Travel Day: Phnom Penh

Last picture taken in Kratie:

Travel Day: Kratie - Pajamas

So I guess it should go without saying that the only way to get back to Phnom Penh from Ratanakiri is by the dreaded shared taxi – something my back can’t tolerate for much longer. We’ve decided to break up the journey by stopping overnight in Kratie so that we can catch a ride on a more spacious bus from here. No matter how much we tried today, the four of us just couldn’t get comfortable in the cramped back seat of the old Camry, especially with our driver pushing the throttle to the beat of loud Cambodian electronica while barely missing oncoming trucks appearing through thick clouds of dust. Surprisingly, we got here in one piece.

If you invest any time at all watching people in Cambodia, you’ll find a large number of the womenfolk going about their daily business dressed in their pajamas:

Theory has it that up until recently, owning more than one set of clothing wasn’t a national standard here. Instead, like it or lump it, most people had to make do with, literally, the shirts on their backs (and many still do). So as the country slowly picks itself up and the standard of living improves, more people are afforded the luxury of owning more things. Things like pajamas, which are wholly frivolous, become status symbols and, if the theory holds true, by wearing them these women are showing their peers that they are moving on up in the world.

Of course all this was theorized (and applied to a completely different country) in an in flight magazine I read back in 2001 so I guess it should be taken with a grain of salt (more like a few shakers of it).

Ratanakiri: Veung Sai, More of the Same

Today played out more or less like yesterday except it started earlier, the bicycles were replaced with motorbikes and we tried our luck with Voen Sai, a village quite far North of Ban Lung. Actually, thinking about it now, today played out nothing like yesterday.

To start the day, we headed to Psar Ban Lung, the wet market right behind the taxi station, where we bought ourselves some very stylish SARS masks to keep dust from clogging our lungs. Mine's a dark grey Burberry plaid.

A peeing contest taking place in the market's parking lot. Good thing I'm not on the receiving end of it this time:

The road to Voen Sai isn't in the best of conditions and certain stretches require quite a bit of effort to navigate. Luckily, I was the passenger today:

Being the passenger gave ample opportunity to try my hand at drive by photography.

The approach:

SURPRISE!:

In true drive by fashion, we sped off after taking the above photo.

One should note that drive by photography doesn't elecit the same response from lazy water buffalo who are too busy wallowing in mud to care.

There wasn't anything going on at the Southern bank of the river in Voen Sai aside from an expensive (for the area) two minute boat ride to the opposite side. The area of the town we visited consists of a fair number of ramshackle huts in a rural Cambodian setting; Something we'd already seen in Kratie so we passed on the boat ride and doubled back to Ban Lung for a quick lunch at the American Restaurant.

Women wash their dishes close to the boat's launching point in Voen Sai:

Further upstream, more villagers bathe and hunt for snails:

We finished off the daylight hours goofing off at the meteor lake again, where I temporarily lost my only pair of glasses. Thankfully, Thien An salvaged them from the lake bed right after I slipped and bruised my backside (and my ego) on the dock in my panic.

Ratanakiri: Late Night Hauntings and Meteor Crater Lakes

An overactive imagination kept me up ‘til the wee hours last night, forcing me to sleep through my alarm clock this morning. It’s embarrassing to admit but I’d somehow convinced myself that the room next door, the one I switched out of yesterday (because the used condom I found under the bed was attracting ants), was haunted. See, I’m the only one staying in this particular building and it’s prone to blackouts. Strange thing about this "haunted" room is, every time I pass it, the door’s always open. Stranger still, I lock and close the door each time I pass it so it should remain shut. Aside from the slight hum of my fan, the building is silent so I should be able to hear the door clicking open. Suffice it to say, I spent a good portion the night staring wide eyed at the ceiling, imagining the worst as one of the creaking window shutters banged on its frame in tandem with the wind. Things worked out though, I wasn’t visited by anything supernatural over the night and Andrew, Thien An and Caroline had slept in as well.

Following brunch at the “American Restaurant” (a hole in the wall place on the opposite side of town) we hopped on our rented bicycles and rode Eastwards to Boeng Yeak Lom, a perfectly round 700,000 year old meteor crater lake.

A krama dust mask for the bike ride:

We spent what little we had left of the afternoon swimming in the lake.

This guy looks a little confused:

Gutted by termites:

Travel Day: Ban Lung, Ratanakiri

The four of us loaded up our bags into the trunk of our shared taxi and climbed into its far from spacious back seat to continue our journey further off the beaten path. The destination, Ban Lung in Ratanakiri province (but we prefer to call the town Ratanakiri because it has a nicer ring to it).

Where limited few barang (foreigners) are still visible in and around Kratie (usually around the town center and in guesthouse commons), virtually none stay in Ratanakiri. We made it a game to see who would be first to spot another tourist. It was a tie much later in the afternoon.

Not too many paved roads exist in Ban Lung’s backwater main stretch, where red dust kicked up by passing vehicles obscures visibility to a couple of hundred feet.

So prevalent is the dust, everything exposed to the elements is caked in it:

Local men convene at the town center's taxi station for a game of pool:

Neglecting their dirty old motorbikes parked nearby:

Kratie: Irawaddy Dolphins

While waiting in the guesthouse lobby for our two rental motorbikes to arrive, the manager translated this poster depicting the story of the Iradawwy dolphins (something might have been lost along the way on my end). What follows is an intriguing tale of divine interspecies lurv (scandalous!), jealousy, a little more interspecies lurv, and a general decline into weirdness (if things weren’t already strange to begin with):

1. A Snake God takes notice of a girl worshipping at an altar
2. Girl and Snake God wed (it’s uncertain whether she wanted it or not). An on looking neighbour becomes jealous.
3. Said neighbour, wanting her own fifteen minutes of fame, marries a run of the mill giant snake, claiming it to be one of divine persuasion.
4. As they consummate the marriage (I didn’t bother asking the mechanics of it), the snake swallows the woman whole.
5. Another villager discovers what had happened, cuts the snake’s belly open and rescues the woman just in time.
6. Unable to live with the shame, the woman throws herself into the Mekong and becomes an Iradawwy dolphin.
   

On that note, we hopped on our freshly delivered (but poorly maintained) motorbikes and made our way to the dolphin viewing area.

The gas station on the way out of town is representative of rural gas stations in Southeast Asia:

Along the way, we decided to disrupt classes at one of the rural schools we passed in the next town up. From the wide eyed stares of the children and teachers, it was obvious this region rarely sees foreigners (we were probably the first to have stepped foot in the school). We handed out some Mentos I'd been saving for an afternoon snack and sped off just in time to see the morning classes dismissed.


Further up, we were invited into a couple of rural family huts on the roadside. It looks like Cambodians have spared little time repopulating the country following the years of the Khmer Rouge genocide as it’s rare to see families with fewer than four or five children, especially in these remote areas.

Piglets under the porch:

Situated on the muddy banks of the Mekong, about halfway between Kratie and Sambor, the Iradawwy dolphin viewing area serves as one of the area’s only points of interest. For that reason alone, we (or at least I did) felt the place was a bit disappointing because we couldn’t get close enough to get a clear look at the dolphins. It is said that there could be as few as 75 Iradawwy dolphins remaining on the Mekong - a good number of that population apparently settle around this area.

My attention soon drifted to other things like a giant wasp that had taken interest in my leg hairs.

And a swarm of ants that had taken over an offering in a spirit house (Buddhist altar):

Soon after leaving the dolphins, I was left alone briefly on a secluded bridge while Thien An and Caroline went off in search of a dropped key. Andrew doubled back to make sure everything was fine. In the meantime, I stood by the railing, enjoying the fine scenery:


About five minutes later I noticed a little bit of movement from the corner of my eye but I decided to pay no attention to it. So closer and closer it crept, until whatever it was, was waiting at the edge of the other side of the small bridge. I looked over to see a group of kids curiously staring in my direction. I turned around, smiled and waved to which they screamed and ran back to their nearby house. I think I have that same effect on women.

We arrived in Sambor later than we expected so we hurriedly wandered through the Sambor Wat (apparently Cambodia’s largest functioning temple) before sitting down with a pair of ancient monks. One of them spoke French fluently and conversed a little with the girls before we found ourselves on the bike ride back to Kratie. We made ourselves hoarse by day's end responding to all the kids yelling and waving as we passed.


Another sign urging Cambodians to disarm:

Roadside pot:

Travel Day: Kratie

The bus’s front axel gave out about an hour away from Kratie, forcing us to stop in a small rural village for repairs. We found the hour and a half wait a perfect opportunity to bring out the cameras.

Everything gets covered with a film of red dirt kicked up by vehicles passing on the unpaved highway.

Horse drawn carriages are still a viable means of transportation here

A pair of nuns seeking donations in exchange for a blessing

Signs urging Cambodians to surrender their firearms are commonplace in the countryside. This one warns against joining militia groups, executing fellow Cambodians mobster style and robbing people at gunpoint.

Motorcycles play an important role in Cambodia as larger vehicles are far too expensive to own and operate:


As odd coincidences go, Thien An pointed out a cloud formation resembling a group of dolphins. We’re planning on taking a couple of motorbikes further up the Mekong to watch the endangered Iradawwy dolphins tomorrow.