We climbed into Mr. Ya's car and he drove us down the dirt road toward Tonlé Sap lake, the main body of water in Cambodia, in fact the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. We passed through villages along the way, as well as dozens of kids in uniform on foot and bikes on their way to school.
We loved having Mr. Ya as our guide in Angkor. A gracious and friendly man who, like many living in Cambodia, lost family members during the Khmer Rouge rule. We didn't want to pry too much, obviously, but we know that he at least lost his brother during that time. He had been a school teacher before Pol Pot took over and now seemed to be someone who would do whatever he needed to survive and thrive. We know that one of his previous jobs was selling motorbikes in Phnom Penh, and now he was a driver/guide and probably a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy.
He also seemed tuned into everything that was going on in the area. He knew what was being built where and the nationality of who owned it (French, Korean, etc. - rarely Cambodian).
We pulled up to the boat dock area and we were, again surrounded by people wanting to sell us stuff. A couple of guys were going to grab our bags and Mr. Ya stopped them so he could ask us if we wanted to have them carry our bags to the boat for $1 each. Our bags were heavy so we had problem to that idea. Good thing too, when we got to the boat there was just a flimsy plank to get on, which was hard enough to cross without carrying anything except my shoulder bag.
We said goodbye to Mr. Ya and boarded the boat.
On the boat there were several young girls selling various food products - bananas, cheese wedges, little baguettes, water soda, etc. - before we departed. Their selling tactics were the same as what we had been seeing the whole time, keep asking you until you agree and then ask some more.
Granted, it can be a little frustrating to say no to buying some bananas only to have another girl ask you five seconds later, "Bananas sir?"
But that really didn't excuse how rude some of our fellow tourists could be to them, especially the French ones on the boat. One would think that with the history of how our two governments (French and American) royally fucked this country for several generations, we should be the last ones to be rude to the Cambodians. They are poor and this is their country, goddammit. And its not like they were begging. They were offering decent goods at a fair price, all of it stuff you might need for a five hour boat ride.
And this is their country, goddammit. Guests should act like guests.
I'll speak to this a little more, and a couple of other things, later. After I get through my Phnom Penh posts I plan on adding an afterword on Cambodia before moving on to Vietnam.
Anyway,Lisa and I bought some of those wonderful tiny bananas while we waited for the boat to leave.
Now the boat itself was a pretty decent size, about 100 seats inside the cabin. What they don't tell you is that they will sell many more tickets than that. So for many of the people that came later, like the ones that took the ride in the back of the pickup truck that was included in the ticket price, there were no seats left inside. That meant they had to sit on the roof of the boat.
Now I spent a lot of the trip on the deck of the boat myself, but it was nice to be able to take a break from the wind and sun every once and a while. Even with that, one of the guys I met on the deck said it was still worth the extra cost ($25 vs $4) to avoid the bus he had taken the other direction a few days earlier.
We finally pulled out, later than our scheduled 7:00am departure time, and made our way past the floating and stilted villages on the Tonlé Sap.
Once we hit the open lake the driver gave it the full throttle and we really started to move. This is where the wind factor became an even bigger problem than the sun beating down, though it was pretty bright and hot already.
Looking at the lake on the map doesn't really prepare you for how huge the Tonlé Sap is in reality. It wasn't too long before we couldn't see any land whatsoever. It was just massive. And even when we way out in the middle of it we saw fisherman hard at work.
Then we slowed up and we aimed toward a small fishing boat that made its way toward us. They pulled up alongside and one of our crew member went out and tied on to them. He gave them a plastic bag, they filled it up with some sort of fish and handed it back. They untied and away we went.
They actually stopped and bought fresh fish in the middle of the lake!
While all of us dorky tourists snapped away with our cameras, of course.
After about a good hour or so of not seeing much in the middle of the lake, we finally came to the southern end where the Tonlé Sap transitions from a lake into a river. We started to see the mountains of southern Cambodia.
As well as more signs of life and community.
Watching the people who live off the water go about their daily routine was really interesting. And hard to imagine, as someone who lives on land, what it must be like. A lot of the villages and houses we saw were not built on any kind of shore. They really did float on the water or stick out of the river on stilts. There was not always any real piece of land nearby. People got up in the morning and jumped in their boat to go to work, which I imagine for just about all of them would be fishing, spent their day on the water, and then went home to their house on the water. I imagined that it was possible for many of them to go days, or even weeks, at a time without ever touching land.
I don't know this for sure, as we didn't actually spend any time in these villages.
But we saw many boats full of children on their way to or from school (hard to know which since it was about noon), that was more than likely also one of these buildings on the river. So you could see why I would imagine that.
The kids cheered and waved every time we went past one of their boats.
Our boat actually did stop at a couple of these villages to let off the few Cambodian passengers that were on board. We didn't dock, a small boat would buzz out to meet us, the family would jump on and they would zoom back to the village.
We wouldn't have seen any of this stuff on the bus.
We finally arrived in Phnom Penh, and on to yet another mode of transportation.
Next - The Killing Fields and the coolest Aussie I've ever met
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