Cambodia Trip: The Initiation

I just got back from my Cambodia trip. And it definitely wasn’t whatever I originally had in mind about Cambodia.

To begin with, Cambodia isn’t Thailand. I went there with the idea that Cambodia would be similar to Thailand, and while the first impression may be similar, the short trip taught me otherwise. Thailand is in many more sense much more commercialized, and much more advanced than Cambodia. A rough estimate would put Cambodia about 30 years or so behind Malaysia, just to give a general idea. This is of course, as I said, a rough idea and is in no way accurate.

I actually expected Cambodia to be dry and hot, similar to how Thailand usually is (once again, drawing comparison between the two vastly different countries). Instead, I was greeted by a cool breeze that was to accompany me for the duration of the trip. I was told that this isn’t the case all the time with Cambodia’s weather, but for the duration of my trip the weather was pretty good. It was cool most of the time, and rarely ever hot. Something that made traveling on foot manageable.

When I got out of the airport, the first thing I noticed about Siem Reap was the dust and dirt. Tractors were everywhere, kicking up dirt and mud all over the place. Thankfully for me I was inside the pickup from the hotel, so I didn’t experience the air on the first day. However, looking out I noticed that most if not all people wear masks, tourists included.

Siem Reap roads are generally small, with only one lane going either directions. The roads are usually flooded by bikes and the small bike-led-carts that they call “tuk tuk”, and the traffic system there is seemingly nonexistent. The first thing I had to get used to was the slow pace of traffic. Cars going at 40km/h is considered VERY fast already, most of the time it’s less. It’s also not uncommon for cars to go into the opposite lane to overtake other tractors, “tuk tuk”s or bikes. Honking is also common, to the point where it’s mostly ignored. If you ask me? I’d say that even Indonesia’s traffic is better than Siem Reap’s. I even saw a pickup being filled with a bare minimum of 10 people at the BACK of the truck. They were all standing and squeezed up and leaning out of it.

There are no skyscrapers in Siem Reap. The people there are generally poor, even though they are often paid in USD. Things there aren’t really cheap for the locals, as I’ve heard that a monthly pay of 200USD is considered very very high and the food there costs about 2-4USD per dish.

On my first day, I started traveling before I even checked in. We took a van ride to the floating village near Siem Reap. I can’t seem to recall what it is called at this time unfortunately. The road that we took was alongside a river, and on both banks of the river we could see man-made wooden houses. Most of them were in quite bad condition, and when I saw how their school was it actually broke my heart. I saw classes being held below an elevated wooden house, and it was right beside the main road, filthy and dirty and just absolutely run down. It made me feel even worse when I looked at the other side of the road. Why? Because the houses on the other side of the road (note: road not river) were all fancy expensive houses (well, relatively speaking).

I saw a lot of kids working or just having fun. I saw houses selling bottled up petroleum (which, mind you, is terribly dangerous). Most of the people there were just… dirt poor. And the closer I got to the floating village the worse it became. The houses were all cluttered closely, and all made out of natural resources. Namely, wood. I was told by the van driver that when fire breaks out on one of the houses, it would burn down a large amount of others as well because the houses there are clustered closely and all made up of materials that catch fire easily.

By then, I sincerely began to felt quite terrible. But let’s not get into that yet. When I got to the banks of the river where we were supposed to take a boat to the fishing village, I saw that most of the boats are manned and managed by youngsters. When we got down the van, we were immediately flooded by children asking for the plastic water bottles we were holding. They didn’t ask for money or anything, just kept pointing at the bottle. We found out later on that they collect it to sell it for money. We paid and got ourselves a “private” boat to take us to the floating village. I say private because we were the only ones that was on it. It was manned by a friendly boy that I’m very sure is above 12 but below 17.

At first I didn’t pay much attention to him. I sat in the front of the boat, right behind him. It was one of those small wooden boats with a loud and large engine at the back. Commonly found in Thailand and Sabah from my past experiences. He took us out to the river, and he tried to explain certain things to us. Pointing out buildings out far and such, but sadly there was a huge communication barrier going on. However, before he could really take us to the floating village, he had to stop by to buy petroleum for the boat. This is the part where I began to feel even worse about myself. His boat didn’t have a proper pedal for accelerator or whatsoever, they were merely thin ropes or very thick strings that he stepped on barefooted. When he got to the “petrol station” (it was just a floating house), he leaped quite a gap onto the house and tied the boat to a pillar and ran in to buy petrol. He came out with a really large container, I would say perhaps twice or thrice the size of those water containers you would find on water dispensing machines. He walked onto the boat and balanced himself with one hand on the OUTSIDE of the boat, and quickly ran to the back of the boat where the engine is.

All without spilling a single drop of petrol. And yes, the cap was open. And he was smaller size than I am.

He was quick and efficient with what he did. And he managed to pour all the petrol in without spilling a bit either. Keep in mind that this is of course with the boat rocking quite strongly. So he was in some sense, showing off really good balance and control. The container was large and heavy, the boat was rocking, the hole for the petrol tank was small and he managed all three just fine.

After he filled the boat up and started the boat again, it wasn’t long before we hit another road bump. This time, we got stuck on some ground of sorts. The engine started screaming, the boat was stuck and mud was being thrown about at the back of the boat. Apparently there was an elevated area and the boat was unfortunate enough to stumble onto it. He floored the boat and eventually managed to get us out of that, but not without getting the boat into more trouble. The engine was clogged and couldn’t really accelerate at all. He stopped in the middle of the river (which was pretty damn huge mind you) and started to strip into his birthday suit. He got into a bunch of dirty rags after that, and just leaped into the river.

Now, I said he stopped the boat earlier right? Well yes, but he didn’t STOP the engine. So yes, he was attempting to unclog/untangle/fix the boat with the engine blades still whirling. He had one hand on the boat and just went down, occasionally coming up for a breath or two. It took him a long long time to get it fixed. And while we were waiting, we took pictures and generally just talked. I kept my attention at him however, because I felt quite humbled and very impressed. The things he go through just to earn a living, and all with a smiling face. We clapped and cheered when he finally managed to fix it. His face went from brown to being greasy black, he was drenched wet and his hands and legs were greasy as well. Yet he still sported a bright smile on his face.

I’ve been to the floating village/market of Thailand. And there it was quite commercialized as they were just people trying to sell products to you. Siem Reap? The people went on with their daily lives, ignoring all us tourists. I saw how they caught fish with their nets and set about removing it from the nets. I saw people taking shower in the river. I saw dogs swimming and dogs lazing around. Some of them did look at us, and waved at us with a big smile. I saw some houses that specialized in repairing other boats. I even saw houses built on small boats. I saw boats that sold portable oil-based light to others.

The people there were pretty oblivious to us in that sense. They went on with their traditional way of life. It was only when we were on the way back from the fishing village that we saw more commercialized floating shops. Well, they were catered for tourists but they were far from the floating village itself. They sold souvenirs and traditional food I believe. We tried one of it, the super-duper mini prawns that were about 1-2 inch in length. They served it to us freshly boiled, with a zesty sauce made out of lemon, lime and pepper with who knows what else. The prawns were surprisingly very tasty, unbelievably sweet even without any sauce to go with it. And they were really small as well. I got so lazy in the end I just decided to throw the whole thing into my mouth without peeling the shell away.

In fact, I found that the prawns tasted best without the funny sauce.

The boy took us back after we stopped there for awhile. He was a shy chap. We asked him to join us but he sort of half ran away. On the way back we saw children younger than 8, rowing large boats themselves, to and from school. That was actually quite a heartbreaking moment for me. Those boys and girls were all so young, and they were rowing big boats themselves just to go to school.

There was a floating school, police station and church as well. All very run down. The policemen were friendly though. When they saw us and we smiled, they waved back at us.

That trip to the floating village was an eye opener for me. It made me wish I was traveling alone and had a camera with me. I would’ve very much liked to spend more time there, talking to the people there and perhaps learning more about them.

Well, a pretty long post even though that’s just the first half of the first day. But I’m just going to end this here for today. Too long a post isn’t good. The next post I make, I’ll post pictures of this part.