Floating Village, Dry Season?

11/01/17

Siem Reap

We hired out Tuk Tuk driver for the full day again today for $25 (we're putting in some serious mileage)

We travel for around an hour through villages lining the roads. All the houses are timber and clad in either corrugated steel sheet or coconut tree leaves. Most houses have stall set up along the road selling food, baskets hats and fuel for cars sold in 1L sunflower oil bottles.

Not so sure about this fuel being great for the environment I have read that it is un refined and so creates very toxic fumes when burnt. Pretty sure this won't help the fragile stone of Angkor Waaaat.

The houses have a large stone kiln outside then used for cooking with a giant wok. The national breakfast here is pork and rice. Fiiit.

Our first destination is the land mine museum which is a very sobering place. Land mines came into common use during world war 2 (having been used in the 1800s by the U.S. And in WW1). Land mines were designed to maim rather than kill the enemy. The theory being if your guy gets killed, you just have to bury him. If he is injured you have to get him out of danger, and then pay to make him better, thus depleting the enemies resources.

The museum It was founded by a guy who was a child soldier for the kmher rouge (the commies who killed everyone), he defected and joined the Vietnamese army before applying to join the de mining task force for the UN. Once the UN left he joined the Cambodian task force who was later disbanded. Once on his own he continued to work to de-mine his country. Villagers heard of his work and wrote to him to come to their village to help them. He cleared over 500,000 mines working on his own and with his wife who cleared over 1000. She died aged 28 after an illness. Whilst they were in these villages they found over 25 kids who had been affected by the land mines (amputees). The villages were unable to care for them so they took them back to their home and looked after them.

The museum showed much of the ordinance that had been detonated and where it was from. Nice enough was that there weren't any British mines or guff in there. In fact the only mention of the British was when Thatcher sent the SAS to help the Khmer Rouge in an operation. And then the fact that we run two large charities (much talk of Diana and Harry) one called HALO and the other I can't remember the name of which are the largest in the world (de mining charities). Nice news we looked like good guys on the whole. Especially compared to the yanks. However even though there was talk of napalm, bombletts they seemed to be plunging a fair amount of cash in aswell. As was done guy called Tom who was the director of bruce almighty... They love tom!

There was a Cluster Munitions treaty signed in 2008 and most of the world has signed up not to use land mines.... Except, the US (who promised not to but said they had an ongoing commitment to South Korea), India, China, Russia (and a few others) But the countries not signing the treaty which are most likely producing and using these weapons are...India, Myanmar, Pakistan and South Korea. (Bad boys!)

So basically, everyone is about not blowing people's legs off (including USA) but there are some knobs who still insist on using them.

We leave the museum abit happier knowing that last year 145 people were injured by mines, where in 1990 it was 1 in 300 people in Cambodia had been injured by a mine. It seems there is a reduction, Afghanistan has the highest number of victims with over 1300 last year.

The museum shows the change in this as of the children it helps none were amputees. Compared with when it started all were amputees. This is because communities are now better able to take care of kids where there have been accidents. So the museum now looks after disabled kids many of which had polio which was massive in the 90s but has now been cured.

Then it's onto a floating village.... In dry season... Hmmm.

We stop at a super local market with no whites on the way and watch the writhing fish and crabs flounder around in shallow water. We finally get around to getting our beloved stick juice.... Which we've been craving since NePAL!

It's basically sugar cane ground out in front of you on a fantastic little machine on a cart. They then get a plastic bag, fill with ice, pour over the stick juice, and wang a straw in it! Brilliant and simple.

Back in the Tuk Tuk and we're
nearly at the floating village which we've been warned can be expensive. $25 each for entry. We drive 3k in the TT and then get on board a long boat. It's just us to and our captain Nini. We take off and within a couple of minutes he's offering Noblet the helm! He jumps at the chance and after a couple of starting issues (fitting his giant foot on to the accelerator string) we're away!!! He does pretty well and sails it for a good 15 minutes. Meanwhile passing us are many fishing boats of varying sizes but non with more than 3 people on board. As we approach the village Nini takes control.

Obviously it's dry season but the river still flows. Giant houses on stilts are set back 5m or so from the waters edge. The houses sit around 15-20m in the air which is great as it allows you to see their structure! All around us life carries on, women repairing nets, met going out to check their nets, kids bombing it off boats for their baths. It pretty cool.

The water has a lot of suspended particulates but they're still happy eating out of it.

The village has a population of around 400 people.

As we travel along we also see pigs in a pen sat on top of the water. Then we get to some floating restaurants (located on barges) and change boats to a small canoe paddled by a local woman. (Another $10). We climb in and begin to paddle into the forest which has been completely flooded. Apparently these are mangrove forests. These are what has been removed all over Indonesia and the Phillipines and this removal leads to increased risk and damage from tsunami (the forests absorb a lot of the tidal energy)

We are Merked into buying some pencils for a local school, damn women with their whole trapping us in a boat!!!

Came back to Siem Reap and go to Anchor Watt Putt (mini golf) where Noblet smashes me! Only whilst on this course do we realise we missed a massive temple. Noblet beats me, bloody hell. I'm the one who's good at this sport.

There's some Germans in front of us .... They just don't get it! Haha!

It's $2 for unlimited fish foot nibbling with a free beer. Rock on.
They also have super cute puppies that are just asleep.

What a great day!! Love this place!Read more