Siem Reap without the temples.

Like everybody else, i came to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat and all the magnificent ruins surrounding it. But there are also loads of other things to see and do in the area,. A couple of days with ruin fatigue ended up being busy enough.

One of my favorite things is to get "out there"-out to the locals. The tourist information hooked me up with a program where a guide take people out in the village-where they work with a local family-doing whatever is on that days agenda. It is not like it would be like volunteering in a community. But it will be dammed more interesting than just biking trough a village cheering hello, and definitely a more rewarding way of using a "fatigue day" than hanging out on Pubstreet, was my conclusion. Beyond tours run the show.

I was driven to a village in an aircon car, a piece of machinery i hardly ever have contact with on my travels. Then transferred to an oxcart for the last bit on villagetracks impassable for cars this time of year. I managed to convince the cartdriver to let me steer for a moment, nervously he handed over the reins. No disaster happened, but when we draw attention from some amorous buffalos chilling in a pool-he was happy for the excuse to regain his domain.

The family in question belongs to the poorest walks of cambodian society. They own no land. They have no permanent work-but are hired by landowners and entrepreneurs as needs arise. Their house being small and ultrabasic. No wooden walls there-bamboo and leafs it is. They live on the edge with very little certainty in any respects. They have little education, but want their two children to get one. Their worry now-how to support her daughter in that respect. She is soon at the age to go for higher education.

I arrived, hoping for the best and expecting the worst in terms of work. The husband was busy fixing a pump-the wife  was boiling sweets she would later walk around to sell. My task for the day was manageable. I was to make those palmleaf panels used in walls and sometimes roofs. An easy task from a physical point of view. But when having 5 thumbs on each hand, progress was slow to start with. When the others were on their third, i was finishing my first. But i got up speed and was able to deliver a bunch of usable panels at the end of the session.

Trying my luck as a buffalodriver.

A villagehome, rice is drying in the sun.

My workhostess making those jellyworms for door to door sale.

Stitching (sugar)palm leaf panels. They are to replace  leaking parts of their house.

Plastictubes are used for hanging gardens. It save space, and it keeps the plants away from the water during the rainy season.



Lunch was with a neighbouring family. Two dishes. The first: Spiced fishpaste fried on pieces of sugarcane. The second: A chicken curry with rice. The bonus-having to participate in its making, so i got a cookingclass thrown in as well.

Lunch coming up.

Lunchguest.

Stairway to heaven. They use it to reach the top where the palm wine is born.

A good use of what otherwise would be garbage. Bottles forms the main part of a schoolbuilding.

In another bottlehouse there is a soft toy factory. The women here work on and off as they have opportunity to.

Half an hour by tuktuk from central Siem Reap, is the land mine museum. It is small and have a homemade character to it. It was made by Aki Ra a man who started as a childsoldier in the Khmer Rouge, was then captured by the vitenamese and fought with them against Kmer rouge. finally he joined the national cambodian army. Up to the 90'es, all he know was war and fighting. He thought it to be the normal way of living. After the war he became a do it himself land mine clearer. His intimate knowledge of landmines was the sparking factor. In the museum it is a selection of all the nasty things that were planted in Cambodia-with an explanation of their workings. There are some homemade artificial limbs and you can read the stories of landminevictims. sort of kitchy is the mock landminefield. but it does highlight how the ground used to be littered in some areas. And how difficult these remedies can be to spot-when one have a job to do, a destination to reach and no time for checking every square inch in front of you. This museum is simple-but it do tell about a factor that has had and still have a huge impact on Cambodia-economical as well as humane. This is also the right place to make a donation-they run a home for children that has been maimed by mines-giving them shelter, food and an education, and while you are not allowed into their home, you do see them play in the courtyard just behind the museum.

Countryside Cambodia-3 days from mine to hospital.

A homemare artificial limb at the landminemuseum. A macabre aspect with just this piece: The metal part is warjunk.

After the chilling experience at the museum-it is an horrific story told, i found the perfect antidote down the road-the Ankgor butterfly centre. It is a peaceful garden-home to some 30 species of butterflies. I sat down here with a coconut-there is a restaurant/cafe corner in the garden-with scores of pretty butterflies flying around, the garden is covered with a net to keep them there. Interesting to see is their nurserysection-with cocoons hanging, and caterpillars feeding.

Butterflycoocons at the butterflycentre. Everyday the staff search the garden for butterflyegs. It is a race against the ants.

Newly arrivals to the daylight. They are drying their wings before they can fly.

A nice restingcompany.

Siem Reap is close to the huge Tonle Sap lake, a dominating geographical feature on the national cambodian map.There are lots of villages around it-and in it. I choose Kompong Pluk. Getting there is a two step operation in the rainy season when waterlevel is high. First Tuktuk to a dock where boats can be chartered to the village itself (count on 30 dollars and up per boat). The trip go along a riverchannel -often indistinguishable from the submerged surroundings of paddyfields and brushland. The sorry traces of a road following the river can be seen. Only in the dry season it is of any use.
Arriving to Kompong Pluk is arriving in another world. first we passed the policestation towering high above the water on concrete stilts. Their boats moored under it. Then we see the stiltschool, white and dark blue schoolgirls crossing back and forth in canoes. We enter the busy mainstreet. I is like any busy mainstreet, only that all houses stands in the water, and different types of boats replace cars and motorbikes. There are canoes loaded with fishingnets and fishtraps. There are traders whose boats are filled with householditems or groceries. A canoe tea shop passes by. Old ladies paddles efficiently their canoes-many years of experience. children jumps from the beams into the water, creating hell of a noise.

Kompong Pluk's policestation. Neat and watery.

Schoolgirls on their way home. They are like all schoolgirls, bantering and not strange to the idea of a small flirt with bypassing westerners.

Welcome to the mainstreet.

Sort of fun, i captured just the dame type of vendor on dry land. Having his merchandise overloading a motorcycle.

The little village in the woods.

Young but able. Taking a couple of tourists trough the flooded forest.

Just took her boat. Gone forestfishing.

You need a different kind of tent to camp in this forest.

There are several stiltvillages to visit in the region. A reason to why i choose K. Pluk, is the surrounding  submerged forest. Canoes take you on a non motorized, slow 40 minutes trip trough it. It costs five dollars a head, two tourists go into each canoe and i found it worth the expense. The forest itself would be pretty enough on dry land, submerged in water with the sparkling surface creating moving and everchanging patterns of light on the treetrunks made it magical, sort of otherworldly.

In Cambodia i am delighted to see there are many organisations working to improve peoples life. There are many initiative to bring back to full life culture almost lost during the dark years of Khmer rouge. In Siem Reap there are a handfull of initiatives where these two come together. One of them-Les Chantiers Ecoles sits right in the middle of travellers action in Siem Reap. Just a couple of minutes walk from Pub street, the nightmarket or Psar Chaa. This is a craftschool where young people-males and females-get a solid education as craftspeople. An education they can take home. thee are woodcarvers, stonecarvers, metalworkers and a few other crafts. Visitors get a pass and can wander freely around-or they can do a guided trip. It is free in both cases. You can watch the makings of your souvenirs-and you can talk with the students. One of them polishing the head of a Buddha, stopped me, gave me a piece of sandpaper saying give me a hand. What he in reality said-let me practice my English with you.

Run by les Chantiers Ecoles, but in a location outside the city (there are free shuttles a few times daily-just sign up in the reception), a silkfarm makes the visit complete. Here one can observe the whole process from mulberryleaf and silk moth egg to the finished products. You see the caterpillars eat, the golden coloured cocoons being boiled and unwinded. Colouring of the silkthreads. Setting up the looms. A truly painstaking step with no room for error. And finally the weavers. The adjacent shop with all kinds of silkproducts-ranging from tablecloths to dresses, is there for a reason-but it is not a pushy place, and it is well worth having a look.

The silk here have a beautiful golden colour. But it is never used in its natural state, too bad!

Ready for the loom. The silkthreads are dyed with the ikat technique, where it
is coloured section by section with different colours, rather than the whole thing dipped in once in a single colour. A timeconsuming, laborious process.

Winding up the thin threads. The cocoons are boiled to remove the bindingsubstance.

The entertainmentsector also offer the same combination of lending a hand and preserving or developing culture. Close to the Angkor National Museum is the Phare circus. In fact it is more like a theatrical performance combined with acrobatics more than a circus in the traditional european sense of the word. The performers here comes from orphanages, difficult backgrounds and even from the streets. There are different shows. Sokha, the one i got to see, is about a young girl being haunted by visions of the Khmer Rouge insanity. And i must say she impressed with her combination of being a good acter-and a strong acrobat. Her male counterparts, also good at it, sort of became her backplayers. She was in lead.

Not in the charity or social development sector is the CTN arena at the outskirt of "travellers Siem Reap"-in the direction of the temples.. A couple of days weekly-mondays and wednesdays- there are boxingmatches here. Cambodian boxing-don't ever call it thaiboxing if you want to befriend the locals. The cambodians will tell you the sport is cambodian-refering to ancient carvings depicting the sport. there are at least 5 matches each fight evening, and it always attracts a crowd of locals. It is here like everywhere else sport is going on-the spectators are truly into it-and there is very easy read the joy and disappointment. Feelings strenghtened by the fact most of them place some of their earnings into the betting.In particular i noted one man-an amputee sitting in a wheelchair-ferociously waving his arms, tensely smoking his cigarettes, constantly commenting.The noise of the spectators is complemented with drums and the khmer pipe-putting an exotic touch to it.

The other days of the week, there are no real matches-only shows. The Bokator shows are worth a look, though. Impressive displays of ancient rooted combat martial art. Stickfichts and swordfights being the most spectacular.

Totally at the opposite end of the adrenaline scale, are the dinnershows featuring dance and shadowpuppetery (i didn't get to see the latter). The deal is dinner plus show. I did it at BBQ Suki opposite the National museum. Here the price was pleasant, the food was good. and the show what i hoped for. The ancient khmer dance is often not a fast moving one-it is not about moving to a rhythm. What it does is conveying stories. Movements and gestures have specific meanings-like a visual language that sadly is unknown to me and most onlookers. All we can do is reading the storydescriptions and appreciate the sometimes very-very gracious movements of the performers.

My delicious dinnershowmeal. Beer was not included, though.