Tuesday, Jan. 22
Today was “See something besides Khmer temples” day. Mark arranged with the hotel concierge for a car and driver for four hours. Four-door Toyota Camrys seem to be the common hired car, and it works for the three of us. Mark rides shotgun up front, while Glenn and I and our tourist gear (cameras, hats, and guidebook) share the rear seat. They seem to hide the seat belt receptacles, so we think calm, Buddhist thoughts about good karma and try not to worry about the fact we are NOT being held securely while in the car.
Car and driver arrived promptly at 9:15 and we were off—heading first to “ Old Town” which was a wonderful shopping experience. I think we could have found anything we wanted, somewhere within the four-square block market place. We wandered down narrow, dark and crowded lanes between stalls. Shoes, jewelry, tee shirts, raw meat, rice, cooked meals—you name it, you can get it here! Except for one thing: I brought along a Casio watch that needs a new battery. Could we find that in this big market? Nope. A NEW watch, sure, but nobody had replacement batteries.
Mark was looking for a bootleg copy of the Lonely Planet guide for Thailand—next stop for him on this Asian tour. That was no problem. He easily found the 2007 guidebook, complete with excellent color photos and maps, for seven dollars. Price printed on the back cover of the book: $27. While he was negotiating for the book, I spied a stack of hats and a silky cotton one with the outline of Angkor Wat above the brim. This was too much to resist! Pretty soon, Glenn, too, was going through the hat pile and he also found one to his liking. We turned the haggling over to Mark who got us both hats for six bucks. What a fine guide we have! He even knows how to bargain in Cambodia.
That completed our shopping in Old Town, so back to our waiting car. Mark told the driver, “Next stop—Tonle SapLake.” [More about this fascinating lake later.]
It was about ten miles from Siem Reap to the lake, and the road was at first lined with more spiffy hotels (we were on the east-west main road between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.) Once outside the town, we turned south and headed for "Chong Khneas," the lake village nearest to Siem Reap. The guide books say this is the “most over-touristed” of the villages along the lake, but it is also the easiest one to reach by car. Homes lined the road, and many had what Mark said were “spirit houses” in front. These were about 3-4 feet high, often gold in color and appeared to be a little “pagoda” set atop a post.
The road was basically a dike above rice fields—some were flooded, others were bright green with growing rice and some were badly choked with the infamous Water Hyacinth. Several times we saw water buffalo in the dryer fields, usually accompanied by a small black bird and a white egret.
The houses grew progressively more rickety as we neared the edge of the lake. There was no “shoreline” per se, the fields just became more watery until we neared the docks where there was sufficient water to float a boat. Here, tourists were departing on small boats to visit the truly “floating” villages. Before reaching the docks, we saw some buildings on top of barges that were going nowhere until the fall monsoon rains come—they were high and dry!
It really takes pictures to describe what these “houses” look like, but think “shack covered with palm fronds and sides of flimsy woven “walls.” The walkways to the homes were often just a bamboo ladder—and sometimes a few of the rungs were missing! These rickety buildings were atop bamboo poles tied together. I think if the three of us had climbed up the “swinging sidewalk” and all stood in the shack together, it would have just crumpled up and dropped to the mud below! Even these extremely modest abodes often had a “spirit house” out front. Maybe they are effective in keeping the house upright!
However, I can appreciate that these Cambodians have successfully figured out how to live with a lake that shrinks and swells every year. In the dry season (now) the lake shrinks in size and is only about one meter deep. But, when the snows melt in the high Himalayas and send tremendous flood waters down the Mekong River the lake becomes the largest in Southeast Asia and rises some thirty feet. The Mekong can't handle the volume of flood water, and that river backs up into the Tonle Sap River, forcing water back UP that river and into the lake. The flood waters also bring an abundance of fish into the lake so catching your dinner is not a problem. The homes of Chong Khneas on their high stilts look pretty odd in this dry season, but they will be able to fish off their back porch in a few months! Perhaps folks living along the USA’s Gulf Coast or the Mississippi River need to consider some similar method of adapting to annual flooding.
We got out of the car for a brief walk and of course, were immediately surrounding by small children who just mostly said “Please” without any specific requests of us wealthy tourists. But Mark had been saving up little children’s books that came with his Cheerios and these were a big hit with our particular followers.
There ARE visible signs of the aid contributed to these poor villages from all parts of the world. Every few feet we would see a hand pump, and near it would be a sign, saying what organization had arranged for installation of the pump, and the names of the donors for each specific well. I saw American names, as well as European ones. Good idea! The pumps were being used too—some women were washing clothes near the pump, while others were filling water bottles.
Our last stop was at the National Silk Center, about 16 kilometers northwest of Siem Reap. Having read an interesting book about the young Chinese girls who worked in the silk worm factories of 1930’s China, this was especially intriguing to me. The “Artisans d’Angkor” organization has several sites—all aimed at restoring and encouraging the ancient Cambodian art of silk weaving and other traditional crafts by providing training for young people—especially those whose lives have been torn up by the civil war. The organization has workshops at one site, a shop next door to the Blue Pumpkin restaurant in Old Town and the demonstration silk farm/workshop we were headed for.
As we walked up to the main entrance, a lovely young Cambodian girl met us and said she would be our guide if we wished a tour of the silk farm. Like so much else in Cambodia, we found this operation well run, exceedingly tourist-friendly, without being too commercial and with very professional displays. Obviously, this little country is getting quality assistance from other parts of the world. We got a very extensive tour—at least 45 minutes long, as we were led to the various buildings where the process of turning a caterpillar's cocoon into glorious woven silk fabric takes place. Really a fine tour and we certainly came away with a better understanding of the silk industry. No great achievement, as none of us had ever seen a live silk worm before!
What we learned:
1) Silk worms are finicky and only like very young, tender mulberry leaves to munch on. So, the mulberry plants are kept trimmed down to about 3 feet high. It is also easier to harvest the leaves at that height.
2. Silkworm cocoons are bright yellow. Who knew? The silk on the outside of the cocoon is thicker and known as “raw silk.” As it is pulled from the cocoon, it is a dull gold color. They get a lot more raw silk from the cocoon than they do the finer, inner silk.
3. At this training center the students are learning how to hand-weave silk and it is obviously a difficult process! The individual silk strands appeared to be not much thicker than spider web thread, but they combine many strands for weaving.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable tour. It wound up in a little shop where all the various articles were made from Cambodian silk, and probably right in this company’s workshops. The workmanship and colors of the silk items were no doubt excellent, and the price tags reflected the long hours of labor that went into each item. We felt we already had all the Cambodian souvenirs we needed, but on the other hand, we REALLY needed a cold beer, and there was a little refreshment stand right outside the showroom door!
There were pleasant tables with umbrellas on a deck outside the store and soon we all had an icy cold Angkor Beer in frosty steins. In this hot and humid climate, cold beer seems the perfect answer. Another thoughtful touch in this land of thoughtfulness—tightly rolled cold or hot towels appear before every restaurant meal—even in the modest pub restaurants. Today was no exception—and our pre-beer towels were nice and chilly!
Our hired driver dropped us off at the entrance to Le Meridien almost exactly four hours after we left. No one felt the need for lunch, but we munched on the fresh fruit left in our room every afternoon, plus our other nibbles and Mark’s jar of peanut butter which hasn’t entirely disappeared yet.
About 3 p.m. we headed down to the pool—where my water walking was interrupted by a lengthy chat with a rare type of tourist here—a Texan couple! They had been in India for a conference, felt a bit unsafe there, but were very enthusiastic about Cambodia, the Angkor Wat ruins and this excellent hotel and pool. Apparently they arrived on the same flight as us, and will be leaving tomorrow evening with us. In Singapore we part ways—they are flying home on Northwest Airlines, via Portland to Houston.
Glenn treated us to dinner at the hotel’s top restaurant—d”Angelo’s, mostly as a way to thank Mark for making this trip possible and also making it so successful. The restaurant table settings were most elegant, with huge silver service plates and upscale entrees, all of them Italian. Mark had a salad with squid and grouper baked fish, then penne with slices of Parmesan cheese. Glenn chose the veal and I had the grouper as an entrée with “smoked salmon sauce” while we split an entrée of the same penne that Mark enjoyed. All washed down with a French Cabernet wine. Going back to our real life is going to be a tremendous adjustment.
The “apsara” show took place again tonight. Glenn took his Canon camera and monopod down to film a bit of it. The video came out great but again, the still pictures, taken at night and without flash just come out blurry. He also took a few shots out at the pool—and we found all the “chuckling” froggies were out socializing and “singing.” The lotus ponds they inhabit have underwater lighting, so we could see just how MANY chuckling frogs are in there!
Back in the room, we turned on the TV at 9:30 p.m. to watch the drama of the US stock market open after a turbulent weekend on the overseas market. No trading yesterday, as it was a federal holiday—Martin Luther King Day. China and other Asian markets were down big time, and a few minutes into today’s Wall Street trading it looks like the USA markets will follow the rest of the world. Nothing but red numbers coming across the tape. Perhaps a good thing we have round trip tickets to get home!
I spent a buck for ten minutes of Internet time at the hotel’s business office and found e-mails from both Karen and Betty. Karen was doing so well in her Spanish classes that she got moved to Level 3 and it’s now one-on-one between her and the instructor. The bad news—there is no one else in the class for the teacher to call on! Really bad news—like Mark earlier, Karen has dropped her “Wolverine” photo external hard drive and it no longer will back up her photo files.
Karen and Anita had spent part of the weekend together, and Sunday the language school took the class to Teohuatican where Karen climbed as far up on the “Pyramid of the Moon” as is allowed. It seems New Age folks like to lie down on the pyramids to absorb “the energy” which greatly irritates the park guards who kick them out. As Karen put it so well, it seems no one is allowed to worship in temples these days!
Photo Album Jan. 22 (Tonle Sap Lake)>>
Photo Album Jan. 22 (Silk Farm)>>
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