Kampot

You'd think that being on a three month walk-about would give me plenty of time to write, wouldn't you?    Being a tourist is hard work!  I spend time figuring out how to get around, which sights to see and when, where to find food and drink.  We walk a lot.  There seems to always be one more thing I want to see or experience.

From PP, the Babels took us to their village, Tany, in Kampot Province.  We were Khmer language students ( for one hour) during their weekly language class, and afterward were honored to have lunch with Lo Kru (teacher) at his house.  He wakes every morning at 3, drives his moto to the next village to pick up produce for his wife to sell at the local market; returns to deliver his wife and the goods; begins teaching English to high school students at 7; has a short break at 11 am, the teaches the rest of the afternoon.  And, he's raising chickens, too, in hopes of saving enough money to send his children to college.  Lo Kru, and his wife, served a delicious lunch of rice and soup and bamboo shoot salad, under the trees.  What a special treat!

Ed showed us the village clinic  where he helps with vaccinations, babies and just about anything that comes in.  His job includes pedaling his bike to 12 other villages to administer vaccinations and diabetes education. The clinic is bright, clean and organized.  Really remarkable clinic, in this remote location.

Deb took us on a tour of her high school, directly across the road from their house.  School is on semester break, making it look like a ghost town.  Deb has spent the past year helping set up a library in the school.  Hard for us US educated people to comprehend that there are no libraries in the schools!  The new library is cleaned, painted, stocked and the cataloged (mostly).  It was really exciting to see the result of the work!

I've decided to just post pics from here on.  I really don't like typing on this tiny keyboard.  I'll fill in stories when I return to my computer!

Weaving and Silk Island

Chontra and his tuktuk met us, with a smile, at 7:30.  The city has been awake for several hours already, getting chores done before it gets any hotter. He expertly weaves us through the center of the city, and soon we are crossing the Friendship Bridge across the Tonle Sap river.  The bridge was built in 1966, but was heavily bombed during the Khmer Rouge occupation from 1975-1979.  After the liberation from that hell, people began moving back to the city.  There was little money for food and certainly no money for infrastructure repairs.  In 1995, the Japanese people sent money and engineers to repair the bridge.  It is hard to imagine the city living without this bridge.

We motored along a wide street, filled with other tuktuks, some hauling people, but mostly hauling everything you can imagine.  We turned off the main road, into a Wat.   Because he's wearing shorts (not allowed inside),  Ed wanders off explore the river front, while we stare open-mouthed at the gold paint covering everything  connected to the Wat.   Inside the pagoda walls were coverd with bright, elegant paintings that presumably are used for teaching.   But this is what caught my eye:

Is this just too funny? Thanks, Deb Babel, for the photo!

Beside the pagoda, there is a man sitting in front of a richly decorated temporary structure, smoke coming from the top.  A funeral pyre.  Maybe the woman in the picture is the wife of the man sitting?  There are others, in chairs under a big tree close by, sitting quietly.

Stuart and Ed chat with two monks, who readily agree to a photograph.  Their english is great.

We continue on a back road, maybe it's paved.  Hard to tell.  We turn again, on an even narrower road between two shops, and there is the slope to the ferry to Silk Island.  It's a quick trip across the very-fast moving river, and the people are crowding down the ramp, even before the ferry arrives on this shore.  Chaos,  but everyone gets off/on pretty quickly.

Silk Island, according to something I read somewhere, many years ago was a "lady business" island for sailors coming and going on the lower Mekong river.  Beyond memory, the islanders were trained to grow silk worms, and weave cloth, which is what brings us to the island today.  Deb has a friend here,  a weaver, and we hope to find her.  Every house,  built on pilings under the trees, houses a weaving business. Looms and hammocks take most of the space under the houses.  We see small gardens, and emaciated white Cambodian cows tethered on short ropes, laundry hanging on anything sturdy enough to hold it, and small  children calling out, "HALLO!" when they see the foreigners pass.  Nary is not home, but Chantra knows where to find her, so we bump on down the road.  Everyone knows everyone on this small island, and the word travels fast that the foreigners are looking for Nary.  Several people stop us to give Chantra instructions, which require at least two phone calls with each stop.  All this is fine with me, I'm getting the grand tour of the island!

Eventually we connect with Nary, on the opposite end of the island.  I'm awfully impressed with her weavings, and wish I had more room in my backpack.  I bought a  couple of beautiful scarves, get hugs of appreciation from Nary and her sister, and head back to the ferry.  She follows us on her moto, stopping us to give Deb and me small silk bags.  What a day!

Easing into SE Asia

After two travel days, we arrived in Phnom Penh at midnight, local time.  It has taken longer to learn to spell PP.  I just looked it up.  Again.  Deb and Ed, our thoughtful friends, had a fruit plate waiting in our hotel room, knowing we'd be confused and need refreshment.  Surprisingly, we both slept well.  Forty eight hours in planes and airports and one hotel helped get us over jet lag in record time.  Our PP hotel, the Tea House, is run by an Aussie.  I'm convinced no one is ever home in Australia.  They are always traveling.  This, y'all, is the prettiest hotel we've ever stayed in!  Open air lobby, ceiling fans and  big, comfy couches flanked by greenery.  I barely know we are in a Big City.  And, a tile pool, with chairs and towels and waiters to bring me a drink!  The staff all young, beautiful, smiling, appear to be just waiting for me to need something.

After a delicious breakfast, we walked, to recover our land legs.   There are, in some
places in PP, very wide sidewalks, which are used as parking lots for the thousands and thousands of tuktuks and motos.  No one walks, apparently, in PP.  So, because the sidewalks are either full of parked motos and tuktuks, or, there are no sidewalks, we walked in the streets, stoppping to speak to about every tuktuk driver in this part of town.  "Hello, how are you?  Where you go?"  Unbelievably friendly, and eager  to talk to us, even if we're not going to give them our business.  And, they really want our business.  I'll write more later about the economy here, but people want to work.

Crossing a street is a dance.  Every driver, no matter the vehicle, just eases into where they want to go, crossing at any angle at an intersection. After watching, it reminds me of  weaving.  Larger vehicles  and smaller vehicles work well together, just by weaving their way.   The goal is to never come to a complete stop.  There are  almost no traffic lights in this city.  Really!  They would serve no purpose.  The Cambodians can teach the rest of the world a lot about being nice.  You hear very few honking horns, and see no impatience on the faces of either the drivers or the pasengers.

The Royal Palace is overly-gawdy to our westerneyes, but we recognize it's importance.  We'll see it later.   I get my first glimpse of the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers on our walking tour.  Deb and Ed arrive in PP at noon, and we are delighted to see them.  Because they live in a tiny village in Kampot province, without any conveniences such as hot water, air conditioning, or a bakery for 100 miles, they are going to get their Big City fix in the next few days.  We had a great lunch, and hit the streets for a bit of orientation.

We had tickets for a sunset cruise on the Mekong river.  It was a perfectly delightful night, with a  bit of a breeze.  Drinks, laughter and a beautiful sunset.  What more can we ask?  How about dinner at the Foreign Correspondents Club?  Happy hour when we arrive, dinner of fish stew. Yummm!

The next day, we toured The Royal Palace.  It sits on the riverbank where the Tonle Sap and the Mekong rivers merge, and is lush behind the walls, with many  buildings and many Buddha statues.  We see the Emerald Buddha, and the golden footprint.  I hope my Buddhist friends will forgive my comments about Big Foot. We tour the Silver Pagoda, which is constructed of 5000 silver tiles, weighing one kilo each. Of course, the tile floor covered with carpet, so we have to imagine the silver.

This is a stupa.  Wats are filled with them, sort of like a family shrine.  Very ornate, always.  While the exposure here is not great, this stupa is more elegant than ornate.  

Deb's co-worker, a teacher, moonlights as a tuktuk driver, and Chondra picked us up early for our Silk Island trip.  But, that's another blog post!  I promise the posts will get better, I'm figuring out the  photo system with limited gear.