demand.

We then went to a Cham village which is Muslim and now an ethnic minority in Vietnam. This was once a very large group in Vietnam centuries prior but hey had been wiped out by war. The ancient ruins we saw in Hoi An was from this dynasty, when they were concurred they ran to the Mekong. Our guide was Cham so he told us some amazing stories about their culture.

In their culture the parents pick who you are to marry. He himself said that he was in love with a girl from a nearby village, his parents did not like her so they found another girl which he had never met and he did not even know her until the day of the wedding. He said that the ceremony is very simple and later they have 4 older ladies that prepare a room for the wedding night. He indicated that it works for their culture as divorce there is non existent.

Also boys are circumcised between the ages of 10-14 in the Mosque. We would think it was for hygienic reasons however when he asked his father why; he was told that if not when he died and gone to the great place his penis would be so long he would have to drag it behind him, and when he got there, they would wrap it around his neck to wear for all eternity (I thought Dad would like this story).

Another very disturbing thing that happens here was the burial of family members. In the area the water covers the land every year as much as 12 feet for a period of 3 months. The Cham people bury their dead about 9 feet under the ground. Apparently their spirit goes to heaven faster this way. The Vietnamese bury only 1 foot under the ground. During the wet season they are unable to do this as there is no ground to bury them in. What they do instead is they wrap the body in plastic wrap and hoist it high into the trees until it is dry enough to bury them. I am so glad I am here in the dry season. He indicated that the smell in the area is horrible by the end of the 3 months.

After our story time he took us to a place where they weave Moslem mosque towels, which was not extremely interesting after the stories he had just told us. The children in this village were beggars trying to sell you things their mothers had made. We were told not to buy or eat any of it as it may contain cholera. We had one little girl about Mila’s age, who walked behind us everywhere pleading for us to buy some cakes so she could feed her family. It is heart breaking to deal with this, and you would like to buy it just to help but if you did all the children would then mob you for money.

We left this area on the row boat which took us to the larger boat for our trip up the Mekong to the Cambodian Border.


As soon as we got on the boat our guide left us and another fellow handed out the Visa application forms. He collected the money $22.00, our Passports and if you did not have a picture he charged an extra $1. After all this was done we saw him get off the boat when we were further up the river, get on a waiting motorcycle and leave. It can be a bit nerve racking sometime if you think that this person now has all this cash and a whole bunch of passports. You cannot help but wonder; “What if he doesn’t come back?”
Traveling in these countries you realize that you just have to trust that what you want to happen just will.

We sat at the back of the boat under a canopy; it was actually very good sized boat. The Mekong River at this point is about ½ km wide and sometimes as much as a km. All along it is flat and mostly farm land. They all had huge vegetable crops using an irrigation system from the Mekong. The ride was very hot, but we were shaded and there was a bit of a breeze. Along the river there were huts made of whatever they could find, water buffalo everywhere. Again you saw Vietnamese children running from out of nowhere to great us. They were so excited that they would even run out to the water, a tourist boat is obviously an event for them. This was a 2 hour boat ride all the way to the Cambodian border called Vinh Xuong. Here we were told to get our luggage and get off the boat. We walked through Vietnamese customs, which was a nice building but there was not one person in it so obviously they do not care about us going through. Then this guy from the boat hurried us through all the villagers that were trying to sell us anything to a little shack where we were supposed to eat. This was our lunch; I had French fries again, which was 1 small potato cut into 6 pieces.


When we finished this they hurried us again through to another boat which was smaller than the last, handed us a declaration for Cambodia, along with the our passports and a Cambodian Visa(to my relief). They gave us about 5 minutes to complete everything.


Then off the boat again, this time to walk to Cambodian Border crossing, where a very stern looking customs officer started stamping our passport. We must have got about 10 different stamps. I was the 1st person finished so I got out of there as fast as possible and got to the boat; scored a prime seat on the roof under a canopy again with very hard seats.
It was a 3 hour trip up to Lek Luang, Cambodia. It was extremely hot I bet about 38 - 40 degrees, with no wind so I was happy to be outside the boat as we got some breeze anyway. We were sitting on tin floor with about 10 others for 3 hours on the slowest boat chugging along the river. It was interesting as here the sides changed you can see the Cambodian poverty is extreme. These people still have landmines everywhere with 5 to 6 people dying daily from stepping on them. Around 5 we started to notice that everyone came down to the Mekong along with their cows which were bathed right along beside the children. While this was going on the women would be washing cloths and hanging them on sticks to dry. It is like stepping back in time the way the people live. They were a very powerful dynasty at one time, however repeated wars have literally wiped out their info structure. We tend to complain about the service offered us but what they give you is the best they have to offer. Roads, bridges and railways have all been destroyed.

The boat was so old that if one of us moved on the roof the weight shifted and they had to stop the engine and rearrange everyone to redistribute the weight. Consequently I sat for 3 hours drinking water and beer and did not go to the washroom (not that I wanted to it was not pretty in there. Also the boat had a small leak and the 12 year old that was part of the crew was having a hard time connecting the hose to pump out the water as all his connections were the same size. After sweating on the boat for 3 hours, sitting on our flip flops, as the wooden boards that were supplied to keep you off the tin roof were rather hard on the butte. The boat slowed at a spot on the river and they docked in the middle of nowhere, they put a 6 by 8 plank on the boat up a 8 foot incline to the top of the bank and told us to get are suitcases and get off the boat. Now, I am carrying a 40lb backpack on my back and 20lb one on my front, I was scared to death as there was no rails just the board which we had to balance on all the way up( it was actually 2 boards nailed together as one was not long enough. Again I made it; I have noticed that I have a lot more strength since I started this adventure.

When we got on shore we walked down a path to a house where they jammed all 12 of us in a mini van, with all our luggage, and very little air conditioning. People started to get really irritable now (and I had to pee). Once we were all in I thought great we are off, but no some French lady panicked in the back said she was claustrophobic and practically clawed over everyone to get out. She refused to ride in the van and wanted to sit in the front seat. Then another guy said he had a bad back and he wanted the front seat, well the fight was on (and I still had to pee). There were 2 vans so they started rearranging people again. Another woman refused to get on until the last minute. We also had 2 women that were a little overweight and they were arguing because they could not fit 4 across in the van( and I still had to pee) Finally they jammed us all back in with a lot of very long faces from the complainers we finally set off . I had a suitcase behind my head and another under my feet so my knees were at my chin (but I did not complain I still had to pee) I already explained that the roads were bad, try riding in a suffocating packed bus with miserable people, in the heat at break neck speeds over bumpy roads for 1 hour holding your bladder in check.

Needless to say when we finally got to our hotel I burst out of that van as fast as I could and straight into the hotel to go to the washroom. Ron forgot about my need got the suitcases and was standing outside talking, thinking I was checking in. By the time I found him we were now last in line and guess what, they had not booked enough rooms so we were out of luck.

They found us a room in Phnom Penh about 1km from the hotel and took us there. It was now 7pm and we stood in front of this place that looked like the worst dive on Main Street. We walked up a narrow staircase from the street to the front desk. The place was so filthy that we both did not know what to do. They took us up yet another flight of stairs to our room and it was even worse. The shower handle was so dirty you would not even touch it. The room stunk, the bed was directly under the window and since we were on the street side all we heard was honking and motorcycles.

Now we were planning on staying in Phnom Penh for 2 nights so we could see what it was like. Of course there was no internet in the room so we had to go down to this dirty little internet café and we tried to find a room. In the end we got fed up stayed in our filthy place, did not shower or touch anything booked a bus ticket for Siem Reap for 1st thing in the morning.

I do have to mention that we did find this great little French restaurant across the street on the second floor. We had a very good meal and I had 2 glasses of red wine to fortify myself for my night in the worst hotel ever. It really was day full of unusual experiences, unfortunately it left a very bad taste in our mouth for Phnom Penh even though it was Singh Café tours that messed it up by not booking their rooms properly and then sending us to a place that was way below the standards of the other places we had stayed in(and believe me they were not great)

---

Photos

Luggage
This was the wasy they transported our luggage to the boat ahead of us while we paddled done the Mekong for 2 hours.Pity the fellow that had to ride the bicycle.

Our personal rower
It is no wonder these people are in such good shape,she rowed this boat for 2 hours always smiling

Floating Village
Homes of the Vietamese of the Sea

1st class
My lady set up pillows and life jackets and encouraged me to recline and then showed everyone that she definitely offered 1st class service.

Fish farm
They caught these fish and raised them under their house.Apparently there are 50000 Basa fish here under their house.

feeding time
When we through fish food in the whole water came alive with fish when we threw food in the splash was a good 6 feet around us. We all had to run for cover to keep dry. Now that is the way to fish Dad.

Pulling Anchor
We thought these men were pulling up a fish net, it was actually an anchor the size you would use on a big ship. It took all 3 to pull it up and about 5 mins. I can only imagine the current and the depth of the Mekong to use such a large anchor.

Farm on the water
The people here had all their farm animals right beside them attached to their houses. Never saw a cow,but there was pigs living in this enclosure and chikens everywhere

A new passenger
The boat beside us stopped at one of the houses and picked up the rowers son,he was so cute and he never moved or made a sound the whole time on the river with his mother rowing her passengers.

Me
Please note the village behind me,this is a very common sight here.