I really love the market here, it's a fascinating place, untouched by the twentieth, let alone the twenty first century. It's dark, the only light coming in from holes in the roof, the entrances and the charcoal braziers cooking vaious unidentifiable foods. And how is it that however hard I try to avoid it, I always end up in the flyblown meat department with assorted and even more unidentifable bits of animal and pigs heads hanging on meat hooks, ready to be weighed out on old, filthy, rusty balance scales. Everytime I see this I vow to turn veggie, and of course every night a good menu changes my mind....
The whole place is unbelievably hot, the only ventilation coming from the same holes in the roof that let in the limited light, and the stall holders sit langourously in their pyjama's on the filthy floor. As you would imgine for a coastal town, fish is big here, both dried and "fresh", I use that word advisedly! It pays to take care walking through this area as you slip and slide in the fishy water. Well I hope it is just fishy water, so often you see kids sqatting in the pathways going to the loo, then "flushing" it away with a small cup of water... Amazing selections of shiny, colourful fruit and veg are piled up in artistic displays guarded by tiny old women whose deeply lined faces have never seen even a drop of Olay. They look as if they have had such a hard life, and given this country's history, they probably have, but they can still raise a smile for the great big "farang" inspecting their wares. The hairdressers are here too, but as usual they spend most of their time searching each other's heads for nits.. And no economy packs here, shampoo is still sold in the little strips of sachets hanging like ribbons from the stalls and soap powder in small, one wash packs. A sign of a population with very little cash flow. But the gold area is comparitively huge. Never really did understand that, most people here look as if they really have to scrape a living and I would have thought buying gold would be difficult. And it's not for the tourist market, most people don't really stop here, they just pass through. The displays certainly aren't directed at tourists, they are dark, dingy, badly lit, but behind each stall where the women and kids do the selling, the men are working the gold into the bangles, rings and necklaces on display. My eye was caught by a small stall run by a young family, a couple of small kids and Mum at he front, with dad working away behind. I spot some nice bangles which they say are gold. If they are, then I have discovered a get rich quick scheme - buy gold here at a very low price, then mark it up and sell it on! But I like them and by buying, I feel in my own small way it's a better way to help the economy rather than donate to the often wasteful NGO's with their huge gas gazzling four wheel drive vehicles that seem to run the rest of this country. And my wrist hasn't turned green - yet...
The Koh Kong area, so often just a dusty crossing point to Thailand is trying to re invent itself as an eco tourism desination. According to a Wanderlust article, it may go one of two ways. One, a Delboy vision of huge hotels and casino's, the second is an eco tourist destination, becoming the second Costa Rica, the one I prefer! One option on the eco side was trekking in the Cardamom Mountains, but unfortunately I had sent my walking shoes back to the UK with Ant and it's not something you can do in flip flops, that's my excuse anyway. A second option is to visit the unspoilt, uninhabited islands off the coast. But at two and a half hours each way in open sea on a small longtail river boat, I decided against that one too... One of the other things to see was the mangrove forest, managed by the local community, which I decide to visit. These are about 7k out of town so I take the ride in a motorbike tuk tuk. Bumpy on the tarmac roads, unbeliveably bumpy on the dirt tracks....
A nice drive through small settlements with dilapidated wooden stilt houses, extremely thin cows and kids cycling back from school along the dusty tracks in their blue and white uniforms. Now I know this is not tourist city and I expected it to be quiet, but I wasn't expecting to be the only person for miles - the absolute silence makes every noise from the mangrove forest seem terrifying.
There is a raised concrete walkway through, but it was a bit scary and I nearly turned back. But I decided to be brave and scan the water for crocs and the trees for monkeys and snakes.... In addition, there is the world's only public mangrove toilet at the end of one of the little wooden walkways - luckily I didn't need that! The mangroves offer a safe harbour for saltwater crocodiles and Irrawaddy dolphins, not sure if I am pleased or not to have not seen them, well glad I didn't see a croc. It was a lovely walk, admiring the tangled roots of the mangroves, the crabs scuttling in and out of the mud and the dappled sunshine through the leaves. Yes, the eco option for development has to be the way to go....
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