Again, isn't getting there always half the fun? It certainly was when we decided to check out the floating villages that were quite a distance away. There were a few options of places we could go to in order to see these so-called “floating villages” but our guest house owner was an ex-pat married to a Cambodian woman who suggested avoiding the tourist trap ones and gave suggestions of where to go. We took his advice and hired a different tuk tuk driver who knew the way there and had connections for us to go. Brian decided not to come this day, so it was just Haruka, Katie & I. We set off in the morning and enjoyed the tuk tuk ride that took about 1.5 hours. All of a sudden, we stopped and were told to get off the tuk tuk and go on the porch of someones house in the shade. We sat there, not exactly sure what was going on and thought, well I guess it's break time. There were two young girls also nearby and they came and sat right in front of us peering at us curiously. The one girl had a badly cut up toe and she was unwrapping her bandages. They sat there giggling and looking at us until two more men arrived with motorbikes. It was at this time that we realized, ah, we can't take the tuk tuk any further for one reason or another. So, we hopped onto these strange men's bikes and off we went.
The motorbike ride was really awesome. First of all, like I said we were avoiding the tourist trap area and so this area was not used to foreigners. Being on the back of the motorbike, I got to intake all the smells and sites at a really close vantage point. It was apparent why we couldn't go further with the tuk tuk. The roads were non existent. Huge potholes scattered the area that was meant to be a street. Many of these potholes had been filled with water, floating out some of the road. There were many times, we had to actually go off this “road” and go under people's homes to get around it. All the kids and townsfolk were screaming to me and waving. The smells were disgusting, I can't imagine actually living in these areas. At one point, we actually were able to go rather fast because the roads were decent. I was a bit scared at this point, since I didn't have a helmet to wear. The only thing I was thinking about at this point was my mom would be pissed if I died over something as silly as not wearing a helmet on a motorbike. Sorry, Mom! We arrived there.
The first thing we did was go check out some of the people in the area while our boat was being prepared. They had just caught a bunch of fresh fish and were bagging them up to either eat or be sold, I'm not really sure. There were about 5 or 6 people underneath a tarp just going through all these fish! And then, our third form of transportation for the day was our boat ride. A man that didn't speak any English put us on his boat. There were 4 of us altogether , us 3 + our guide. Then, the man driving our boat made 5. The boat was big enough and long enough to hold maybe 15 people but again, this whole boat to ourselves. Now, Brian didn't want to come because we had seen a form of floating villages in Phnom Penh, but I think the part of this area that was so amazing were the stilted houses. Since it was the dry season in Cambodia, the water levels were really, really low. All these houses are on stilts that rise up atleast twenty feet into the area. It was seriously phenomenal to see. During the wet months, water is that high – all the way up to the bottoms of their houses. I can't fathom how fast and how quickly water must fall to get to the top of these stilts.
We drove past all sorts of houses on stilts and other cool forms of “architecture” before we finally reached the dirty waters that housed the floating villages. Seriously, this water was disgusting. Do you remember when you were a kid and you played outside after it rained? And, that rain water was puddled up into gutters or small pools somewhere on pavement or in the grass. Do you remember how brown and DIRTY that water was? That's basically what this whole body of water appeared like. Brown water. Like a light colored hot chocolate. For those in Western NY – like the Erie Canal. Nothing that you would ever want to go swimming in – if not for worry of disease but for worry that could be something lurking under there, like the loch ness monster that might take you down and no one would find you since it's so dirty. We made it to the floating villages and they looked a lot like the ones we saw in Phnom Penh, but much larger of a “village”. Our English speaking guide informed us that the majority – I forget the percentage – but the vast majority of this village is actually populated by Vietnamese people and not Cambodians. He also informed us that the Vietnamese and the Cambodians that inhabit this village get along well with no discrimination, racism or resentment amongst one other.
The villagers sustain themselves through fish farming. You could see all sorts of long, tall, bamboo like sticks – all over the place and these are – fish farms. Most people here survive by fishing. He explained that during certain parts of the season, by law you are not allowed to fish – as to not kill off all the baby fish before they have a chance to grow and reproduce. However, he said it's not strictly enforced and all sorts of illegal fishing goes on.
When the rainy, wet season arrives, these villages pack up and move to the main town where we embarked on our boat. The water gets so deep that they are unable to sustain themselves via fishing as they do during the dry season. I am not exactly sure what they do during the wet season. We hung out there for a while before returning back to the town. On the way back, we stopped at this one floating home.
A Video on the way back from the floating villages
Also, this part of the country does “crocodile” hunting. Seriously. They catch the crocs when they are mere babies and raise them in cages. From there, they are sold to people in Vietnam who will kill the animal and use it's skin for whatever. While, I completely and utterly disagree with these actions, it's hard to make a big stink about it when these people are extremely poor and are trying to make a living for themselves. Moreover, these crocs, which just swim around 5 feet from where these people live are a serious threat and danger to the people in this area.
After we docked the boat, we got off and walked up a hill where there was a temple. We viewed it from the outside which was pretty spectacular. There were all sorts of paintings depicting superstitions of the religion. We continued walking through the village, he showed us the school here and explained that the students were on break for one reason or another. We continued to keep walking when we stopped at the local lunch spot. Our guide bought us each a soda and we sat down with all the locals as they watched some drama on TV. Literally, in this local lunch area as about 40men aged from 8 to 60 were in there drinking a soda all crowded around a small TV watching it. It was interesting. We got the occasional stare, I don't think because we were foreigners but mainly I think because we were the only women in there! We stayed there for about 15 minutes or so until we finally hopped back onto these strangers' motorbikes and made our way back to the tuk tuk – weaving through the towns and villages again.
We met Brian back at the guest house where we went and had dinner one last time in Siem Reap, going back to a delicious Mexican restaurant we had eaten at in the beginning of the trip. Honestly, I can't get enough Mexican food when I get it pretty much NEVER here. We all did some shopping for gifts for everyone and had one last night out on the town on pub street. I doubt we stayed out late – as we had to be up really early again to make our way to Thailand somehow. That story comes next...
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