A Big Adventure

(this happened on) Monday 7^{th December 2009}

You Cab Be Sure The Vegetables Are Fresher And better Than Anything You Get At The Supermarket

I was up nice and early and after a nice leisurely shower,  and with sofia still fast asleep I got dressed and headed out to further explore the streets and alley ways of Siem Reap.

I had a walk around for a couple of hours and then decided to have a massage,I picked a place at ramdon and for $12 I had a one hour four hands  massage which was very good and relaxing, some how the fact that the two massueses chatted away in khmer the whole time made it even more so as I was not being asked questions and could just zone out.

Afterwards I tried to find out some information on the Tonle Sap boat trip, but I found it hard to gather information on the particular trip I had seen advertised.

When I got back to hotel I gathered the family and we headed out for some lunch and to book tickets for the boat trip, The place I had found earlier that sold the tickets  was now closed so we decided to get some lunch while we waited for it to open, we went to the central cafe and had an enjoyable snack.

The place was still closed, so we went in search of somewhere else.

Sofia eventually found an agent who had details of the boat trip and who booked four tickets for us, with a pick up as we requested at his shop at 3:00pm. We then set off to walk around for the hour or so until our pick up, we trudged through the old market, Sofia bought a few small items and we carried on along until we found a modern but sparsly let mall, we had a look around anyway enjoying the air conditioning until it was time to get back to the travel agent.

We hopped into a tuk and as the agent was next door to a book shop we spent a bit of time looking at books until our ride arrived, both Stefan and I bought books, mine was on the years of the pol pot regime, that in less than  four years killed almost a quarter of the nations people, not a light read but sometimes education has to take precedence over enjoyment.

The Cambodian people are so friendly and gentle and on the surface certainly seem much more genuine than their Thai neighbours, although I would start to worry that the gap between rich and poor here is growing at a great rate with $180,000 appartments just a few hundred yards from people living in huts over a river. The money needs to filter down to keep this beautiful country moving forward.

The van picked up at a few other places and then we were taken to the lake and put on our boat, a traditional long boat.

We visited the GECKO centre which is a place to spend few minutes learning about the lake and how it changes throughout the year and of the vast harvest that it offers up, some 400,000 tonnes of fish a year.

Although also we did also learn of the mindless slaughter of the water snakes, that are literally captured and killed to feed the fish, in such massive numbers that the snakes are becoming endangered. Such a waste.

Then it’s back on the boat and off through the lake passing through floating villages of such simplicity, yet beauty, these people apparently are mostly Vietnamese who fled the war many years ago and have chosen to stay.

We carried on through the lake attracting small boats with young children on board, one of which would be carrying a python around their neck and they woud pull alongside and hold up the snakes inviting you to take pictures with cries of one dollar, one dollar, I took the pictures and happily paid, the boat alongside us had four kids on board with an age range of probably 3 or 4 upto about 12, they all seemed comfortable in their small boat racing alongside our much larger boat, ignoring the obvious rocking and lurching this caused so comfortable on the water where they. this was being repeated many times as boats headed towards us from all directions.

Earning A Dollar

We then stopped at a place that seemed to bea mix between a crocdile farm and a gift shop and then onto the Tara (the largest boat on the lake apparently). It does not matter how big it is as we are only on it for dinner, drinks and to watch the sunset. The boat does not even move, it’s just a restaurant on the water. The sunset was amazing, the lake just goes as far as the eye can see at this time of year, during the dry season the lake shrinks considerably, still massive but up to a fifth of the size, this means that all the floating villages are transient and the follow the water as vast tracts of soggy boggy land suddenly is offered up. The drinks were cold and plentiful but the food was sadly just average and the whole place is alive with annoying little flying things.

Sunset on Tonle Sap Lake

Then it’s back on the smaller boat and back to our starting point, the journey through the floating villages at this time is quite different as you pass by you can see the glow of  TV’sand see the families at play and relaxing.

Back at the shore we got the van back to town and then we headed to the Island bar in the night market where we enjoyed some more cold drinks and kalauki and we also decided to go a watch one of he films showing in the movie mall, Pol Pot and the history of genocide, not exactly cheery stuff but import and educational.

Afterwards we headed back up the street, I stopped at a street stall and had a banaana pancake, yummy!  We carried onto  pub street, walked down that and then stopped at the Blue Pumpkin where Basty and Sofia had an ice cream then it was back to the hotel. Sofia and Basty again were frog and lizard hunting while Stef and I headed to bed.