Kompong Chhnang 06.03.10 - 07.03.10

Kompong Chhnang, not to be confused with Kompong Cham, Kampong Thom or Kampot(!), is a small town on the southern banks of the Tonle Sap and we stop there on our bus route to Phnom Penh via Battambang. When we arrive in the town we are greeted by some moto drivers who offer to take us to a guesthouse. We think it'll be a bit of a squash on the bikes with our big bags but they manage to fit one on each in front of their seats and we hop on the back. It's the first time I've been on a scooter in ages and I'm a bit apprehensive of falling off. But, since there's no alternative transport option, we have to take them up on their offer. It turns out to be a very fortuitous decision however because, after dropping us off at a decent hotel they offer to pick us up the following morning to take us on a tour of the countryside, which is the reason why we've come here. We hastily accept, knowing it's our best option, there aren't any tourist facilities here in Kompong Chhnang, and arrange for them to pick us up at seven. On first impressions the town is poor and it's made unpleasant by the litter covering every pavement and gutter. People live amongst this mess of plastic bags and general waste. They eat just off the street in their shophouses and their kids, often barefoot, play in the surrounding tip. It's shocking but, looking closer, you realise that people do look after themselves and work very hard to get by. It's very sweet how the babies and children seem to love waving and saying hello to us. They call to us from across the street until we turn around and wave back. And they're all so cute. The next day we're picked up by Sari (my driver) and Chenun (Greg's) and taken to the outskirts of town where the rice paddies begin and, sure enough, people have already arrived to begin a day's work on the fields.

lotus' thriving in the rice paddies

Then we're whisked off to the port in the town where a multitude of wooden boats are weaving their way up and down the river, some overcrowded with passengers perched on every available surface. It's a busy place and we're offered a paddle through the Vietnamese floating village which sits just off the quay by one of the resident girls in a traditional straw hat. We wade through the rubbish piled up on the shoreline and gingerly sit ourselves down on her wooden boat, ready for her to gently paddle us around her village for anhour or so. It's a fascinating watery warren of 'streets' with floating wooden houses and families going about their normal morning business- eating, swinging their babies in hammocks, watching tv, preparing the fish freshly caught to be dried, doing laundry and other chores.

All with the only method of transport to get around being the little wooden rowboats moored up outside their porches. Some houses had more mod cons than others and some were wooden as opposed to palm leaves. Electricity cables dangled off precarious bamboo canes leading from the shoreline. It was a veritable community with families living close to one another and calling out to each other as they passed by on their rowboats. The children attended a floating school which we noticed had a catholic cross on the side. The children and babies again were very excited to see us and included a new sign in their greeting- a blown kiss in our direction! They would run round the side of their house verandah and try to get us to take pictures of them by striking poses.

We had to accept of course. The adults went about their business but some did smile at us, obviously realising that their interesting way of life was what intrigued us to come and visit them. We felt extra privilieged to be able to be so up close and personal because we spied tourist boats which skimmed past the outskirts of the village, not able to come up the narrow waterways. They were probably on cruises heading up towards Siem Reap. We paid our oarslady a nominal fee of $7USD and jumped back on land. Our moto boys took us next to the outlying villages where many families produce pots made from local clay and supply the entire country with them, to be used as stoves, water containers and general storage. We got to see a young girl handmoulding the clay in the first stage of the process and have a look at the firing kilns built in their gardens. It was a very rural existence with pigs in a pen, chickens clucking around and the majority of work done under the stilted house itself. This area is shaded and we've found it's used for most activities because of it's convenience. Some of the locals thought Greg very handsome with his blond hair and cowboy style hat and they had our drivers translate this. People are 99 times out of 100 very courteous and want to smile at you and make you feel welcome. We've seldom experienced any hostility at all. And given that we obviously represent the west with our expensive cameras and obviously our light skins, it's testament to the warmth of the Cambodian people that they treat us so well when they could so easily dismiss us as more farang come to gawk at them and their country. Our moto drivers, Saria and Chenun, are amazed that we're so old and don't have children yet. They're both younger than us and have two children each, their wives at home in the villages caring for them. My driver keeps apologising for his english, saying he's only learning but, all I feel is embarrassed I don't know more Khmer. We've had a lovely time in Kompong Chhnang and it was made all the more enjoyable because of our moto drivers who sorted out onward bus tickets to Phnom Penh for us and organised one of their friends, a tuk tuk driver in the city, to pick us up from the station.