1st September 2007
Minefields or Mindfields?
So the past few weeks have been really busy – both with work and social life. I have had hardly any time to myself.
A few weeks ago Lainie and I went to visit some friends in Battambang for the weekend. It is a long way there, for me, because you have to go all the way around the lake. It is at least 7 hours. Last time I was there, I hardly saw anything, so this time we decided to go and see some stuff. We went out to a dam and irrigation system that was built by the Khmer Rouge. The system still works today and is the main reason that the Battambang Province is famous, well famous in Cambodia, for all its quality produce – particularly their oranges and rice (outside of Cambodia Battambang Province is more famous for being the Province where Angelina Jolie’s adopted child is from and their ‘millennium village’ project). Around Battambang, they harvest rice yields twice a year, rather than just once. However, the cost for building the dam was thousands of lives. One of the moto drivers, who took us on the long bumpy trek out to the dam, actually helped to construct it and told us that many people were buried in the foundations. Now, ironically, the dam is a bit of a tourist attraction, particularly for Cambodians. You can sit in a thatched shanty and eat fish caught fresh from the water. After we munched down some fish we hired some big black inner tubes went for a swim with some local kids. It was quite fun and the water was so cool and clean.
That night a few of us head out to ‘sky’ the local night club. There were only a few westerners there, so we attracted a bit of attention. A few guys tried their English out on me, even when I was at the urinal. At one point I had three guys, one massaging my back, talking to me while I was trying to go. It was the kind of place you can only buy drinks by the bottle (i.e. a bottle of vodka, scotch), so inevitably we were in for a big one. I don’t remember finishing the bottle of vodka, but I must have. It was a funny place. The air conditioning was pumping just as loud as the music and coloured lights flashed away. Down on the dance floor I impressed the locals with my repertoire of disco dance struts and found myself with a little friend holding onto the front of my shirt, copying my moves, for a good hour or so.
The next day I had to get up at 6am to catch the boat to Siem Reap. Thankfully, Lainie had set the alarm for me and I stumbled out of bed, probably still drunk, in time to catch the boat. The boat ride between Battambang and Siem Reap is a long but pretty one as it winds down the river through farm lands, mangroves, bird sanctuaries, small villages and across the Tonle Sap (the biggest lake in South East Asia). Unfortunately, I was in no state to enjoy it much. I was too busy nursing my hang over and trying not being sick over the side. The ‘fast boat’ took over 7 hours to make the journey (at worst it could be 11 hours) – the journey around the lake on a bumpy dirt road to Siem Reap takes about 4 hours. So, if you ask me there was nothing fast about the ‘fast boat’. For the first hour of the ride I kept wondering when we get to the ‘fast boat’, thinking that the boat we were on was only a taxi. The boat was packed with tourists and I must have looked a sight as I stumbled on last and collapsed into the seat at the front next to the driver. All I wanted to do was curl up on top of everyone’s bags and go back to sleep, but everyone was facing towards me and would have seen me - so that option was out. One old German tourist kept checking his GPS system the whole way. Nerd. After I got to Siem Reap it was still another 2 and a half hours to Kampong Thom. I was happy to get home by that stage – over 12 hours door to door with a throbbing hang over. I am not doing that again.
While we were in Battambang we also got a hair cut from Ana, one of our friends, who is an ex-hair dresser. I am now sporting a delightful little mullet. However, while she was cutting our hair she discovered some nit eggs in both Lainie and my hair. We have no idea where they came from. Most likely some of the children we have been in contact with. I didn’t have time to go to the chemist in Battambang and it turned out getting nit hair wash is no easy task in Kampong Thom. I had to ask around at the Chemists and then, when that failed, had to ask the guys from work. Naturally, they all thought it was hilarious. Turns out you can’t get nit hair wash in Kampong Thom. So then I had to ask my friend Tim, who was coming up to Kampong Thom for meeting, to bring some from Phnom Penh. Tim tells me when he asked for the hair wash at the chemist the girl at the counter slowly backed away and indicated he should go the other end of the store. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for my friend’ he pleaded, but still she stood back, with a look of disgust on her face, and pointed…
So the following weekend a group of our friends came up to visit from Phnom Penh. Shin and I had been thinking about hiring a boat and doing a day trip on the Stung Sen, the river which passes through Kampong Thom. The river starts off in the north of Cambodia, near Prah Vihear near the Thai border and winds its way down to the Tonle Sap. For some weeks the river has been high and fast moving, threatening to burst its banks near our house. In the north of the Province, in the areas around Sandan, they have seen the worst flooding in 20 years; some 30,000 people have been cut off from food and fresh water. Many of the new bridges and roads, built during the dry season, were swept away by the force of the water. At home, the Prime Minister would have flown out and declared it a natural disaster. There would have been a big relief effort; the army would have probably gone in to get people out. But this is Cambodia, the government did nothing. There was no relief effort. There is no insurance or medical assistance. There weren’t even any reports in the newspaper. People just dealt with it. It is not like they weren’t expecting the rain and flooding. It happens every year. Although, not always so bad. That’s why they build there houses on stilts. People will probably die from starvation and disease. But no one is really keeping figures. I only know about it because my colleagues and friends who work in the area and couldn’t get out to see their clients.
So anyhow, we decided to do a boat trip. After some fierce bargaining, which we lost, we hired a covered putt-putt boat from one of the locals. A couple of our friends from, work joined us too – including one of my colleagues, Arun, who is 24 but had never been on a boat or to Tonle Sap (mostly because she can’t swim and is scared of the water - we reassured, telling her that nearly all our friends are good swimmers, because we all learn to swim young). We packed on the BBQ, a couple of eskies brimming with beers, sun cream and a pack of cards and set off. It was beautiful sunny day and was really nice on the river. The boat was big enough for us to sprawl out on plastic mats. So we all just kicked back in took in the scenery – waving to all the little kids that waved to us from the shore.
Outside of town the river had burst its banks and we went had to negotiate the channels of a rice paddy before pushing on along the river to Tonle Sap. The further we got from town, the more and more run down the houses got. After a while all that lined the shores were small clusters of shabby little shanties where only the very poor live and survive solely from their fish catches in the river. The rights to fishing in the river were sold to companies by the government, so even this simply activity is fraught with danger, as the people ‘illegally’ catch enough fish to live on.
After about four hours we reached the floating village which sits at the mouth of the Stung Sen. There we got out and had lunch at the boat owner’s house/shop. Part of lunch was prohop, a fermented mushy brown fish dish which could quite possibly be the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten (it easily tasted worse than the ball-like membrane things I ate out of a snake the other day). After lunch we went for a swim in the muddy dull brown waters of the lake (and probably caught several yet to be identified parasites). But it was still nice to go swimming - the water was fresh and tasted like soil.
The trip back to Kampong Thom was a slow one as the boat pushed on against the fast moving current. The water eddying away at the side of the river gave an indication of just how fast the water was moving. But it wasn’t till we stopped and jumped in that we got the full impact. We would jump in at the front, swim as a hard as we could to stay in the one spot and then let ourselves be taken to the rear of the boat. Then repeat. It was quite fun. It took a good 7 hours to get back to Kampong Thom, but we were rewarded with a most spectacular sunset over the winding rivers. The last few hours of the boat ride passed with us singing songs by a little exposed electric light as we boat cut through the dark water.
The day after the boat trip our friends all headed back to Phnom Penh and I headed to Siem Reap to meet my friend Louise who was flying in from Australia. Lousie had been to Cambodia before but was interested to see ‘the other side’ of the country. She stayed with us for a few days and ventured out with both my NGO and Shin’s NGO for a couple of field visits to see some orphans, people living with HIV and peer training programs. She seemed quite happy to take it all in, but I think the highlight of her visit was riding on a moto, on a little boat, to cross water channels where the road had once been…
The following weekend I went with Louise back to Siem Reap to see her off and meet Lainie, who was on her way to visit me in Kampong Thom. Before we left Siem Reap Lainie and I went to meet a monk who Lainie had befriended and who is keen to build a new school in his home town of Kratie. Lainie has been helping him put together a funding proposal and in a few weeks we hope to go and check out the site.
On the Sunday I took Lainie out on my moto to visit the 9th century temples near Kampong Thom called Prasart Sambor Prey Kuk. The road there alone is worth the ride as it winds through the local villages and rice fields. The temples are considerably older than Angkor Watt and made from mud brick. Set among the forest, many of them have slowly been eroded by the weather over the years. We spent most of the day wondering around with an entourage of ten children who were keen to practice their English and sell some hand made scarfs.
On the way out we decided to check out a group of temples which were a few kilometres apart from the main group of temples at Prey Kuk. The road out to these temples was a little-used sandy track, perhaps a metre wide, which wound through the thick jungle. At times it hard work not letting the bike slip away in the sand and then we hit the mine field…
Now, it is quite possible I have gone through a few mine fields since I have been here and been completely oblivious. However, this one was clearly marked. There were little red signs all along the track and red tape from the edges of the road going back into the foliage. Needless to say, I stopped at this point, partly because the road forked, but mostly because of the mine signs. We could see a local working in a field a behind us, so I went back and asked her which way we should go to the temples (my Khmer is improving). She told us to go straight ahead. We hesitate and then decided to follow the tracks of another moto which had clearly been past recently. Nervously and slowly we went over the now rough track and rounded a bend just in time to see the owner of the moto flying back the other way. He turned out to be local teacher who wanted to practice his English and was putting together a class on the temples. He asked if he could take us around. Fearing more land mines, we gladly accepted the invitation and followed him through a few creaks and along the eroded dirt path up to the temples.
The temples, although small, were spectacular. The thick canopy gave them this magical green light. The trees and moss had overgrown many of the dark stones of the ruins. And it was quiet – so quiet it was eerie. All we could hear were the sounds of the jungle, our feet crunching on the thick undergrowth and squeals of pain when we were bitten by some massive blood thirsty ants. Tourists hardly ever came here, these temples sat as they had for centuries. I could imagine how the first Europeans who unearthed Angkor Watt must have felt…it was magical.
Aside from visitors, I have been really quite busy at work too - preparing funding proposals and working on a new management database for my NGO. I felt like I was burning the candle at both ends and I was glad this week to get some time to myself and completely chill out. This weekend I plan on doing nothing.
So that it all for now.
I hope everyone is well.
By-e.
So the past few weeks have been really busy – both with work and social life. I have had hardly any time to myself.
A few weeks ago Lainie and I went to visit some friends in Battambang for the weekend. It is a long way there, for me, because you have to go all the way around the lake. It is at least 7 hours. Last time I was there, I hardly saw anything, so this time we decided to go and see some stuff. We went out to a dam and irrigation system that was built by the Khmer Rouge. The system still works today and is the main reason that the Battambang Province is famous, well famous in Cambodia, for all its quality produce – particularly their oranges and rice (outside of Cambodia Battambang Province is more famous for being the Province where Angelina Jolie’s adopted child is from and their ‘millennium village’ project). Around Battambang, they harvest rice yields twice a year, rather than just once. However, the cost for building the dam was thousands of lives. One of the moto drivers, who took us on the long bumpy trek out to the dam, actually helped to construct it and told us that many people were buried in the foundations. Now, ironically, the dam is a bit of a tourist attraction, particularly for Cambodians. You can sit in a thatched shanty and eat fish caught fresh from the water. After we munched down some fish we hired some big black inner tubes went for a swim with some local kids. It was quite fun and the water was so cool and clean.
That night a few of us head out to ‘sky’ the local night club. There were only a few westerners there, so we attracted a bit of attention. A few guys tried their English out on me, even when I was at the urinal. At one point I had three guys, one massaging my back, talking to me while I was trying to go. It was the kind of place you can only buy drinks by the bottle (i.e. a bottle of vodka, scotch), so inevitably we were in for a big one. I don’t remember finishing the bottle of vodka, but I must have. It was a funny place. The air conditioning was pumping just as loud as the music and coloured lights flashed away. Down on the dance floor I impressed the locals with my repertoire of disco dance struts and found myself with a little friend holding onto the front of my shirt, copying my moves, for a good hour or so.
The next day I had to get up at 6am to catch the boat to Siem Reap. Thankfully, Lainie had set the alarm for me and I stumbled out of bed, probably still drunk, in time to catch the boat. The boat ride between Battambang and Siem Reap is a long but pretty one as it winds down the river through farm lands, mangroves, bird sanctuaries, small villages and across the Tonle Sap (the biggest lake in South East Asia). Unfortunately, I was in no state to enjoy it much. I was too busy nursing my hang over and trying not being sick over the side. The ‘fast boat’ took over 7 hours to make the journey (at worst it could be 11 hours) – the journey around the lake on a bumpy dirt road to Siem Reap takes about 4 hours. So, if you ask me there was nothing fast about the ‘fast boat’. For the first hour of the ride I kept wondering when we get to the ‘fast boat’, thinking that the boat we were on was only a taxi. The boat was packed with tourists and I must have looked a sight as I stumbled on last and collapsed into the seat at the front next to the driver. All I wanted to do was curl up on top of everyone’s bags and go back to sleep, but everyone was facing towards me and would have seen me - so that option was out. One old German tourist kept checking his GPS system the whole way. Nerd. After I got to Siem Reap it was still another 2 and a half hours to Kampong Thom. I was happy to get home by that stage – over 12 hours door to door with a throbbing hang over. I am not doing that again.
While we were in Battambang we also got a hair cut from Ana, one of our friends, who is an ex-hair dresser. I am now sporting a delightful little mullet. However, while she was cutting our hair she discovered some nit eggs in both Lainie and my hair. We have no idea where they came from. Most likely some of the children we have been in contact with. I didn’t have time to go to the chemist in Battambang and it turned out getting nit hair wash is no easy task in Kampong Thom. I had to ask around at the Chemists and then, when that failed, had to ask the guys from work. Naturally, they all thought it was hilarious. Turns out you can’t get nit hair wash in Kampong Thom. So then I had to ask my friend Tim, who was coming up to Kampong Thom for meeting, to bring some from Phnom Penh. Tim tells me when he asked for the hair wash at the chemist the girl at the counter slowly backed away and indicated he should go the other end of the store. ‘It’s not for me, it’s for my friend’ he pleaded, but still she stood back, with a look of disgust on her face, and pointed…
So the following weekend a group of our friends came up to visit from Phnom Penh. Shin and I had been thinking about hiring a boat and doing a day trip on the Stung Sen, the river which passes through Kampong Thom. The river starts off in the north of Cambodia, near Prah Vihear near the Thai border and winds its way down to the Tonle Sap. For some weeks the river has been high and fast moving, threatening to burst its banks near our house. In the north of the Province, in the areas around Sandan, they have seen the worst flooding in 20 years; some 30,000 people have been cut off from food and fresh water. Many of the new bridges and roads, built during the dry season, were swept away by the force of the water. At home, the Prime Minister would have flown out and declared it a natural disaster. There would have been a big relief effort; the army would have probably gone in to get people out. But this is Cambodia, the government did nothing. There was no relief effort. There is no insurance or medical assistance. There weren’t even any reports in the newspaper. People just dealt with it. It is not like they weren’t expecting the rain and flooding. It happens every year. Although, not always so bad. That’s why they build there houses on stilts. People will probably die from starvation and disease. But no one is really keeping figures. I only know about it because my colleagues and friends who work in the area and couldn’t get out to see their clients.
So anyhow, we decided to do a boat trip. After some fierce bargaining, which we lost, we hired a covered putt-putt boat from one of the locals. A couple of our friends from, work joined us too – including one of my colleagues, Arun, who is 24 but had never been on a boat or to Tonle Sap (mostly because she can’t swim and is scared of the water - we reassured, telling her that nearly all our friends are good swimmers, because we all learn to swim young). We packed on the BBQ, a couple of eskies brimming with beers, sun cream and a pack of cards and set off. It was beautiful sunny day and was really nice on the river. The boat was big enough for us to sprawl out on plastic mats. So we all just kicked back in took in the scenery – waving to all the little kids that waved to us from the shore.
Outside of town the river had burst its banks and we went had to negotiate the channels of a rice paddy before pushing on along the river to Tonle Sap. The further we got from town, the more and more run down the houses got. After a while all that lined the shores were small clusters of shabby little shanties where only the very poor live and survive solely from their fish catches in the river. The rights to fishing in the river were sold to companies by the government, so even this simply activity is fraught with danger, as the people ‘illegally’ catch enough fish to live on.
After about four hours we reached the floating village which sits at the mouth of the Stung Sen. There we got out and had lunch at the boat owner’s house/shop. Part of lunch was prohop, a fermented mushy brown fish dish which could quite possibly be the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten (it easily tasted worse than the ball-like membrane things I ate out of a snake the other day). After lunch we went for a swim in the muddy dull brown waters of the lake (and probably caught several yet to be identified parasites). But it was still nice to go swimming - the water was fresh and tasted like soil.The trip back to Kampong Thom was a slow one as the boat pushed on against the fast moving current. The water eddying away at the side of the river gave an indication of just how fast the water was moving. But it wasn’t till we stopped and jumped in that we got the full impact. We would jump in at the front, swim as a hard as we could to stay in the one spot and then let ourselves be taken to the rear of the boat. Then repeat. It was quite fun. It took a good 7 hours to get back to Kampong Thom, but we were rewarded with a most spectacular sunset over the winding rivers. The last few hours of the boat ride passed with us singing songs by a little exposed electric light as we boat cut through the dark water.
The day after the boat trip our friends all headed back to Phnom Penh and I headed to Siem Reap to meet my friend Louise who was flying in from Australia. Lousie had been to Cambodia before but was interested to see ‘the other side’ of the country. She stayed with us for a few days and ventured out with both my NGO and Shin’s NGO for a couple of field visits to see some orphans, people living with HIV and peer training programs. She seemed quite happy to take it all in, but I think the highlight of her visit was riding on a moto, on a little boat, to cross water channels where the road had once been…
The following weekend I went with Louise back to Siem Reap to see her off and meet Lainie, who was on her way to visit me in Kampong Thom. Before we left Siem Reap Lainie and I went to meet a monk who Lainie had befriended and who is keen to build a new school in his home town of Kratie. Lainie has been helping him put together a funding proposal and in a few weeks we hope to go and check out the site.
On the Sunday I took Lainie out on my moto to visit the 9th century temples near Kampong Thom called Prasart Sambor Prey Kuk. The road there alone is worth the ride as it winds through the local villages and rice fields. The temples are considerably older than Angkor Watt and made from mud brick. Set among the forest, many of them have slowly been eroded by the weather over the years. We spent most of the day wondering around with an entourage of ten children who were keen to practice their English and sell some hand made scarfs.
On the way out we decided to check out a group of temples which were a few kilometres apart from the main group of temples at Prey Kuk. The road out to these temples was a little-used sandy track, perhaps a metre wide, which wound through the thick jungle. At times it hard work not letting the bike slip away in the sand and then we hit the mine field…
Now, it is quite possible I have gone through a few mine fields since I have been here and been completely oblivious. However, this one was clearly marked. There were little red signs all along the track and red tape from the edges of the road going back into the foliage. Needless to say, I stopped at this point, partly because the road forked, but mostly because of the mine signs. We could see a local working in a field a behind us, so I went back and asked her which way we should go to the temples (my Khmer is improving). She told us to go straight ahead. We hesitate and then decided to follow the tracks of another moto which had clearly been past recently. Nervously and slowly we went over the now rough track and rounded a bend just in time to see the owner of the moto flying back the other way. He turned out to be local teacher who wanted to practice his English and was putting together a class on the temples. He asked if he could take us around. Fearing more land mines, we gladly accepted the invitation and followed him through a few creaks and along the eroded dirt path up to the temples.
The temples, although small, were spectacular. The thick canopy gave them this magical green light. The trees and moss had overgrown many of the dark stones of the ruins. And it was quiet – so quiet it was eerie. All we could hear were the sounds of the jungle, our feet crunching on the thick undergrowth and squeals of pain when we were bitten by some massive blood thirsty ants. Tourists hardly ever came here, these temples sat as they had for centuries. I could imagine how the first Europeans who unearthed Angkor Watt must have felt…it was magical.
Aside from visitors, I have been really quite busy at work too - preparing funding proposals and working on a new management database for my NGO. I felt like I was burning the candle at both ends and I was glad this week to get some time to myself and completely chill out. This weekend I plan on doing nothing.
So that it all for now.
I hope everyone is well.
By-e.
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