Siem Reap
When we landed, we didn't know much about this town other than that it's close to Angkor Wat. But as we discovered, there was a lot more to it than just that.
For starters, we went to visit the Tonle Sap lake and the villages on it's edge and the floating village of Chong kneas.
The Tonle Sap is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. It forms a natural floodplain reservoir in the depression of the Cambodian plain and is drained by the Tonle Sap River into the Mekong River near Phnom Penh. When the level of the Mekong River is high the flow of the Tonle Sap River reverses: water is pushed into the lake, raising its level by up to 10 meters and increasing its area from 2,500-3,000 square kilometers in the dry season to 10,000-16,000 square kilometers in the rainy season.
We were visiting in the dry season. When we reached, there was a long row of boats for taking the tourist on to the floating village of Cong Kneas.
There were many many such floaty houses on the lake. The level of water isn't much now, but it still looks like a scary amount of water
A lot of the houses had small pens with ducks or geese. One had even a pig in it. See the white dog near the pen?
There were potted plants out on the verandah
And a boat to move around
This is probably some richer fellow with a big house
This is a school on the water.
A floating church
And a floating shop
Kids playing a board game. They don't seem to be scared being that close to the edge
This little boy was in the school we visited
The kids seem very nimble and totally cool about the whole water thing
There was this dog who also looked totally relaxed. Where do the dogs go for a crap...? Being clever animals, have they perhaps figured out to hover with their butts over water and take a dump?
Our boat guy who spoke a bit of english and told us he's an orphan.
Outside of lake, on the edges where the water rises during the monsoons, are these houses raised on very high wooden stilts.
Further down towards the town was the Siem reap river with a lot of villages built on it's edges. Almost all the houses were on wooden stilts. And other houses away from the river, further into the fields were also on high stilts.
As you can see in this house, the space below the house is used for resting in the hot afternoons. Or to store things.
People use these areas beneath the houses for sleeping in hammocks.
At one spot on the road, we came across ladies selling these bamboo pieces. These are hollow bamboos with sticky rice with a bit of coconut milk and black beans inside them. On one end, they close it with rice straw and then roast the whole thing on hot coals.
I of course had to try one. To eat, one has to pull out the rice straw and then peal the very thin bamboo tube. The beans looked like big ticks and for a moment i wondered if that's what they were. But i think ticks would taste different - not like beans.
In case i haven't mentioned it anywhere else on the blog, i just loved sticky rice! I don't usually eat rice but sticky rice was so good i ordered it at every opportunity. It is more glutinous and starchy than Indian rice. The preparation is also a bit different: one soaks the raw rice overnight, next day it's put without any water in a bamboo mat cone. This cone is put in a pot with water and the whole thing is steamed. The trick is not to have the rice in contact with any water. So it steams and because it had been soaked overnight, already has water content in it. Consistency is lovely!
On the way back, we also saw a whole bunch of modern Cambodian women working out with Aerobics in a large open ground area. One of the ladies had brought large speakers and an audio system, a genset in the car boot and the whole thing was open air.The lady who instructed probably collected a dollar or two per person
Here's another way that cambodian men thought of making money. Just collect some fish and let them get the cheese off the feet - for 1 dollar per person! I used to have that also in my house in Discipline - sitting with my feet in the ant channel!
