A domestic start to the day taking the laundry in to be done – 75p for a big bag – no launderettes in sight here… Then to the travel office to sort my itinerary. Ant said the fishing village was a good trip, so that was booked for the afternoon, and then my Temple trip for tomorrow. So the rest of the morning walking the town, getting my bearings, checking out the Foreign Correspondents Club, walking along the river and generally following in Ant’s footsteps from his visit here a year ago – strange but nice, just wish he were here now. Round the markets which are a real mix, one minute you are looking at beautiful, jewel coloured Cambodian silks then you turn round and find you are in the butcher’s section – enough to put you off meat for life, just huge chunks of indeterminate material with not a fridge or a bit of cling film in sight. But one restaurant obviously doesn’t buy from here, they know exactly what they serve and proudly boast that they don’t serve dog, cat or worms – and that in a restaurant called the Dead Fish… Perhaps they just go to the fish bit, just after the shoe section and it was a smell to behold! There are also hairdressers in there; the clients lie back on a bed like a massage table with their head hanging off the end, and buckets of cold water are poured over as there appears to be no plumbing, My hair really needs cutting but decided to wait until I find something that is a little more like Toni & Guy. I bought a few really nice books on Cambodia very cheaply at a bookshop, and then as I was sitting having a nice cold drink, was approached by Douak – a man with a basket of books around his neck. He had no arms left below the elbows and his chest bared so you could see the horrific scars. He was a victim of a landmine, selling books about landmines and the past problems of his country to people like me. So as you can understand I am now the owner of even more books….. But as I start to read one, I realise why they are cheap – they have all been photocopied and bound! You can see where they have hand corrected the bits where the photocopier didn’t work so well – now I know I’ve seen pirated CD’s and DVD’s loads of places, but this is a first, a pirated book! Now on to my tour. There are no group tours to be had here – I think most people travel in tour groups anyway, so you just put together your own. So I am collected by a nice car and driven off to the fishing village, not really sure what to expect. I knew that there was a boat involved on the huge lake, Tonle Sap, but that was about all. Siem Reap is a small town, similar to what I expect Thailand was like 30 years ago – no huge buildings, no MacDonald’s or Burger King, slightly shoddy streets, few cars but motorbikes and moto tuk tuks everywhere. No obvious discipline on the roads (although I did spot just the one set of traffic lights), but for all of the chaos it seems to work. But as you drive out toward the lake on the road beside the river, you see more and more of real Cambodia life, away from the tourist hotels. The houses along the river are all built on stilts – near the town they are about 10 foot high, as you get nearer to the lake the stilts are about 20 foot high – in this the dry season they seem such a long way from the ground, but apparently when the wet season starts, they only just keep themselves above the waterline. But looking at the state of some of them, I’m amazed they will even last that long. Eventually the paved road runs out – the road itself disappears in the wet season, but now is just a potholed dust track (and at this point I was glad I had chosen the taxi rather than the Tuk tuk – they looked an even more uncomfortable ride) with simple 1 room rundown structures perching on their bamboo platforms on stilts lining either side. But with people everywhere, going about their day to day lives, the most beautiful looking children playing in the dirt on the edge of the most filthy looking river, it’s hard to imagine how they survive to adulthood – the water was gathered from handpumps and no idea about what served as loos – by the look of it, probably the river. And then to the area where I got my boat. I was wafted (well actually helped) on, a delicate operation and falling into that dark brown water probably wouldn’t have been wise. I then realised I was to be the only occupant of said boat which could hold about 20 people – and the reassuring thing was there was a rather old looking lifejacket proudly placed on each seat – probably not needed, if you fell in, you would probably just float on the rubbish….. As I was getting on the boat, I had an odd feeling that some paparazzi pics were being taken (probably thought it was Angelina again). So off we motored, with me sitting regally in this huge boat just like the Queen. I thought that I had now “done” the fishing village and was off for a gentle little motor to see the sunset on a nice little lake. How wrong can you be – after about 5 mins, this huge expanse of water (with waves) appeared – Lake Tonle Sap – it goes on for miles and there was the village I had actually come to see. A whole community with temples, churches, shops, schools and homes all on the water, attached to the lake bed in most cases by more bamboo stilts. And as we motored along, tiny boats made from single tree trunks would attach themselves and 4 or 5 year old children (not an adult in sight )would jump into my boat to sell me Coke or bananas - so of course I had to buy some – way overpriced at 1$US, but they really looked as if they needed the money. Women in other minute boats rocking violently in our wake with tiny babies and toddlers, offering bananas for sale – this really was life in the raw, and looked so hard. By now we were approaching our shopping opportunity – a platform (one of several) on the edge of the village where you could buy food (hygienically challenged I think), cold drinks, souvenirs etc. They reminded me a little of those pontoons you get out in the ocean on the Great Barrier Reef – although with perhaps a little more character. And I was then proudly shown the crocodiles that they catch – a pen in the water with about 20 of these horrible looking creatures – what, I thought to myself was I doing here – not that keen on boats to start with, but I was getting on and off in crocodile infested waters – and suddenly the crocodile product shop in town made sense! So even more gingerly, I got back on my splendid boat for the journey back to safety, reflecting on what a privileged life we all lead. These people are dependent on the vagaries of the extreme weather, no running water, less fish stocks so tourists have to provide their alternative income, and that makes them into a bit of a human zoo. Back in Siem Reap we are all scoffing good food and knocking back cocktails in Raffles whilst this real poverty is just a few miles away. But all I can say is that from what I’ve seen so far the Cambodians are nothing but welcoming of the tourist dollar, and so far unfailingly nice, polite and friendly. It’s a place you feel happy walking around. So finally back to dry land for the short journey back to town. And I was right, there were “pap” shots being taken of me as I got on the boat. As I was getting into the taxi, I was presented with (5US$ - but you have to reward enterprise and it really made me laugh) a picture of me, and just like the Queen at her Coronation, it was on a rather hideous plate.
