Cambodia - Kampong Chhang

Life on the river is busy with people fishing from their sampans early in the morning, and as they use small 4 stroke engines which are noisy, we woke up very early this morning with a noisy boat that had got its net caught in their engine. We watched a beautiful sunrise before getting ready for breakfast so it was a good start to the day.

After breakfast we were taken down the river in a skiff where we landed at a local village called Kampong Chhnang (yes with a double ‘h’). When we disembarked some of us got on bicycles, while others were taken in tuc-tucs to visit some of the farmers and craftsmen in the area. It was a 16km cycle in very hot conditions, which firstly took us through the busy village with cars, scooters and bicycles on the roads. Eventually it grew calmer as we got into the countryside where I stopped to take this photo, the fantail palm trees and the rice paddy fields ready for harvest were looking so beautiful in the morning light. Rice in this area only has one crop per year (other areas and in Vietnam it is twice a year) as here they grow the better quality jasmine rice. The harvesting also takes place much later than it does in Vietnam, we missed seeing it in Vietnam so we were pleased to see the yellow fields of rice busy being harvested as we cycled past. We stopped to talk (through our boat guide) to a woman farmer and her daughter who were harvesting their rice - it is so physically demanding as it is done manually using a small scythe. I have a photo of this in extras.

We cycled further and arrived at a local potter. All the clay is collected locally, and this area is known for its pottery due to the quality of the clay soil available here. The potter took a lump of clay and showed us how she turns it manually using her hands - she walks in a small circle around the pot she is making which rests on a small stand. No potter’s wheel or kilns here, the pot when shaped is the fired by being covered with grasses and leaves and then burnt in a large fire. She works about 8-10 hour days and can make about 20 small pots in that time, which sell for 50 cents per pot (US dollars). They farm for most of the year and only do pottery and other crafts when the rice framing is between cycles. Of course we all purchased her wares to try and supplement her income. 

Back on the bikes we cycled to another farm where we met an incredible 71 year old man who still scales the very tall palm trees to obtain the fruits, to make palm sugar (photo of him in extras). He spoke through our interpreter guide and was so entertaining and funny! He explained the process of the male and female fruit, and how you tap each one and extract the palm syrup. He also makes palm wine which some people sampled - it is very strong. After a few shots of that he climbed up a 150 ft palm tree that has bamboo support to help him get up, he was so agile.

By the time our cycle ride finished we were all so hot so the welcome cold drink back on the boat was very much enjoyed. After our cooling drinks we went to a cooking demonstration, where the chef explained all the different ingredients used here in Cambodia - things like fresh turmeric, fresh galangal, kafir limes, fresh green peppercorns - all the ingredients I usually see in a bottle/jar back home are used fresh here and it makes such a difference to the taste. We made amok, which is a small basket of banana leaves filled with Chinese cabbage, a yellow curry sauce made from the afore mentioned ingredients, snakehead fish (a delicious white river fish), coconut milk, chilli and zest from the kafir limes - this was then steamed. While it was steaming he explained all the different fruits they get here - crab apple, mangosteens, snake fruit, dragon fruit, and we got to sample all of them.

We had a delicious lunch outside on the pool deck although it did get too hot there. The afternoon activity was another bike ride which we did not do as we went by skiff to the floating fishing villages. It is currently the height of the fishing season due to the change from the wet season to the dry season, and the water empties out from the large lakes back into the river again. At a fishing village we got off the skiff on to their very cramped floating houses and watched as they brought in their day’s fishing from large nets suspended between the floating houses. There were thousands of tiny fish which is used to make fish paste and fish sauce, they were jumping all over the deck and we had to tread carefully to avoid stepping on them. Unfortunately in their haul was a lot of plastic, which they just tossed back into the water! The Mekon River is rather polluted with plastic, and unless they address the problem very soon and educate the fishermen about the problem of plastic it will only get worse. Of course the river is also overfished which will be a disaster for the people if they can no longer fish as that is their livelihood. 

We got back as the sun was setting, it was beautiful to see. Tonight we had a cultural talk about the use of the kroma, the scarf used by Cambodians for many purposes, before yet another delicious dinner.