17.
Jeep Tour – Kampong Khleang
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| The Red Dust Devil |
The roads are
dusty, red dust is everywhere, including my clothes, face, and hair. I look
like powdered, I look red.
That’s what
happens when you are in the backseat of an open Jeep.
I feel fine
with it, but everybody seems to stare a bit and laugh, I am a sight to behold
for locals anyhow, but now I really stand out.
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| Red-Beard and Having Fun With It |
Our destination
is a town that gets flooded each season during the rainy season. Kampong
Khleang is mainly on the shore of Lake Tonle Sap. (Please open
the link for this lake, scroll down and there is a map that shows how the size
of this lake changes during the year. The volume of water change from dry to wet
seasons is amazing.)
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| Even This Dusty Road Is Under Water During the Rainy Season |
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| Every House Has Several Boats (For Fishing and Transportation) in Rainy Season |
We are here in
the dry season, so our experience is just a glimpse of what Kampong Khleang is
all about. The town changes, changes a lot within each calendar year. (I
attached a video of what it is like to ‘walk’ through the village in the dry
season, please watch it HERE.) This is an EXCELLENT VIDEO.
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| Houses Backing on the River Are On Huge Stilts (Chopsticks) |
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| Most Oncoming Boats Slowed Down |
We are also scheduled
for a boat ride onto the remaining lake to see the part of the village that
floats all the time. Our boat had a tough time negotiating the river since the
water level was very low. We were floating just above the mud instead of over
deep water, the propeller of the boat stirred through brown juicy mud behind
us.
Oncoming boats were courteous and lowered their speeds in order to not
spray us with this mud. We did the same for them. The water level on the River
was really very low.
The Tonle Sap River
is called the “Nile of the East”, it
is that important to Cambodia.
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| Hostel Dormitory |
Lunch was
first, though, before our boat ride. If you
did not know exactly where this eatery was, you would have a difficult time
finding the ‘restaurant’ which is also a hostel if you want it to be. For $3/night
you get a large mattress under a mosquito net with neighbors immediately next
to your bed. The communal washroom is just a few steps away. I told you, the
concept of privacy in Cambodia is different.
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| Noodles and Fish |
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| Mango and Lychee? |
The lunch we
were served was very good; the food tasty, the inside of the Restaurant/Hostel
was clean and orderly.
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| Spirit House Also On Stilts On the River |
Living along
this river, living in this town is so unusual for me, I could spend days here,
staring at this and that. There is just too much to list, this place is really
different. The videos above, the links and pictures should give you an idea.
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| It Was a Great Joke But I Forget What It Was |
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| Chop Stick Houses |
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| Primary School, A Floating Building |
It is difficult
to say if the people are poor. They seem happy; they might have other
preferences besides material wealth. It’s really, really hard to say. Yes, of
course the houses look like shacks. The kids play in this water, maybe even
drink it. There is dirt and dust all over; it seems helter-skelter, all those
lollypop sticks with a shack (house) on top.
The people here
call them chopstick houses.
But when you
chat with them, they are all smiles, they seem to be resigned that that is
their life. Some might even not want to move given that family is so important
to them.
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| Buddha Is Across the River |
We saw a few
schools along our ride on the river. Do they learn anything there?
We saw, on a
bit of a hill a huge Buddha statue which is visible for miles around. It acts
like a light house, a beacon; you can tell where you are from far away.
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| Haven't You Always Wanted to Ride in the Shade? |
We saw life
like it would be in an ant hill; everybody had their thing to do.
Traveling along
our 40 minute ride (one way) on the river into deeper parts of the river/lake
we saw ‘farms’ and farmhouses. This is a very productive area and this
lifestyle along the river has been going on for 1000 years or more.
I just don’t
understand the intricacies of it all. I have no clue what to do and when to do
it. I would be cleaning up the mess I see but it would be for naught, because
when the river floods, the waters will clean the grounds, or make it dirtier, I
just don’t know.
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| Boat Filled With Cockles Like We Saw In the Market |
It was a
village life, with some tourists, yes, but not as many as I would have thought.
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| Bagging the Cockles |
Boats were
everywhere, on our way to the Lake smallish ‘canoe’ like boats with motors met
us loaded to the top with the cockles that we saw at the market place.
Those small clams are a delicacy in Asia and tons of them are being harvested
just now and shipped to canneries to be then shipped across Asia.
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| Floating Houses |
The people here
know what to do, they work hard.
What is
frightening though, is the over-fishing, the raping of this River system. It will
have some effect down the road in a few decades.
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| Some of the Floating Houses on Lake Tonle Sap |
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| Lake So Low He Harvest Fish Caught in Net By Standing on Bottom |
Another problem
everybody knows about is the idea of ‘taming’ the Mekong River. Setting up
hydro dams, channeling the water to avoid flooding is in the planning stages.
This would harm all these people here; harm the ecology of the Tonle Sap River
the most.
Maybe what
Carol and I saw will not be here in years to come. For us, though, it was an
experience to visit Kampong Khleang; one can hardly forget these sights.
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| Couldn't Live There But Sure Had Fun There |
Yes, I was
dirty after our trip, but also happy to have witnessed something I had no idea
existed. No, I could not live there.
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| The Brochure Called It Jeep Tour - Receipt Called It Red Dust Adventures - and It Was! |
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And This Is How We Got So Dusty
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