First stop at the temples - yay!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Yummy Bus Snacks!
Yummy bus snacks for the ride from Battambang to Siem Reap... we stuck with the Belgian Waffles.
Pagoda
Phnom Penh still has 5 of the original wats which were somehow not completely destroyed during the Civil War. Buddas are decorated with brightly colored cloth and left food and other treats for sharing with the spirits of the ancestors.
It's a Man's World
From the Rainbow Lodge in the Cardamom Mountains we took the bus northeast to Phnom Penh, and from there made our way to Battambang. The distances are not great, but the roads are slow going so each leg was a full day of travel. Battambang is where we ended up in the humble Rotenak "resort" with the broken coffee machine, taunted by the new and luxurious Bambou resort, just half a block down and only $5 a night more.
The only saving grace of the Rotenak was its greater proximity from a local wedding site. Apparently, this is wedding season. The rice harvest is done and farming families have a few months before the next cycle begins. Now is when they rest up a bit and spend some of their hard earned money, and when they get married. Weddings last 3 days by tradition and a good PA system is apparently essential to broadcasting the happy news all over the neighborhood. Music begins at 4:00 in the morning and continues until late at night. Guests dance round and round in something approaching a conga line while others take turns at the microphone... the Rotenak was within earshot of this but Bambou was right next door so its poor guests had a couple of very sleepless nights.
From Battambang we made our final leg up to Siem Reap, where we would visit Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world. We decided to splurge a bit and ended up at a lovely, comfortable place called Siddharta, just opened in October and everything still has that new resort feel to it. We invested in a guide for the temple visits, which was well worth the price. Angkor Wat was impressive, but the Bayon faces and Angkor Thom complex even more so.
One thing I noticed everywhere we went in the South and pretty much until we got here to Siem Reap, was a dsitinct role reversal. Porters would walk out to meet Patrick and me, each carrying a heavy pack, and they would invariably grab his... "Let me help you, sir." So Patrick would stroll into the hotel with just his small bag while I struggled on with my whole pack and our daybag full of water, deet, guidebook, etc. To his credit, he sometimes noticed and helped me. This deference to men extended to restaurant service too... in fact, when the coffee machine broke down at the Rotenak, they had just made one of our two cups of coffee. The waiter put it in front of Patrick. No more coffee - this is it. Here you go sir. Whatever happened to ladies first?!?
Well, once we got to Siem Reap things were back to normal from my western point of view. The porter carried my bag as well as Patrick's, and when they gave us our orientation briefing the guy looked at me as well as Patrick. Finally, I felt acknowledged again!
Anyway, now here we are packing up again, for just about the last time. Siem Reap to Saigon today, one night at Vong and Huong's place in Saigon and then tomorrow we return to the Bay Area. It will be very strange to walk down the street without being asked if we want a tuk tuk ride.
The only saving grace of the Rotenak was its greater proximity from a local wedding site. Apparently, this is wedding season. The rice harvest is done and farming families have a few months before the next cycle begins. Now is when they rest up a bit and spend some of their hard earned money, and when they get married. Weddings last 3 days by tradition and a good PA system is apparently essential to broadcasting the happy news all over the neighborhood. Music begins at 4:00 in the morning and continues until late at night. Guests dance round and round in something approaching a conga line while others take turns at the microphone... the Rotenak was within earshot of this but Bambou was right next door so its poor guests had a couple of very sleepless nights.
From Battambang we made our final leg up to Siem Reap, where we would visit Angkor Wat, one of the wonders of the world. We decided to splurge a bit and ended up at a lovely, comfortable place called Siddharta, just opened in October and everything still has that new resort feel to it. We invested in a guide for the temple visits, which was well worth the price. Angkor Wat was impressive, but the Bayon faces and Angkor Thom complex even more so.
One thing I noticed everywhere we went in the South and pretty much until we got here to Siem Reap, was a dsitinct role reversal. Porters would walk out to meet Patrick and me, each carrying a heavy pack, and they would invariably grab his... "Let me help you, sir." So Patrick would stroll into the hotel with just his small bag while I struggled on with my whole pack and our daybag full of water, deet, guidebook, etc. To his credit, he sometimes noticed and helped me. This deference to men extended to restaurant service too... in fact, when the coffee machine broke down at the Rotenak, they had just made one of our two cups of coffee. The waiter put it in front of Patrick. No more coffee - this is it. Here you go sir. Whatever happened to ladies first?!?
Well, once we got to Siem Reap things were back to normal from my western point of view. The porter carried my bag as well as Patrick's, and when they gave us our orientation briefing the guy looked at me as well as Patrick. Finally, I felt acknowledged again!
Anyway, now here we are packing up again, for just about the last time. Siem Reap to Saigon today, one night at Vong and Huong's place in Saigon and then tomorrow we return to the Bay Area. It will be very strange to walk down the street without being asked if we want a tuk tuk ride.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
General Aviation in Cambodia...
GA in Cambodia? You're looking at it. While we were out temple hopping on our second day in Siem Reap, we saw what looked like an ultralight soaring over the ruins. I had to check that out, and so I found Sky Venture Cambodia, www.skyventure.org. A 45 minute tour of the temples cost only a little more than an hour in a Cessna 152 back home. Sky Venture turned out to be two guys operating one weight-shift aircraft out of a thatched roof FBO just outside of town. No running water and no electricity to run a credit card, but they had a small hangar and three aircraft - apparently the biggest GA fleet in the country - one of which they use for commercial passengers.
The craft
The runway
The craft
The runway
Monday, January 3, 2011
Canoe ride
Last post for tonight... we took a canoe out for a paddle before getting back on the boat to the main road for our next leg to Phnom Penh. We were ready by then for some time in the big city.
Cardamom Jungle
After Koh Kong we spent one night at the Rainbow Lodge ecoresort in the Cardamom mountains. We took a nice half day trek through the jungle... first ten minutes were pretty much straight up.
Preacher
What else would you expect to find at a place called the Crab Shack on the day after Christmas? A group of American preachers trying to woo the locals with giant prawns and a pile of Christmas presents for the kids.
Tuk Tuk Ride
After the mangrove walk, a lovely tuk tuk ride across the bridge to a place called The Crab Shack, where we had even bigger and more delicious prawns and saw...
More Mangroves
Boxing Day... first, a walk through the mangroves along a system of raised platforms.
Fishing Boat
Fishermen can spend several days at a time on these houseboats. A lot of the Vietnamese boat people who tried to escape the Viet Cong at the end of "the American War" actually left on boats like these, packed full with people - they had no idea how big the ocean was.
Christmas Pig
The Kruong Koh Kong expats hold an annual pig roast on Christmas. We joined in after our boat trip through the mangroves and the island.
Sihanouk Ville party beach
Two days in the beach party town of Sihanouk Ville was enough. The enormous prawns were great, though.
Floating Semi
Overloaded boat full of rice husks (used for fuel). Mekong River equivalent of a semi truck.
Lunch with Vong & Huong back in Saigon
Finally a good, fast internet connection so I'll continue uploading some pictures. This was from way back on Day 2, lunch with Vong and Huong in Saigon.
Duct tape saves the day... again
It wouldn't be a trip without a breakdown of some kind. We watched the minutes tick by at the Battambang bus station, aka the Battambang gas station, surrounded by hawkers and beggars of every kind. Our 9:30 bus to Siem Reap finally pulled in at around 10:00. Instead of a new, air conditioned tourist bus with toilet, it turned out to be an old, air conditioned locals bus sans toilet. They needed the space, I guess, for all the motorbikes and giant sacks of rice they stored under the seats. Through faded curtains we spotted what looked like a couple of empty seats. Once on, the driver shooed away a little girl who was resting there and told us to sit there. The girl went back to sitting on the floor in the aisle with her family. And several other families.
After sitting there for about 20 minutes without leaving - the bus was packed full after all so that didn't make sense - I went out to stretch. Turned out the engine door in the back was propped open and one of the bus driver's assistants was elbow deep inside prying and twisting away. Figures. I always seem to experience at least one mechanical failure of some kind on every trip. Meanwhile, the crowd of food vendors was growing. Ladies carrying giant baskets of food on their heads, wandering in to feed the hungry delayed. Patrick took pictures of the fare - doughnuts, Belgian waffles, whole red-roasted birds on a stick, tiny river clams, fried grasshoppers. It's the river clams that get me. I mean, as I understand it, a clam is basically just a filter... it sits there at the bottom, water flows past it, and it filters out what it wants. It's a river liver.
River clams live in river mud. And mud is about all that's left in the rivers in Cambodia during the dry season. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Since people live, wash, bathe and dump garbage in that same trickle that passes for a river, it's a hard enough sell to eat fish that lived there, let alone clams, but what do I know?
Anyway, it seemed like it might be a long trip so I bought us two Belgian waffles. Fortunately, though, someone brought the bus driver's assistant the critical mechanic's tool he was apparently missing - a roll of duct tape. "Five minutes," he told me when I asked for our updated ETD. OK, only one hour behind schedule. As it turned out, they must factor that in when they calculate the schedule times because we somehow rolled into Siem Reap pretty much right on time.
After sitting there for about 20 minutes without leaving - the bus was packed full after all so that didn't make sense - I went out to stretch. Turned out the engine door in the back was propped open and one of the bus driver's assistants was elbow deep inside prying and twisting away. Figures. I always seem to experience at least one mechanical failure of some kind on every trip. Meanwhile, the crowd of food vendors was growing. Ladies carrying giant baskets of food on their heads, wandering in to feed the hungry delayed. Patrick took pictures of the fare - doughnuts, Belgian waffles, whole red-roasted birds on a stick, tiny river clams, fried grasshoppers. It's the river clams that get me. I mean, as I understand it, a clam is basically just a filter... it sits there at the bottom, water flows past it, and it filters out what it wants. It's a river liver.
River clams live in river mud. And mud is about all that's left in the rivers in Cambodia during the dry season. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Since people live, wash, bathe and dump garbage in that same trickle that passes for a river, it's a hard enough sell to eat fish that lived there, let alone clams, but what do I know?
Anyway, it seemed like it might be a long trip so I bought us two Belgian waffles. Fortunately, though, someone brought the bus driver's assistant the critical mechanic's tool he was apparently missing - a roll of duct tape. "Five minutes," he told me when I asked for our updated ETD. OK, only one hour behind schedule. As it turned out, they must factor that in when they calculate the schedule times because we somehow rolled into Siem Reap pretty much right on time.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Mangroves
Yay! The coffee machine at the Rotenrak Resort has been, miraculously, fixed. Yesterday morning, the bleary eyed pair of us had to stumble down the street to the next hotel for our morning brew. The guys here just didn't get it that tea and coffee are two completely different beasts. When their Krups went kaput they figued we should just drink Cambodian Lipton leaves but no... we just stared at them blank faced. That same look you have when you wander out into your kitchen only to find your supply of Peet's has somehow dried up and you need to drive over to get some before... well, before you have your coffee. Driving a car can be a dangerous proposition under those circumstances. And flying an airplane, as my early bird students will attest, is completely unacceptable. The most common tokens of affection from my before-work flyers is, hands-down, Peet's coffee cards. Especially the students who haven't soloed yet. They disguise it as "sorry to make you get up so early," but I always think the real goal is to make sure at least one person on board is truly competent to land the airplane.
Anyway, as of yesterday afternoon, the $2000 Krups super machine was in no less than 586 parts, strewn out along the poolside deck. It would cost $900, our host said, to send it to Germany for repair. We grumbled to ourselves about why a humble resort like this would commit to such a cumbersome piece of technology when making coffee can be so supremely simple. We chided ourselves for not bringing the jetboil we just got, or at least a handful of emergency drip cone filters and some grounds. But somehow, by some miracle of Cambodian resourcefulness, the German monstrosity has reassembled itself and is once again spitting out that heavenly brew to which we are, apparently, so addicted. Maybe that explains why there seemed to be a lone light on all night, as well as the sudden appearance of what seems to be a village elder... "yes, young man, I know Krups. I can fix."
Anyway, grumbling aside, we are happy enough now to be sitting here in front of our bungalow, listening to the public address system broadcasting the morning chants from the nearby wat and awaiting our second cup of joe. So... to continue with Koh Kong, aside from the legacy of casinos and prostitution, the area is remarkable for its location in the thick of the Cardamom Mountains, one of the first places we both decided, months ago, we wanted to explore. It's also known for its coastal islands, including Koh Kong Island, the biggest one, which you can visit by day boat. No overnights currently allowed. We took a day trip there on Christmas Day. On the way out the boat zigzags through a massive mangrove forest, one of the biggest in the world, apparently, and on the international list of protected wetlands. Mangroves grow in shallow water just off the shoreline. Aside from being one of the most incredibly homogenous ecosystems I've ever seen - virtually nothing but mangroves for as far as the eye can see... no other species of tree, bush, vine, nothing, they also play an important role in stopping tsunamis, arresting the most dangerous part of the swell before it hits the inhabited land beyond. They also make for a very worthwhile boat ride.
Alright... coffee's here, breakfast getting cold and we need to pack up and leave in 20 minutes so... more later. Next stop, Siem Reap.
Anyway, as of yesterday afternoon, the $2000 Krups super machine was in no less than 586 parts, strewn out along the poolside deck. It would cost $900, our host said, to send it to Germany for repair. We grumbled to ourselves about why a humble resort like this would commit to such a cumbersome piece of technology when making coffee can be so supremely simple. We chided ourselves for not bringing the jetboil we just got, or at least a handful of emergency drip cone filters and some grounds. But somehow, by some miracle of Cambodian resourcefulness, the German monstrosity has reassembled itself and is once again spitting out that heavenly brew to which we are, apparently, so addicted. Maybe that explains why there seemed to be a lone light on all night, as well as the sudden appearance of what seems to be a village elder... "yes, young man, I know Krups. I can fix."
Anyway, grumbling aside, we are happy enough now to be sitting here in front of our bungalow, listening to the public address system broadcasting the morning chants from the nearby wat and awaiting our second cup of joe. So... to continue with Koh Kong, aside from the legacy of casinos and prostitution, the area is remarkable for its location in the thick of the Cardamom Mountains, one of the first places we both decided, months ago, we wanted to explore. It's also known for its coastal islands, including Koh Kong Island, the biggest one, which you can visit by day boat. No overnights currently allowed. We took a day trip there on Christmas Day. On the way out the boat zigzags through a massive mangrove forest, one of the biggest in the world, apparently, and on the international list of protected wetlands. Mangroves grow in shallow water just off the shoreline. Aside from being one of the most incredibly homogenous ecosystems I've ever seen - virtually nothing but mangroves for as far as the eye can see... no other species of tree, bush, vine, nothing, they also play an important role in stopping tsunamis, arresting the most dangerous part of the swell before it hits the inhabited land beyond. They also make for a very worthwhile boat ride.
Alright... coffee's here, breakfast getting cold and we need to pack up and leave in 20 minutes so... more later. Next stop, Siem Reap.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year's Eve with a -bang
Battambang, that is. I haven't done a very good job of keeping a chronology so far, have I? Last post was from Kruong Koh Kong - Koh Kong City. This is a border town just a few kilometers from Thailand. Since casino gambling is legal in Cambodia, people sometimes come from the neighboring countries for a night of gambling and etc. Fortunately, those border casinoes are sad, isolated places literally right at the border. So close, in fact, that you don't even need a visa to get there... you can leave your passport with the guards, cross over, and pick it up again on your way back. The same goes for ATMs... they don't have a wide selection of those in Koh Kong, but you can get plenty of money in Thailand. One set of travelers we met here crossed the border into Thailand just to get some cash.
Anyway, along with the casino, or maybe because of it, Kruong Koh Kong also became known as a town where a man could be sure to hook up if he so desired. It's moving past that reputation now, but we did notice some strange door-knocking going on in our hotel the first night. The second night there, I walked out into the hallway at just the right moment, or just the wrong moment... three men were standing at doors at various points down the hall. As I walked past the first one, a pretty woman, half the guy's age and dressed in a stunning white gown, opened the door with a provocative look and welcomed him in. Yuk! Right next to our room!
Anyway, skipping ahead to the present, apparently the coffee machine at our current bungalow is broken (still, this happened yesterday) so we need to take off to get breakfast somewhere in town. So.... more later! Happy New Year to all!
Anyway, along with the casino, or maybe because of it, Kruong Koh Kong also became known as a town where a man could be sure to hook up if he so desired. It's moving past that reputation now, but we did notice some strange door-knocking going on in our hotel the first night. The second night there, I walked out into the hallway at just the right moment, or just the wrong moment... three men were standing at doors at various points down the hall. As I walked past the first one, a pretty woman, half the guy's age and dressed in a stunning white gown, opened the door with a provocative look and welcomed him in. Yuk! Right next to our room!
Anyway, skipping ahead to the present, apparently the coffee machine at our current bungalow is broken (still, this happened yesterday) so we need to take off to get breakfast somewhere in town. So.... more later! Happy New Year to all!
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