The Floating Village

Wednesday, December 1st, 2004 8:30PM Siem Reap, Cambodia

After seeing all of the major temples of Angkor, I decided to take a day to see a little more of Cambodia. Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in all of Southeast Asia. During the dry (cool season, but it has been in the 90's all week), season the lake will reduce down to a depth of 1 to 1.5 meters (yes, Cambodia is on the metric system, but I think it translates to about 3 to 4 feet) and during the rainy season will get to around 5 to 6 meters (if you want to know how many feet that is calculate it in your spare time).

The trip out of Siem Reap gave me the opportunity to see a little of the countryside. Rice paddies with storks stalking their prey; water buffalo grazing in other fields; as we approached the village, fishermen out with nets, and children playing and bathing.

As I've said before, this is a real poor country and some of the homes; set on bamboo stilts with palm leaf thatching are the barest of accommodation.

We traveled along the paved road for about 15 or so minutes before I had to stop and get a boat ticket (the driver told me to get one at this stand. This was going to be a big issue later, so stay tuned). The ticket was $20, a bit pricey by Cambodian standards for a 1 to 1.5 hour round trip. We then proceeded from paved road to a dirt road.

The road, or dirt track as I would call it was pockmarked with huge potholes (honestly, it would have made any road contractor in the city of Chicago salivate) and every kind of obstacle imaginable: dogs, cats, chickens, children, bicyclists, moped riders, busses, and other cars all at various points are encountered. After bouncing up and down for about 1/4 of a mile (usually not a problem, but something I ate either yesterday or the day before was not agreeing with me, so I really was just trying to hold my shit together).

We arrived a minute or two later and the boat driver took my ticket and led me to a large longtail boat powered by a auto engine. The floating village itself is a combination of homes in the water (i.e. "Floating"), large fish traps, and boats of various sizes and power (man powered or engine powered). Now one thing that I found interesting about the inhabitants of this area was that several are ethnic Vietnamese and not Cambodian. They relied on fishing, although there were many fish farms set up. The area is slowly being fished out, so the people here have to rely in raising fish in captivity for their food. At one stop we made, there were three examples of preserved fish that had only been caught years ago which were at least 2.5 feet long (big, big fish). Most of what I saw being caught looked like slightly better fed bait.

So after a couple hours out, I went back to the Red Piano bar and restaurant (its a short walk away, but the driver dropped me off there). The castoff the driver for the afternoon was $25 as listed in the price structure, I handed the money off and reconfirmed the pick up time for Thursday as I go back to Bangkok. At breakfast in the Red Piano, I struck up a conversation with the owner of the place as the restaurant used to be the guesthouse and they were putting the finishing touches on making it exclusively a bar and restaurant.

I had told him of my plans for the day, so as we talked about my trip out there he asked me how much I paid. I told him $20 for the boat (he told me I should have paid no more than $10) and $@5 for the cab at which point he lost it. The main reason is that this kind of activity drives up prices for all and he was especially unhappy that it was one of his drivers that was part of the conspiracy. Now as I had told him, I had no issues with paying a bit more, my driver had done a great job and was patient enough to wait for me all day as I trekked around the temples for the past two days.

So the owner calls the driver and proceeds to read him the riot act on what prices to charge (keep in mind that for all day at the temples the cost was $20, and I dropped $25 for about 3 hours); he then told the driver to get back and drop off my $25 dollars to me. Harsh. Real harsh. The driver did drop off my money at the guest house, which I happily averted a bit of unpleasantness and a loss of face on his part, but I now have an appointment for 5:30PM for my ride to the port. Should be a real fun ride.

That's all for today. I'm wiped out and my stomach is really bothering me. Time for a Pepto Bismol smoothie and bed. I'll start work on the Angkor part of the trip on Friday. Till Friday...