During my Asian tour, Lonely Planet travel guides have become my bible. Geared to the left-leaning backpacker, LP rarely lets me down and has clued me in on many excellent restaurants and top-notch guesthouses. So when perusing accommodation options in Siem Reap, I noted with great interest their recommendation of the Golden Banana guesthouse. I googled another another guesthouse and the reviews were all over the map, but the reviews for GB were uniformly positive, "Just *fabulous*", "Loved it!!", "OMG the staff is so friendly and helpful OMG!". Turns out it's the gay-friendly establishment in the neighborhood, so I figured why not, I'm sure everyone will be very friendly and helpful and it'll be clean and it won't have a conservative atmosphere. True on all counts, and the staff almost exclusively consists of boys boys boys in their mid-twenties. So I dedicate this blog to all my gays back in the States, I miss you!1!!... Even the man-hating lesbians!
Anyway, I decided to check out a tour advertised at the guesthouse, which would take me to see the nearby Tonlé Sap lake, the biggest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia which provides the vast majority of fish for the people of Cambodia. The Tonle Sap river eventually connects with the mighty Mekong River in the south towards Vietnam. An air-conditioned tour bus picked me up at the guesthouse and we made our way to the lake, by way of one of the bumpiest roads on the planet. The lake's water level fluctuates widely over the year based on the interplay of the dry season and monsoon season, and it turns out that the reason the road isn't paved is that it spends a big chunk of the year underwater!
As we got closer to the lake, small bodies of water began to appear that were linked to the lake and we could see families on boats and I got my first glimpse of the floating village of Chong Kneas. Incredibly, the entire village moves around based on the season and the water levels. Average household income of this fishing culture is 500 USD. We made our way onto a rickety boat and headed out to the lake, and we passed by a floating basketball court, a floating school (complete with a playground on the second level) and a floating hospital. As the water withdraws towards the end of the dry season, the entire village shifts towards the areas where the water remains deepest. Also on tour were a Kiwi couple and a few Krauts. The Kiwi woman seemed irritable and I later found out was fighting a migraine, and despite the fact that she had toured the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, she seemed visibly nervous about the dilapidated condition of the boat and the primitive conditions. We made our way to the (floating) crocodile farm and I touched a crocodile whose jaws were wired shut with what looked like a rubber band. In the distance, I saw a boy paddling with one hand, his other arm ending above where his elbow should have been.
Eventually we arrived on the main boat where we were scheduled to eat dinner and watch the sun set over the lake. A few more customers arrived, in addition to the Aussie owner of the tour. An affable sort, ex-artillery, he was missing a few teeth and had just returned from a tour of Battambang (in northwestern Cambodia) during which he had hosted a crew of 22 affluent, post-rehab new age types and their West coast "healer". Clearly irritated with this high-maintenance crew of pampered spiritualists, he started pouding beers ("I couldn't drink for four days," he complained) and started bitching about his customers ("I've never heard people complain so much about so little") and eventually admitted that it was the first time that he had done the tour, that he'd never visited Battambang before and didn't even know where he was half the time (He said he was considering calling it the "Where the fuck are we?" tour). Both Kiwis and the snaggle-toothed Aussie were sarcastic and surly as fuck, a brilliant change of pace and a chance for me to cut loose after all the politeness and courtesy I've had to display since I got to Cambodia.
We watched the sun set and it amazing. Like an asshole, I forgot my camera. I saw a sky full of stars for the first time in quite a while. As we prepared to ride home in the dark, somewhat of an unnerving proposition given that there was almost no artificial lighting anywhere, one of the Khmer drivers mentioned to the Aussie that another one of their boats had run aground somewhere and we might have to help it get moving again. This never happened. The Aussie admitted that it was frustrating sometimes to not be able to understand what was going on because he didn't understand much Khmer but that everything had a way of turning out okay with the Cambodians, you just needed some patience and a willingness to accept their rhythm. (It reminded me of my first trip to India, when I rode a taxi to my hotel in Bangalore traffic. Whenever the traffic would gridlock-- which was often-- the taxi driver would stop his car and the engine would immediately stall. He kept turning the engine back on as if nothing odd was happening.) He also said that Cambodians are very hard workers and that one of the reasons he liked running a business in Cambodia is that you can negotiate with the government what taxes you pay. He also told me that over half of the population of Cambodia is under 20 years old!
We made our way back to shore in near total darkness without incident. The engine died a couple of times on the way, but that's so normal that it doesn't qualify as an incident. It was about 8 or 9 o'clock and the shoreline was buzzing with activity. The Aussie told me that the road is absolutely impenetrable at 4 a.m. The floating village is a city that never sleeps. From what I could tell, nightime was when the fisherman sold that day's catch and packed it up to send it out to suppliers and eventually customers. It was a madhouse.
I met up with an American backpacker in Bangkok the night before I left for Cambodia. He told me that the liked Cambodia a lot, that it was a crazy place, and that it was more "Wild West" than Laos, another country I want to visit. Of course everyone has heard the stories of readily accessible heroin and prositution in Cambodia. My Angkor guide, who seemed fairly straitlaced, offered to take me to a shooting range where I could fire any kind of gun I wanted to (he said the Russians were particularly fond of this outing). I turned him down, mostly because the last time I visited a shooting range-- at least 5 years ago, in Jersey of all places -- my ears were ringing for days. No, thanks. Cambodia is definitely the most lawless country I have ever visited.
I take the bus to Phnom Penh tomorrow morning.
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