The Floating Villages of Tonle Sap

When we first got our Intrepid tour itinerary, I was somewhat disappointed to see that most of our time would be spent in Cambodia. Now, that our time in the country was fast coming to a close, I didn't want to leave to continue on to Thailand. Cambodia exceeded any possible expectation I could have had. There was the undisputed highlight and wonder of the world, the magnificent Angkor Wat. Even the tourist town of Siem Reap was charming and lovely. Phnom Penh was another unexpected delight. Then there was the delicious cuisine and the super-friendly people, especially the children. For a country that has suffered so much unspeakable horror, the children were happy and sweet and seemed to have little knowledge of what had gone on before they were born.



So we were on the last leg of the Cambodia part of our trip. We sadly left Angkor and Siem Reap on a minivan to get to a boat that would take us across the Tonle Sap Lake to the town of Battambang. With my stomach still a bit sick from the previous day, I was relieved that there would at least be a bathroom on board for the 4-5 hour trip. When I actually saw what boat we were taking, with its "bathroom" that was nothing more than a small hole in the floor, I was a little less happy.



Our boat was not very big at all. Worse, we had to carry all of our luggage with us because our van couldn't meet us at the other side. So there were 12-14 of us, slightly cramped with as many suitcases and backpacks in the narrow aisle of the boat. Once the boat started moving, it really felt like we were on a Disney jungle cruise ride. There was a narrow path between the reeds and long grass that you could touch it if you reached outside of the boat.



Tonle Sap is a freshwater lake in the middle of the country that actually swells and shrinks each year. It can expand to 16,000 square km (10,000 square mi) during the summer monsoon season. In the dry season, it is just about 2,700 square km (1,700 square mi). We were just barely able to take this boat trip. When the lake shrinks too much, a minibus drives the tour from Siem Reap to Battambang in just a couple of hours. But whenever they can, they take the tours via the lake, since it obviously provides a much more unusual and memorable experience than a couple of hours on a bus.





There was a slight tourist-y feel to some of the villages we saw, particularly the first one that was closest to Siem Reap. First, there was a tour boat in front of us. (I didn't really consider the boat we were in as a "tour boat.") And this city was the largest with more people and buildings. No one seemed too surprised to see a bunch of westerners with their cameras snapping photos. But, there was still an authenticity to the experience. It certainly didn't seem like they were putting on a show of any kind. Just that they were carrying on their everyday lives as usual, ignoring the big boats of people.


The villages got smaller as the trip went on, and while each time we saw a new one was slightly less exciting, the villages themselves seemed to be more authentic and less accustomed to visitors. We watched children run out of their floating school to wave at us and yell "Hello!" There were even two little boys that mooned our boat as we floated by. But most of the kids seemed happy to see a boat of foreigners, waving madly, some even running after our boat for as long as they could.



Not all of the trip was so pleasant. There was the aforementioned hole that led me to stay dehydrated during the trip (and it could get HOT on that boat, especially as we slowed down to look at the villages). Of course, there was the heat. The boat did have a canopy, but as we turned in different directions, you could have the sun beating right down on you. There was also the 5 minutes or so where our boat got caught in some brambles underneath. After a minute or two of sheer terror of being stranded in the middle of a fricking Cambodian jungle river, we pulled free and continued on our way.



Apart from those discomforts, it was really lucky we were able to take the boat. By using it to travel all the way to Battambang, we saw more than the tourist boats that just float out for a few hours, then head back to Siem Reap. Probably the most lasting impression of these villages was both the abject poverty of some of the people living within (particularly the villages further out from Siem Reap), but also how even these places can't avoid the encroachment of modern technology. In the middle of out tour, we saw three or four huge cellular towers, and this picture above is one of my favorites. It shows one of those classic, and almost cliche juxtapositions of the old and new. There's the traditional barge house, looking rather rickety, with the hi-tech satellite dish hung on the outside porch.



And so ended another day of wonderful adventures in Cambodia. We had another traveling-in-a-third-world-country moment as the van for our hotel met us on the other side in Battambang. There was just one van to seat all thirteen of us, so we crowded in Turkish dolmus style, sitting on laps and standing inside the car, as it drove us to the city of Battambang.


And here's a video of part of the boat trip. You might have to go onto my Blogger site if you're reading this from Facebook, it doesn't seem to import the videos :-(

Angkor Wat: Day Two

After an exhausting first day in Angkor Wat, mostly from the oppressive humidity, we had a 4 am wake-up call on day two so that we could watch the sun rise. Of course, I prefer sunsets to sunrises and found myself feeling ill all day long, just like I did after our sunrise viewing at Mount Nemrut in Turkey.

We were among the first to arrive and were sitting just by the reflecting pool for the optimum photo-op of the temple and rising sun. Jon was getting restless and cranky over the early wakeup, and the feeling of being herded with hundreds of other tourists, so, on my suggestion, he borrowed a flashlight and set off on his own Indiana Jones-like adventure inside the mostly-deserted temple. As I watched the sky gradually lighten (sunrise always seems to take much longer than it should), taking a new picture every minute or so, he came back and guided me through the deserted halls. We got back in time to see the sun break over the towers and then met up with the rest of our group again.

We were pleasantly surprised that most of the crowds didn't make their way into the temple when they were finished watching the sunrise. It was probably the extended bathroom break we took just afterwards that helped us out. So we found ourselves mostly alone in the cavernous halls with our wonderful Intrepid group and guides. Again, an amazing Indiana Jones-esque experience of intricate wall friezes, vaulted archways, big holes that were once swimming pools and some unbelievably steep steps that I never would have climbed without the fear of getting left behind the group and therefore, lost forever in Cambodia.

The early wakeup also had the added benefit of slightly cooler temperatures. The humidity wasn't too bad yet and the temps were probably just in the 80s. It was so nice to walk around this amazing place without the discomfort and stickiness of sweating profusely.

After the leisurely tour around the main temple, we headed to a restaurant with one of the best locations on the planet, just across the causeway and with a magnificent view. We had another delicious Cambodian breakfast - fresh fruit, banana pancakes and some coffee.

We had just one more temple after seeing the main one. This one was called "The Ladies Temple" and was about a 40 minute drive away. If I wasn't in full temple-hopping gear, I might have gone back to the hotel. The 4 am wakeup and possibly some undercooked kangaroo (or crocodile, or maybe ostrich) meat from the night before left me feeling woozy, and now that midday was approaching, the 95 degree temperatures with 100% humidity had returned (and it still boggled my mind that we were visiting in WINTER).

The temple was worth the trip. My camera also decided to die at this point (so the pictures you see here were taken by Lynda and Jon, some of our wonderful Intrepid tour mates, were nice enough to share their pictures with me.) The temple was again just a bit different from the others. The carvings were so intricate and the color of all the buildings was a rusty reddish color.

We made it back to the hotel after the long schlep here and were finally able to enjoy some quality time in the pool. We ordered our meal to the poolside, slept and swam. It was great to have some time to actually relax, something that got just a bit pushed aside on our 10 day sprint through three Southeast Asian countries.

Angkor Wat: The Lost City in the Jungle, Day One

My vacations this year had already brought me to one Wonder of the World, the Great Wall, and now on our sixth day of the tour, we came to the second. It's so difficult to capture the wonder-ous-ness of these places in words. But there's a tingle you can feel in your body and a sense of awe that takes over. There's the incredible craftsmanship that went into the building, which was constructed in the 12th century, a time when Europe was still in the Dark Ages, and the incredible jungle scenery surrounding it. But also, for two days, I was able to feel like Indiana Jones and it was fantastic.


The most famous building (above), the one you see in all the postcards, is of the Angkor Wat temple and it is magnificent. However, the complex of Angkor Wat is huge and consists of dozens of temples spread out over 400 square km of land. Each temple has its own "theme," so to speak. Some focus on preserving the architecture and stone carvings (like Bayan and the Ladies Temple) from the jungle growth while others let nature take its course, even if it means some of the temples suffer from invading tree roots and such.


Bayan in Angkor Thom was the most architecturally impressive, but also the least enjoyable. The crowds were a bit crazy and we were led around by our tour guide at a little brisker pace than we wanted. He was probably trying to escape the tourist hordes too. So while the Buddha faces hewed into the rock were great fun, it was a bit of a relief to move on to the next temple. Also, it was at least 35 C/ 100 F with about 95% humidity, so being pressed in with so many people was that more unpleasant.



We passed through some really cool elephant terraces, where the trunks were used as a decorative column, on our way to the next temple of Preah Khan.


Preak Khan was much, much less crowded than Bayan. The architecture was less stunning but the ambiance was better. The lack of tourists really made you feel like you were an explorer in the jungle who had just stumbled upon this wondrous ancient place (which, btw is actually how Angkor Wat was "rediscovered" in the mid-1800s when a French explorer published his travel notes about the place). The dilapidated state of the temple - which is on purpose - really added to the experience of wandering through the lost city in the jungle.


By now it was midday and we were drenched from the humidity and all the climbing around. Our excellent tour planned well by letting us go back to the hotel for a leisurely lunch (in that it took them over an hour to serve us) and a quick dip in the hotel pool, a shower and change of clothes and we were off again to the Ta Phrom temple, aka the Angelina Jolie.


Yes, this is the temple where they shot part of the Tomb Raider movie. And here was where you could really see the battle between nature and civilization. There were so many gnarled trees that had broken through the walls of the temple and become intertwined with them. Many of the temple's preservers wanted to knock the trees down to save the buildings, only to realize that if they did so, they would also destroy the temple. Here's a video clip of one part of the temple. You can hear all the birds/weird bugs in the background. So jungle-y.





In what felt like an Indiana Jones movie plot, we had to rush through Ta Phrom to make it to our last temple before sunset, or the consequences would be dire. Actually, we just planned to watch the sunset from there and needed to move along or miss it. Soon we were at another spectacular temple, with several other tourists. We sat with some other members of our tour and chatted with a cute, whip-smart Cambodian girl who was trying to sell us some tour books. We finally relented after she aced a geography quiz given to her by an Irishman from the tour, when she correctly answered "Bern" for the capital of Switzerland. She nailed all the other answers, and was even able to greet us with an "Annyeong haseyo" when we told her we were living in Korea.



Finally, after the long day, we had a fantastic dinner with some tour-mates at a Cambodian barbecue place, where we ate crocodile, kangaroo, ostrich, prawns, and some less interesting chicken and beef. We then made our way back to the hotel for as much sleep as we could get before the four a.m wake-up call for tomorrow's sunrise over the temple of Angkor Wat.

On the road in Cambodia

The long drive from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, the closest city to the temples of Angkor Wat, was more enjoyable than I was expecting. One of our scheduled stops was at "spider town," where we politely declined the fried tarantula but were surprised at how tasty the fried crickets were. They were doused in oil and if you closed your eyes, you might have thought you were eating a potato chip. That was of course, only after our guide, Haing, pulled the feet and head off for me. We also were introduced to the wonderfully-strange-looking lychee berry. (You peel off the spiky skin before eating the juicy white fruit inside, then spit out the pit.)


One of the highlights of the tour came when we stopped along the side of the road to view some traditional Khmer stilt houses. Apparently these houses, despite being along the Cambodian highway don't get many visitors, so several people came out to look at the foreigners. They were very friendly, and smiled warmly as we greeted them with a "Su-az-day" (Hello). One of our tour mates, Lynda from Australia, gave stuffed kangaroos to an adorable cute little boy and his sister. The kid was radiant, with a beaming smile that I will never forget, at such a wonderful gift. We liked to imagine that he'll be telling the story of the sweet Australian woman who gave him a toy for years to come.



When we arrived in Siem Reap, our guide Haing (whose family lived in the town) took us out for a night on the town, Cambodian-style. We visited a kind of carnival where all the locals hang out. They had fair-style games like ring tosses, and the prizes were things like a (warm) can of beer or bottle of (imitation) coke. Jon went for a ride on the bumper cars, which did not seem to function properly. The smells of meat roasting on a stick were all around us. Haing bought us some fried frog, which he pocketed for everyone to try at the restaurant where we were having dinner.



Dinner was again delicious and unbelievably cheap. The roasted frog was ok, but a little difficult to eat. I again indulged in that wonderful coconut curry and a fruit smoothie for the extravagant cost of $10 or so. While we ate, we were treated to a performance of Apsara dancers. It was very different from any ethnic dances (like belly dance or flamenco) I had seen. The movements of their hands and feet were carefully controlled and so elegant (check out the 10 second video clip at the bottom). The costumes consisted of elaborate headdresses and beautifully decorated dresses. It was a great end to another unforgettable day in Cambodia.