Tonle Sap

After spending one day at Angkor I took a boat from Siem Reap to the town of Battambang. To get there you cross the biggest lake in Cambodia, called Tonle Sap, then spend several hours traveling on the Strung Sanker (Sanker River)

I wanted to see Tonle Sap because it's one of the Things That May Interest Only Me. In the western world we think of the monsoon season in Southeast Asia as being roughly akin to hurricane season in the states. But it's not. We can go years without seeing a major hurricane. During the monsoon it rains every day.

To fully understand how much rain falls, look at Tonle Sap. The lake is connected to the Mekong by a short waterway called the Tonle Sap River. I'm sitting in an internet cafe on the riverfront in Phnom Penh and can actually see where the rivers join.

During the rainy season it rains so much that Tonle Sap becomes five times bigger. The reason for the massive increase in surface area is not what you might expect. The Mekong receives so much water that it forces the Tonle Sap River to change direction and flow back into the lake.

From the boat it just looks like a lake, of course. But what was interesting was navigating the narrow twists and turns of the Sanker, and seeing how the local people live in a way that you don't see in a tourist area like Siem Reap.

We went through a narrow channel with vegetatin so thick that at times we had to lean into the boat to keep from getting whacked by passing branches.



We passed through a series of floating villages. People build houses that float on the river. When the river rises, the houses don't flood. Buildings on the riverbank are built on stilts.

The river is low now, which slows down the boats. During the wet season the trip takes about five hours. It took us nine. At times we had to slow to almost a standstill to navigate the narrow channels.



But these were major metropolises compared to what we saw for the next several hours before we reached Battambang. We traveled for miles and miles through areas where people lived on the river bank in thatch huts, or sometimes just slept on the ground under tarps. These were probably the poorest communities I've ever seen with my own eyes.



And yet we were always greeted by throngs of children. During the day we saw them working on boats. This little girl got caught by surprise.



Late in the afternoon they were all in the river playing. They would wave and yell and splash. I am in perpetual amazement at the resiliency and strength of children. I've met so many kids who are literally dirt poor. No shoes, no toys, no electricity, etc. And yet kids everywhere love to laugh and play and wave at tourists. It's truly one of the joys of traveling.

Siem Reap

After I messed up my Vietnam plans I returned to Siem Reap, Cambodia, the town by Angkor Wat. I'm glad I did. I spent a day riding around to revisit my favorite temples. When I was here in December I felt really lousy. So even though I'd been to these temples four or five times I still felt a giddy excitement seeing them again, without nagging back pain.

I really like the town of Siem Reap. The Siem Reap River runs through town, but it doesn't appear to flow in either direction.



There are some beautiful parks here, which are swept and tended every day. I'm in a "poor" country in a town with more civic pride than Baltimore. How sad.



My hostel in Siem Reap is not the best place I've stayed. They screwed up my laundry, they screwed up my travel arrangements, and the brillant owners decided to put a pool table right outside my bedroom. So it's a great place to stay unless you want to, you know, sleep.

But it sits next to Wat Bo, a working temple, which is kinda neat. This is the view from the second-floor balcony.



The monks must love to hear Britney Spears blaring from the hostel at 11 p.m.

The town is touristy, on the cusp of being too much so, but you can walk through the market without being attacked by vendors. The tuk-tuk drivers are as obnoxious as anywhere else, but in general people here don't seem as jaded or resentful towards tourists as I've seen at other places.

Maybe that's because tourism is still new here. The oldest pub in town is called the Angkor What? (Get it?) It opened in 1998.

For many years you couldn't travel here, not that you would have wanted to during the nightmare days of the Khmer Rouge and the aftermath. I had read about the landmine problem in Cambodia. Tourists are strongly encouraged to stay on the trails. You don't need to look hard to see why. Amputees are disturbingly common.

I was standing in the street today when a man approached me. I turned to give him a polite brushoff, when I saw that he had a tray of books he was selling. Both his arms were missing above the elbow. He wasn't wearing a shirt so tourists could see the gruesome scars across his torso. A large chunk of his abdomen was missing. I didn't need a book but I helped him out anyway. It's heartbreaking. While I was eating lunch today I saw a young boy begging, on crutches because he was missing a leg.

I really love the kids here. I generally am pretty cold to hustlers and vendors -- people who just want my money -- but it's hard to be tough with these kids. To begin with, they're so young. I've had kids try to sell me bracelets who couldn't be more than five years old.

They're all over Angkor, with baskets of magnets, bracelets, Buddha figurines, postcards, etc. They're so friendly and engaging that it's hard to say no. And they're enthusiastic about learning. They know things that kids their own age in the US don't know. One girl who sold me postcards could count to ten in ten languages. She's eight years old.

The conversations go much like this:

"Mistah, where you from?"
"I'm American."
"Ah, America. Very good. Obama very good. What state you live in?"
"It's a little state called Maryland, you probably --"
"The capital of Maryland is Anna-pole-is. The population is 5 million. The capital of America is Washington. The population of America is 300 million. The president of America is Barack Obama. If I tell you the capital of Uganda you buy bracelet. Three for two dollar. Good price for you."

Hard to argue with that. My favorite encounter was with a little girl named Mom. I bought a Coke from her. When I came out of the temple she tried to get me to buy something else. I told her I didn't need anything else.

"You give me one dollar."
"I'm not going to give you a dollar. I already bought a drink."
"You no give me one dollar my family no can send me to school. You come back in ten year I still here."

I gave her two. I was defenseless against her cold, ruthless logic. In America she'd go far. In Cambodia, well, she's probably right, she'll probably still be there in ten years.

I'll go back to being a cold-hearted bastard tomorrow.

Rookie mistakes

As of yesterday I've been traveling for eight months. Wow. I'm starting to feel the pressure of impending deadlines. And I'm still making stupid, rookie mistakes.

I was in Luang Prabang, Laos, a great little town to relax and do nothing. But since time is becoming a factor I decided to keep moving. I took a bus to the town of Phonsavan to see an archaelogical curiosity called the Plain of Jars, then took a miserable overnight bus ride to Vientiane. (Blog posts are coming on all these places.)

There I planned to visit the US embassy to have pages added to my passport. (That's a pretty cool problem to have, eh?) Then I was going to apply for a visa to Vietnam and catch a plane to Hanoi. Vietnam is the only country in Southeast Asia that does not issues visas on arrival. Most places you can just show up, pay the fee, and they'll issue the visa on the spot. You have to arrange a visa for Vietnam in advance.

I arrived in Vientiane on Saturday. Embassies are closed on Saturday and Sunday. Duh.

As crazy as it sounds I decided to take yet another overnight bus to Bangkok, because it's easier and cheaper to arrange transport to virtually anywhere in Southeast Asia from there.

I made an appointment to go the US embassy and realized that the Embassy of Vietnam is on the same block. What a stroke of luck. So I went to the US embassy and did my thing there then walked down to the Vietnam embassy ... and read the note saying that it was closed for three days in honor of the Lunar New Year, which is huge holiday in Southeast Asia.

So the earliest I could even apply for a Vietnamese visa is Thursday. I didn't want to stay in Bangkok until then, so I hopped on yet another bus this morning and came back to Siem Reap, Cambodia.

For those of you scoring at home, that's three countries in three days.

Now I have to decide what to do about Vietnam. It takes a while to travel there because it's long and skinny. The two main cities are in the far north and far south. The main tourist attractions are in the north (Halong Bay) and south (Cu Chi tunnels, Nha Trang).

So do I rush through all of it? Concentrate on one half? Do half now and half in March? Or skip it? We'll see.

While I'm in Siem Reap I hope to knuckle down and post some blog updates. It's hard to get online when you're in a bus for 12 hours every frickin' day....