Indochina Day 27, Temples, School & Floating Villages

Thursday June 23^th

This morning six of the thirteen of us went with our guide on the bus to see some more temples. I can't help wondering why the others wouldn't come, but that's this group. We visited five more amazing temples that were a little less visited. This is the low season and there are less tourists around, so the peddlers and vendors are hurting. Again they were hawking their wares. The new wrinkle today was the guards, who are wearing police uniforms (I think they are tourist police) and were quietly trying to sell us police badges or their police caps! I talked with another friendly young woman and told her I liked her hat, upon which she asked if I wanted to buy it (see the girl in the photo). Everything is one dollar. “Buy something? One dollar.” There was a guy selling knock off guide books for a dollar, so James said, “One dollar?” and the guy said “One dollar for a look, five dollars to buy.” Lots of fun.

A couple of the new temples had more trees growing out of them, very surreal. Because there were less people around, you could kind of get lost in the nooks and crannies and try to image what the temple looked like in its heyday, with the carvings being new, and the walls and ceilings all intact, and trying to image the people going about their lives, what they would be wearing, the ceremonies that would happen here. It would be fascinating to be able to go back in time and see it.

The last stop was an area where there was a troop of rhesus monkeys. Everyone liked watching them. Then we were driven back to Siam Reap for lunch. They wanted to go to a restaurant with a western menu that they'd read about in Lonely Planet and I had great chicken burger.

I took a tuk tuk back to the hotel, because Richard had arranged for me to visit a school, called New Hope Cambodia, that GAP helps to support. I had time for another cool off swim before I was picked up by another tuk tuk and taken to the school with Carrie, who is woman from New York who is taking her masters in order to become a teacher. The last road to the school was unpaved, full of potholes and went through a very poor neighbourhood. When we arrived we were met by a school rep who gave us a tour of the school, showed us the various programs and introduced us to the Nigerian principal who runs the school. It is a NGO school and supplements the public education system. In the public system the kids go to school for half the day, so this school provides extra schooling in either the afternoon or the morning. They teach in English, and utilize volunteers (we met an Australian man and an English girl) to supplement their teaching staff. They have a kindergarten program, a computer lab with eight computers, a sewing shop to teach teenage girls and boys a skill so they can earn money and general classes too. Interesting that the school in built on land protected by UNESCO and no one is allowed to build anything new here. As a result their kindergarten class is outside as they aren't allowed to build a new structure! I can understand no more hotels or restaurants, but a school? We watched as the kids stood in rows and answered questions en masse. The principal was a very quiet man and spoke very slowly, until I asked him where he was from (it was obvious that he wasn't from here, as he was black) and how he got here.

After our tour, we took the tuk tuk again to a health clinic that New Hope Cambodia also runs. It is staffed by volunteers and provides everything from health advice, family planning, rice for needy families, mosquito netting, beds, whatever they can to help the needy and poor families.

Our tuk tuk driver took us back to the hotel, but true to form, he tried to take us to a souvenir shop, wanted to sell us fruit, and offered to take us to a massage place. We declined and arrived at the hotel shortly afterwards. I had arranged through the hotel staff for a tour of the local river and lake called Tonle Sap. They arranged for a tuk tuk driver (who works night shift at the hotel) to drive us to the river and buy us boat tickets for a cruise down the river to see the floating village. I asked Carrie if she wanted to come with me, and share the cost. She did. The tuk tuk ride was about a half our and took us through another poor area with houses on stilts and backing onto either the river or rice paddies. It was endlessly fascinating to observe as we went along. When we got to the river, we bought tickets and boarded a long skinny wooden boat for the ride. Our tuk tuk driver came with us. He was a really nice young man and so was the young boat driver and his even younger assistant.

We travelled along the river, passing lots of fishing boats and house boats tied up along both banks. There were also lots of river traffic, from motor boats, to dugout canoes. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip. This might as well be the moon compared to North America. These people are dirt poor. They live and work on these boats. They make their livelihood from fishing. We sailed past hundreds of boats and caught glimpses of people going about their lives, washing babies in river, lounging around in hammocks, cooking, eating, swimming, sharing time with families, etc. This is what I expected to see in Vietnam and in fact apparently a large number of these people are Vietnamese, some Thais and the rest Cambodians. Eventually the river emptied out into a huge lake. You couldn't see the shore in any direction and the water was rougher. That's why they shelter in the river. We stopped at a restaurant at end to see a crocodile farm, and a fish farm. It had a second floor where we stood for awhile and just watched the people on the river. There was a boy in a round metal bowl that had about two inches of draft, who could paddle in a straight line with one paddle (try that in a round boat), and bail the 'boat' with the other hand! We bought a couple more beers for ourselves and drink for the boys and took the return trip back to the tuk tuk. This was one of the best things I did on the whole trip. I don't anyone else in our group did it.

The tuk tuk driver took us back to the hotel, where I had a shower and then rehired him to take me back to the downtown area to have dinner. I ate a little local street restaurant and had tam yum soup. Another group of tourist came and the owner sat the five of them with me. So, I had new company to talk to, two guys from the US, a Filipino, a Scottish woman and an English woman. After that I caught a ride on a motorcycle for the ride back to the hotel and my bed, after an amazing day. One of the best.