Along the Dirt Roads of Captivating Cambodia

Christmas morning, Anna, Michelle and I boarded yet another flight headed to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam for a quick layer over, then onto Siem Reap Cambodia. Our original plan had us jumping on another bus or two (or several) and heading west into southern Laos, but we decided that we wanted to be more leisure on the second half of the journey so we skipped Laos and headed into Cambodia a couple days early.

The second we got off the plane, I was instantly grateful for our unanimous travel choice. Siem Reap was warm and sunny, covered in palm trees, lined with dirt roads. It felt small, quaint, quiet, and calm – almost like an island. And every person that we encountered was smiling and laughing, right down to the police and security at costumes (what a change!). I immediately felt at ease, and I was looking forward to relaxing and really enjoying all that Cambodia had to offer instead of flying through it. Our first guesthouse was adorable, and the owner (whom we called Grandpa, respectively) was the sweetest old man. At our first meal, we ordered just about one of everything on the menu (pad thai, curries, veggies, amok, sea food, etc.) and gushed about how much we were loving life… it was finally warm, the people were amazingly hospitable and the food was to die for!

Our time in Siem Reap flew by, but we took our time exploring it all! We rented bicycles and rode all over the place. We drank mango smoothies like it was our job, ate at every café and guesthouse we could, we lounged by the pool and enjoyed some local style pampering. We shopped, shopped and shopped a little more! I kept saying that it was the dollar country – pants were 1 dollar, beer was 1 dollar, a meal was 1 dollar, bike rental was 1 dollar… the only confusing part about Cambodia was the currency. Although the official currency is Riel (at the exchange rate of 4,100 Riel to 1 Dollar), they also officially accept USD. All the menus were quoted in dollars, shopping was in dollars, etc. However, if I paid for something with a 20 dollar bill, I would get change back in some dollars and some riel… and it was very lose (typically 4,000 riel to each dollar just for simple rounding purposes). It mostly was annoying when the three of us would try to split a bill, and one of us wanted to pay in dollars but the other two had riel… ugh! Anyway… I could go on all day about how much I loved Siem Reap (because I REALLY loved it) but I will focus on the highlights of Siem Reap - Angkor Wat and the temples, teaching at the Angkor Orphanage Organization, and the Floating Village.

Angkor Wat

High on our list of places to visit was the Hindu Temple, Angkor Wat [meaning City of Temples] – the world’s largest religious monument. Build in the early 12^th Century by King Suryavarman as his temple and mausoleum. Angkor Wat has become a symbol of Cambodia (shown on the national flag) and the main attraction for its grandeur and harmonious beauty. Personally, I think it looks like a place Indiana Jones would have pushed through walls and killed snakes! We left at 4:00 in the morning headed to Angkor Wat for the sunrise, per recommendations. We stood in the crowd surrounded by darkness waiting for the icon to appear, when suddenly, the dark blue cast by the rising sun, set an eerie shadow on the temple and made it look like a haunted house. As the sun rose higher, streaking the sky with arrays of color, the temple and the reflection in the pond became a surreal sight worth the early morning! We spent the next couple hours wandering around the temple before finding a quiet spot in the corner to reflect, do a little yoga and take it all in.

Best travel buddies around!

That afternoon, we went to some other temples, and my favorite, Bayon. Built in the same era for another narcissistic King, Jayavaraman VII, Bayon had about 50 Gothic style towers famously decorated with more than 200 gigantic, smirky faces (bearing more than a slight resemblance to the King himself) staring down at every angle! Although some of the outer walls have collapsed, I thought that was the most interesting maze of a temple! And of course, I loved playing with the faces…

Can you see all the faces?

Angkor Orphanage Organization

One  day while we were out shopping (of course), we took an interest in some handmade recycled bags supporting the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center. The owner of the shop began to speak with us about the proceeds of the handmade bags and some different organization that she was involved in. She then asked us if we would be interested in teaching English at her husband’s nonprofit organization just outside of town. Although we immediately jumped at the opportunity, we were hesitant (as we had been warned of numerous scams), so we agreed to come back in a couple days. After checking into the website, that seemed pretty legit, we returned back to the shop and told her that we would love to spend the day at the orphanage, so we jumped in our tuk tuk and headed out of town, down the long dirt road and deep into the vastly green farm land, were we were dropped off at a tree house in the middle of nowhere – that was their school.

The surrounding landscape could not have been more beautiful. The small school room was nothing more than a straw roof, stick walls, dirt floor and handmade desks and chairs. They had a large white board on either end of the room and a couple English posters hanging from the sticks – colors, numbers, shapes, etc. The children that began to slowly file into the room were not orphans, but members of the small farming community that were too poor to go to school. In fact, most of their days were spent working with their parents in the fields just so their family could survive. The school ran with three volunteer teachers; a young Cambodia women taught English to the younger children, a Taiwanese women taught some of the kids Chinese (but only for a couple months before she returns back to Taiwan), and another Cambodian women to teach the older, high school aged kids.

Surrounding farming village & the school house in the middle

Teaching a health lesson

There were a handful of old Deal lap top computers that were donated to the school so that the kids could practice typing skills (but no internet use), some other organization had also donated a handful of bikes for the students to ride to and from work and school. Anyway, we spent the day at the school talking with the children and teaching during the two English classes. The kids were really eager to ask us questions and practice the English that they had been learning!

At one point, I was sitting down watching a group of girls playing between their classes. Children were not “looked after” per say, they came and went as they pleased since they all lived in the surround villages, but many of the younger ones chose to hang around and play with their friends. I remember thinking about the life that they live. To be honest, their life is probably more difficult than most – they work hard, the eat little and they live extremely modestly in torn cloths, wholly shoes and rusty bikes. I remember thinking that I felt so hot and dusty in the fields and that I couldn't wait to get home and shower, then again, I doubted any of those kids were going to go home to a hot shower and a comfortable bed. Most of their houses were boards on stilts – they looked more like a fort a young child would build in the backyard of a proper house. Yet, these were the happiest children that I had seen in a long time! Content, imaginative, creative, lively, energetic… they played games with things they found laying on the ground, and when they found nothing, they began to climb trees. They didn't have a care in the world! They had nothing, but never cried, whined or complained about anything and yet, they were happy.

Watching the girls play between classes

Again, that word hit me like a ton of bricks… PERSPECTIVE! I loved begin able to spend the day with the kids! The next day, we went back to drop off a bag full of supplies – books, pencils, pens, and a couple soccer balls!

Floating Villages

The “must see” floating villages of Chong Kneas honestly turned out to be a scam. Thankfully, we had read up and our guard was high when people were trying to rip us off around every turn. Situated on the Tonle Sap grid of rivers and lakes, the floating villages were home to the fisherman families – similar to the ones we saw in Vietnam, only on a much greater scale! Sure, it was interesting to see, and the guide gave us some pretty good history of the village because he claimed to have grown up in the water village (pretty sure it was all a part of the scam), but it was a rip off right from the start. It was $15 per person for our personal boat, which was completely unnecessary and is only adding to the pollution of the water that is village’s livelihood. We took a 15 minute boat ride from the dock along to river to the larger lake and around the floating house boats. The guide encouraged us to sit in the front of the boat for the best view, and he talked our ear off about the history of the villages.

He pointed out the floating basketball court, hospital and school, and talked about the different ways that they fish and gather. After about 30 minutes, we pulled up to a floating building and he told us that he was going to show us the mangroves… and that’s when it all went downhill. He didn't want to show us mangroves, but he was pushing us to pay for yet another boat ride with his friend through the mangroves. When we declined and tried to retreat back to our boat, we were stopped by another group of people that were trying to sell us food and rice for the floating orphanage for a ridiculous amount of money! Then they tried to push us into the orphanage where naked kids followed the tourists around grabbing on their clothes begging for food.

Now don’t think I am cold… it probably would have broken my heart if I didn't already know that the vendors selling the rice for the orphanage split the outrageous 60 dollars between the guide and the vendor – none of that money actually went to the orphanage. The guide also would have gotten a cut from the mangrove tour, I am sure. And the “orphan” kids were just kids from the village, all part of the act. As we got back into our boat and insisted that we did not want to go anywhere else, our boat was instantly surrounded by canoes of mothers and their poor shivering naked babies, cold and hungry. I lost it and shouted, “How dare you use your children for money. Take that baby home and put some clothes on her!”

And with that, our guide did not talk to us anymore, pissed that he wasn't making any extra money off the dumb tourists. I was so angry, but to be honest, it was the one and only time that we saw any kind of greed or money hunger inflicted by tourism. It was more disappointing than anything, but an experience nonetheless.

On the way back into town from the floating village, we asked our tuk tuk driver to stop at a local hammock bar in another village so that we could have a beer and watch the sun set of the field. Since it was the dry season, the bar, along with all the village houses, towered above the ground on stilts. It was the best sunset we saw in Cambodia.