Cambodia Day Two: Taking the Scenic Route

Our second day was off to an early start- we got up a little after 6 AM and ate a quick breakfast on the porch at the hotel before heading off to the boat docks to catch a boat to Siem Reap. We'd heard a lot about this boat ride- that it's supposed to be the most scenic boat ride in Cambodia, and that the length of the trip varies between three and ten hours- quite a range. Apparently the boats are prone to breaking down, and the travel times are longer when the river is lower. So we showed up at the boat docks not really knowing what to expect. We were greeted with some precarious stairs down to the river, and a rather rickety boat that was similar to the bumboat that we'd taken to Pulau Ubin in S'pore. I can't quite describe the boat- it had some crazy propeller attached to it, but the propeller looked like it was mounted on some sort of cart, and it was about five feet behind the end of the boat. In addition to the propeller, our boat was also dragging a smaller motorboat. It was all rather cumbersome. Recent estimates for the trip had hovered around nine hours for the boat ride (with this complicated get-up, I could see why), so we went ahead and got comfortable.It was fascinating to see the way people live along the river. People live in stilted houses along the shore, in floating houses that sit on rafts right on the river, in boats, and pretty much any other living situation you can think of. Most of the homes are pretty modest, and have been cobbled together from scrap wood, tin, and other materials. Every once in a while there was a beautiful, expensive-looking house sitting conspicuously in the middle of a line of drab, worn homes. In Cambodia, there does not appear to be a system for dealing with waste, so people along the river just toss their trash anywhere- into the river, onto their lawns, whatever. Obviously this makes the river polluted, but people still use the water for everything. We saw people bathing themselves, bathing their cows, brushing their teeth, collecting it in pots for cooking, fishing in it, peeing in it- anything you could imagine.There were wats along the river too- after awhile I began to feel overwhelmed by the number of wats in Cambodia. They're ALL so beautiful that they seem like people should be flocking to them just to bask in their awesomeness, but they're so abundant that they become almost commonplace before too long.During the beginning of the ride, it was easy to see why it was going to take us so long. The engine would make funny sounds, and one of the boat guys would pull a panel aside and tweak it with a wrench (while the engine was still running, naturally), put the panel back, and we'd lumber on. Then we'd get into shallow water, and another boat guy would have to push us off the sides of the river using a long pole. Sometimes he hopped over the side of the boat, pushed, and then jumped back on. Every once in awhile, the propeller would hit bottom and spew mud, and someone would yank up the propeller and push us forward with the pole until we were in a better position. At one point, pulling the speedboat became too troublesome, so one of the boat guys detached it and sped off in it, then waited for us further up the river. After a few hours, we got into deeper water and things got a lot easier. Eventually we got to Tonlé Sap, the largest lake in Cambodia, and it was nice to be in water that was deep and wide. At that point, the guy who had previously been in charge of engine maintenance promptly went to sleep on top of the engine casing.

All along the river, kids flocked to the banks to wave enthusiastically, sometimes running to keep up with us. Their parents were more wary, hanging back and eyeing us, perhaps with a measure of suspicion. It reminded me of Kenya, and the kids chasing our car, yelling "WAZUNGU! WAZUNGU!!" (white people!) while their parents watched them cautiously. It seems like a cultural universal for kids to be friendly and curious about foreigners, and their parents to be more reserved. It even happens with the monkeys!We stopped at a floating restaurant for lunch, and after four hours of rocking back and forth on the water, I was really ready for a bathroom break. I was pointed in the right direction, and was surprised, although I'm not sure why, that the bathroom was an outhouse with a hole cut in the floor. Everything went directly into the river- right onto the lily pads. As I walked back out, I overheard one guy say "Hey, you might as well just go around the corner and pee off the side- everything's going right into the river anyway," to which another man responded "No. I mean, it goes through some sort of filtration system first. I mean, surely it gets dealt with." I didn't get to see his face after he came out of the bathroom, but I'm guessing it was priceless. Bryan and I ate plain rice for lunch since we were a little wary of unfamiliar food that might give us upset stomachs while we were stuck on a boat for the rest of the day. We also bought a package of cookies to snack on in the afternoon.Every once in awhile as we made our way along the river, some locals would row up on their boats and climb into our boat to join us for the trip up the river. We also picked up and dropped off some packages, as well as an alarmingly large stack of money. We picked up a family- a father, a pregnant mother, and their two young girls. They were among the first locals that we picked up, and the little girls looked somewhat intimidated in the presence of all the white faces. I thought it would be nice to offer the littlest girl a cookie, so I took out the package and gestured to her father to make sure it was okay. I think he understood, since he smiled and nodded, so I extended the opened package toward the smaller of the two girls, and gestured to her older sister, trying to convey that they could both have some. The smallest girl eyed me suspiciously for a moment, and then her hand darted out and snatched the whole package! I threw back my head and laughed, and the people sitting next to her laughed too. Her dad was saying something to her in Khmer, and I think maybe he wanted her to give them back, but I gestured that she should keep them. And keep them she did, chowing away and shielding them from her sister. That little girl ate the entire package of cookies, with the exception of one that her sister finally managed to sneak. And when she was done, one of the men sitting next to me passed around chunks of watermelon to everyone on the boat, and she ate a big hunk of that too. I was surprised to see her eat so much- she didn't look like she was going hungry, and I imagine her parents weren't totally destitute, since they managed to pay the boat fare for the four of them. I hope that she was just a regular little kid with a healthy appetite and a love for cookies. While trying to take a photo of a floating village, we got the mom and the girls in the photo- the cookie monster is the little one in the purple shirt.

My favorite part of the ride was seeing the floating villages. They were big clusters of homes, shops, restaurants, setups for fishing, and sometimes even police stations, schools, big fish processing facilities, and at one place we even saw a floating activity center where kids were playing ball (it was like a caged basketball court- you can see it in the top left corner of the above photo).A floating Total gas station?!It was obvious that a lot of these places relied heavily on fishing for income and food. We saw a lot of these bizarre apparatuses used for catching a lot of fish all at once. One of the fish processing places is below that.There was tons of great birdlife all along the river- egrets, kingfishers, birds of prey, and even a pelican! We couldn't get many good pictures of the birds because we were moving, but we did snap one of the big, majestic pelican.When we (finally) reached our destination, we pulled up to the dock and were immediately inundated with aggressive tuk tuk drivers wanting to take us to town. They were super persistent, and there were kids begging and it was just insanely crowded and hectic. We agreed to go with a driver who was offering to take us to town for US$1, but as soon as we told him that we already had a guide for visiting the temples the next day (not true), the price immediately went up to $5. Normally this type of behavior has me walking in the other direction, but there was a little boy tugging on my arm asking for food (I didn't have any) and there were people everywhere, and I'm ashamed to admit that I let myself be swindled, and just got into the tuk tuk to get out of the situation. It wasn't the money that mattered- $5 to get into town is no big deal, but I just hate to reinforce that kind of obnoxious behavior. I guess I'll be better prepared for the next time it happens. Luckily, the boat docks were, without a doubt, the most that we were hassled the entire trip, and were certainly the only time that I felt like someone was trying to rip us off. Other than this one tuk tuk driver, everyone else that we met in Cambodia was very friendly, fair, and helpful. Anyway, the ride was pretty pleasant- I really like traveling by tuk tuk. It's nice to be out in the open air.

We got into town and checked into our guesthouse, the conveniently located Shadow of Angkor. The place was very homey- pretty wood interior and lovely staircases. Our room had a nice little balcony and we could see the river off to one side. We relaxed for a little bit before heading out to the nearest restaurant, a place called Kampuccino (perhaps a misspelling of cappuccino?) The menu was in an interesting version of English, riddled with phonetic spellings (potaters, beens, vegables, etc.). We got some pretty tasty pizza (better than S'pore's!). After we headed back to our room for a rest before going back out, but just like the night before, our big plans were dashed when we realized we were beat. So we went to bed early in preparation for getting up early to visit our most anticipated destination- the Temples of Angkor!

Cambodia Day One: Buddhist Monks and Bumpy Rides

Our most recent adventure began at 4 am, when Bryan and I dragged ourselves out of bed and out into the darkness to meet our taxi to the airport. By 7 am, we were touching down in another world- Siem Reap, Cambodia. Even the airport was exotic- a charming wooden building that looked like a temple itself, with a scenic little garden in the courtyard. Inside was a panel of officials, waiting to issue us visas (it literally took 10 intimidating, uniformed officials, all sitting in a row behind a huge wooden desk). We made our way outside and got a taxi into Siem Reap, where we planned to catch a boat to Battambang. It turned out that we were too late for the boat (the departure times are pretty fluid, apparently), so our super helpful driver took us to the bus station, where (surprise!) we had just missed the day's last bus to Battambang. Our driver called up another driver, and asked him to take us to Battambang. We wanted our driver to take us, but he said that his company would charge us too much, and that it would be cheaper if we went through another company. He sat with us by the river, and waited until our next driver arrived, and then wished us well. So far, I was liking the people of Cambodia.

We got into our car for the ride to Battambang, which was supposed to be anywhere from one and a half to three hours (it depended on who you asked). And what a bottom bang it was!! The car's shocks were pretty bad, so we bounced all the way there. Along the way, we got a chance to check out the scenery. The roads themselves were a trip- motorbikes, cars, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, horse-drawn carts and tuk-tuks all squeezed together and around each other, honking all the while. Beyond the road was even more- cows, chickens, pigs, and children. There was a lot of farming going on, as agriculture and tourism are the two main sources of employment in Siem Reap. Looking out over the fields made Bryan and me reminisce about Ohio and Minnesota, but of course the tall palm trees in the distance always brought us back to reality. We started to see ornately detailed wats (temple-monasteries) set a ways back from the road. The elaborate wats stood in stark contrast to the huts and makeshift homes closer to the street. We stopped along the way at a little restaurant with cows and chickens roaming the yard. The coffee was heavenly, the food was mediocre, and the bathroom was an experience all its own (In Cambodia, some of the bathrooms are squatters with a big, square reservoir full of dirty water off to the side. There's a little bucket that you fill with the reservoir water and dump it down the toilet). When we finally pulled into Battambang and found our resort (after stopping a few times to get directions from the ever-friendly locals), we were grateful to see our lovely bungalow at the Rottanak Resort (aka the Battambang Boutique Resort, the Scoop Resort, the Scoop Rottanak Resort, etc.- the place has so many names).After a little rest, we headed out to check out the town, which is centered around the river. We stopped to get a closer look at Wat Kandal, and were awed by our first up-close look of one of these places. The wats are typically large compounds that include several buildings, including living quarters for the monks, temples, other religious structures, and a graveyard/monument area. Everything is exquisitely detailed and eye-catching. This first wat wasn't particularly celebrated as anything unique or different, but we spent a lot of time soaking it in- it was certainly new and different to us! And for that reason, I will share many pictures:Bryan and I thought that this cracked man was strangely symbolic of the Cambodian experience- their majestic past as the seat of the Khmer empire, the downfall of the empire to the Thai, and later the horrific bloody regime of the Khmer Rogue, and their present situation as a nation coming to terms with their past.OK, enough metaphor. Food! Bryan and I found some after we wandered away from Wat Kandal and into town. White Rose had a good mix of Cambodians and Caucasians eating there, so we decided to give it a try. It was DELICIOUS. We munched and praised the food until it was almost gone. And then I found a stir-fried fly in my food. And suddenly it wasn't so delicious anymore. I wasn't upset or anything- you can't expect immaculate health standards at a restaurant where they wash the dishes in the alley out back, and there are fish swimming in the dirty reservoir water in the bathroom. So it goes.

We walked around on the busier side of the river for awhile, checking out a couple more wats, a school, and the awesome sculpture in the photo below, which really reminded me of Haw Par Villa in S'pore.Back on the other side of the river, we stopped by another wat called Wat Por-Knong and roamed the grounds for awhile, taking in more breathtaking scenery.Eventually we stopped at a small manmade pond with a large, peaceful Buddha sculpture. We had seen something jumping in the water, so we sat down on the side to see what animals we could see. After awhile, a monk came out and handed me a packet of ramen noodles to feed the fish. His English was pretty good, and he sat with us by the water to talk. We talked about nature and animals, Buddhism, travel, Cambodia, education, and more. He saw my eyes light up when I spotted a puppy nearby, and he told us that a dog that lived at the wat had recently had six puppies and then died, and that he and the other monks were caring for the puppies. Bryan and I took up his offer to hold a couple of the sweet little guys.Hoerum (the monk) said that he would be teaching an English class to some local kids later in the afternoon, and that it would be great for the kids to hear a couple of native English speakers. He wanted them to hear how we pronounced our words, which was markedly different from his pronunciation. We agreed to go along to his class, and to kill some time, he invited us into this room of the place where he lived, where there were sculptures depicting key scenes from Buddhism. Again, it reminded me an awful lot of Haw Par Villa. We had fun trying to communicate about the scenes- Hoerum didn't have English equivalents for a lot of the things he was trying to say, and I was trying my best to recall everything I learned in my Eastern Religions class. I love the pictures below- Bryan and Hoerum standing comfortably together like old buddies, and Hoerum and me looking awkward and mildly uncomfortable- I mean, what do you do, as a woman, when you take a picture with a monk? It's not like you can toss an arm around his shoulders, and I didn't want to stand too close for fear that I would end up doing something hopelessly embarrassing, like brushing up against him with my boob.Eventually we made our way to the English class. We were in a part of Battambang where I imagine tourists rarely go, so we were drawing a little attention. One monk that we walked by was clutching a pen and scribbling furiously on his hand. He hurried up to us a minute later, extended his hand and said, "How do you say?" On his hand was "striped," which seemed appropriately random. We repeated it for him a few times, and he thanked us and went off on his way. When we got into the schoolyard, a group of kids were playing soccer with a battered wicker ball that looked like a basket, and reminded me of the super innovative balls that the kids in Kenya use to play soccer- plastic bags tied together and into knots over and over again until they had a fairly durable ball. Anyway, we walked through their game and into the modest schoolroom.

Hoerum introduced us to his students, and they all ogled us about as much as I expected. We wrote our names on the board and they all did their best to repeat them properly- "Bryyyyy-an" and "Creeeeesta". They were working on introductions, which took me back to my days of learning German and Spanish ("Hola! Como esta?"), so we talked to a lot of the kids individually, asking routine questions like "How are you? How old are you? What is your name?" and others. Despite the fact that some of the kids had pretty decent English skills and we were asking simple questions, they had some trouble understanding us because our accents are so different from what they're used to. When they asked us questions, I had trouble speaking slowly enough and especially struggled with not using contractions (can't, won't, didn't, wouldn't, isn't). After working through the English stuff for awhile and talking to a lot of the kids, Hoerum said he would translate for everyone, and said the kids could ask us questions or us them. They started, and BOY did they ask some tough questions! One girl wanted to know how the U.S. was different from Cambodia, and it was difficult to answer without being depressing- the U.S. has less poverty, fewer homeless people, more opportunities, better sanitation and healthcare, etc., etc. Instead, we talked about how the traffic in Cambodia is way crazier than in the U.S.- kind of trivial, but true. And then they asked if we were married. No? Why not? Did we live together? Yes? Do we sleep in the same bed? Keep in mind that all of this is being translated through a Buddhist monk. Awkward. We asked them if any of them had ever left Cambodia, and none of them had. They asked us how many countries we'd been to, and gaped at us as we listed them off. We asked them how many of them had TVs and were surprised to see most of them raise their hands, then start talking about what shows they like (wrestling and something called Superstar). We asked them about sports, and soccer was the hands-down favorite. The hour passed in no time, and class was over! We did get photos before it ended though- you can spot me and Bryan in one of them, sitting in with the class.After the class, Bryan and I headed back to our hotel for awhile. I was happy to hop into the pool, and enjoyed watching the sun fade away while I sipped the local beer- Angkor, of course. As night set in, bats came out and swooped down low by the pool. I was enjoying the evening, and it got even better when I spotted something SWEET up in the corner- a GIANT GECKO!!I'm used to the little geckos that Bryan and I see around our flat. They're really skinny and just a few inches long (like Roland). This monster was fat and over a foot long, with bright red dots on his back. He was on a wall on the patio near the pool, so Bryan and I spent a while watching him, even though he wasn't doing much. When I got home, I did a little research and found out that he's called a Tokay gecko, so named because they make a unique mating call that sounds like "to-KAY." Apparently Cambodians consider it good luck if the gecko makes the call seven or more times in succession.

Bryan and I retreated to our cozy, secluded little porch to finish our Angkor, and we saw a little bit more wildlife- a couple of cute little toads hopping around in front of our bungalow. I have no idea what kind they are- I always seem to have trouble identifying frogs and toads. I need an amphibian expert to start reading the blog and helping me out.When we first headed back to our room, we'd had every intention of leaving for dinner, but after swimming and relaxing, the fact that I'd been awake since 4 am was starting to hit me. We ordered food from the hotel. It was good though- Bryan got to try a local dish called lok lak, a beef dish with a heavy sauce. Vegetarian options at the hotel were slim and I was too tired to be very hungry, so I just ate some french fries and called it a night. We were both ready for a good night's sleep, since we had another early morning ahead of us!

Silly Signs Part Four

We saw this sign in an underpass leading to the MRT near the Esplanade. The sign itself was pretty funny, but the fact that people were sleeping right next to it made it a lot better.I'd never seen a sign banning certain foods from hotel rooms until I moved to SE Asia. They're relatively common here, especially with regard to durian. This one also bans tarap, which is a durian relative, mangosteen and dragonfruit, which I definitely don't think of as stinky, and all sorts of little fish, which are pretty gross in both appearance and odor. People eat the dried little fish whole, just like potato chips. This sign is from the DeGalleria Hotel in Kota Kinabalu.
Bukit Batok Nature Park was a wealth of hilarious signs. The poaching one struck me as mildly ridiculous- maybe I'm just not that dextrous, but I can barely get close enough to the birds to get a good photo, let alone close enough to snatch them up with my bare hands.I like the falling fruit sign...
...but the falling durian sign might be my favorite one of all time!This is the traditional "Don't feed the monkeys" sign from MacRitchie Reservoir.At Bukit Batok NP, there's a new interpretation of the sign- one where the happy monkey face has been replaced with an angry face. I think this is MUCH more accurate- sure, the monkeys are cute and all, but they turn nasty pretty fast when humans and their food come into the picture. I don't think it's a good idea to show people pictures of happy monkeys when trying to convince them that feeding the monkeys is a bad thing. Really, I think they should use actual photographs of angry monkeys with their big fangs sticking out, or pictures of monkeys jumping on people with food, but at least this is a step in the right direction.
This little gem is from the Singapore Zoo. It's mostly in Chinese, but I'm pretty sure it says something to the tune of "Don't get too close, or these lions will devour you whole." It's a little outdated- none of the zoo's exhibits really look like that. And I think the woman looks like Cruella DeVille, but maybe that was intentional.In case you need instructions on how to properly use a public bathroom, Singapore has you covered. This one's from Bukit Timah, but I've seen them lots of other places.