Roaming with Peter & Marilyn: A Day in the Countryside and Floating Village

Tuesday, Feb. 15.
All goes well with our clandestine meeting two stores down from the hotel. Lem is not in his “official” guide’s uniform, but the car he has arranged is spotlessly clean. Turns out the driver is a cousin and he teaches English classes when he does not have a driving assignment.
As we start the 45 km. plus ride into the countryside, Len explains the itinerary, points out information as we go and answers our endless stream of questions. The road is the main highway and is in good shape, but the bicycles, motorcycles, tuk tuks, and scooters way outnumber the cars. I get a half shot of an oxen-pulled wagon. We see more as the day goes by.
We turn right onto a secondary road that goes to Lem’s village, Kampong Khleang. On the way we go through a village where the ladies are selling bundles of twelve-inch pieces of sugar cane. There is a fire by the stalls, and Len explains that the bamboo contains a sweet that is very popular.
As we travel, we see more and more houses which are constructed on stilts, usually made from concrete. Eventually, the road deteriorates more, and the concrete supports become wooden stilts. Finally, the road becomes a one-and-a half red-clay potholed country passage. We are approaching Len’s home village. All along the ground has been very flat with rice paddies not yet irrigated for the season. Now, there is more and more water in the fields and a canal comes into view on our left. Here and there, there are makeshift bridges over the canal. At one point we are traveling, needless to say now very slowly, down a causeway which Lem says will be flooded in the wet season. He did point out the “port”, back a-ways. Now we realize that in the wet season, that is as far as a car can travel. Lem says that he likes to bring people to the village in the wet season as they can approach by boat and everything is nice and clean.
It turns out that the village consists of a row of houses on each side of the above mentioned road. Lem points out his family’s home. Like quite a few others, it is very big. The many wooden stilts supporting the house about 20 feet above the ground are taller at the back as the bank slopes to the canal. Lem says the supports last about seven years, so each year in the dry season, the owner will inspect the wood, decide the ones that need replacing. The longer ones by the water will be cut shorter to replace any that need replacing at the front, and new long ones will be put in at the back. His parents are at their “dry-season” house about 18 km. away where they grow green beans - the legume kind. We stop at his uncle’s house across the street and a little way down. His uncle who lives there with another aunt, uncle, grandparents, and some girls not explained, will be getting married today. We are invited in to see the home. What a privilege! As Lem explains, they are happy to show us their home, but would really have no idea where we are from or how we live there. The television they get on their black and white set would carry only Cambodian channels.
The water comes into the house by a primitive pull-push pump and the waste goes back into the canal. Later that day I am very thankful for the “porcelain hole-in-the-floor” bathroom with the water in a clay pot which you scoop to flush. The whole place, besides the inevitable dust, is very clean and tidy - and they were not expecting us, so this was normal. They are Buddhists and the grandparents have shaved-heads and no teeth. But everyone has easy smiles and make us feel most welcome. The aunt wants us to return for soup for lunch, but Lem knows that everyone is busy with the preparations for the wedding which will begin in the afternoon.
A few doors from his uncle’s, we watch as young girls and a lady and man skewer lines of tiny fish onto what becomes a flat square of about thirty fish. These are then dried in the sun and then smoked over a fire. This is a source of income for the villagers as they are exported, especially to Japan. I think if the Japanese saw the river from which they were caught and the conditions in which they were prepared, I doubt that they would be as anxious to pay a premium for them. As Lem explains, it is the middle-men who make the money on these products. But it is a living for the villagers.
The road continues through the village to a high spot that usually doesn’t flood where the locals bring the children to play in the wet season.

An ordinary bridge constructed with the historically significant snake.

Lem's aunt, uncle, and grandparent's house.

The simple pump for the household water.
The inside of the house.

Walking down the residential street.

Getting ready for the wedding.

Beyond the decorations, the shopping street.

From the high spot, we walk to the line of boats, pay the “police-uniformed”-man, and get on a narrow, flat-bottomed boat for the trip down the canal to the lake. The driver is about sixteen and his helper, who looks six, is probably about 10 years old. Because the water is low, it is reddish-brown colour from the sandy bottom. All along the edge of the canal, there are men in the water fishing with nets. There are fish farms set out and vegetable farms on the flat land at the sides. There are mounds of small fish four-feet high at various locations. I can see Peter calculating the millions of fish that we would have seen in the one two-hour period.
As we approach the lake which at this time is about 100 km. long and 30 km. wide, we begin to see the boathouses of the people who live here permanently. There is everything from a small, one-room hovel, to a luxurious (by their standards) multi-roomed, multi-boat mansion. The best looking place is the “school” building, but it didn’t look occupied. It is some sort of foreign aid run school. Lem didn’t elaborate, but said most of the children here never attend school.
As we begin to make a turn, a boat zooms by and its wake causes our boats to rock. At this point we have an overboard oar. The skipper cuts the engine, makes a wide turn, and Lem saves the day by rescuing it as we pass by.
We spend some time just floating and enjoying the peacefulness of the life on the lake. Len points out that when the water rises, the residents get a “pulling-boat” to take them close in to the village. The water then is quite clear and they can see the fish better for fishing. There is a two-month time when they are not permitted to fish as it is the spawning season.