I think I must be getting used to the heat, I awoke quite cold after leaving my air-con on and had to turn of it in the night. Rituals build in order to make it easer to be prepared, in my case cream and sun cream along with get out a malaria tablet to take with my breakfast. (Jim is taking the same medication, but takes his at night.)
The other problem is that when you leave a cold room it takes a while for the cameras to demist to allow pictures to be taken.
The weather looked glorious when I got up, although it was bound to be scorching by midday. Once again the skies were blue, so far on the trip we had not had any of the showers that can occur. Chris had also heard reports that an unseasonal typhoon was blowing through and whilst it would not travel over Cambodia it would bring rain to the area
As this hotel did not have any facilities to provide breakfast the plan was to get ready and then cycle off to the same restaurant where we had eaten lunch the day before. (The one where a dog was picking up scraps of the floor). Kampong Chhnang was not a tourist destination and so none of the usual facilities had spring up this was favoured because it was were local NGO people ate apparently.
I decided against the usual bowl of rice or noodles. The previous day when they gave us ice it had bits on it. Round ice is thought to be safe as it is machine made, it is believed the blocks of ice are made from safe water, but are transported in all manner of sacks and generally carved up on the pavement. Jim had convinced me that we had to first wash our hands then tip the ice into one hand and wash it with bottled water, then it was ok to drink. That in itself must have looked bizarre to the locals.
I ordered an omelet, generally a safe bet as they are freshly cooked and there is little that can go wrong. In this restaurant the cutlery arrived in a cup of hot water - to ensure its cleanliness! Chris' pork/noodle soup arrived quickly and looked delicious, along with some cold deep fried bread. The bread was not so nice although it does go well with the soup. Then the omelets turned up. Jim and Mary had also chosen the same.
They looked a bit like loosely poached eggs that had been deep-fried in batter. In America they are even more cautious about eating raw eggs than we are in England, and these eggs were very runny. I do eat raw eggs though, when in Japan, it is used as a dip and when mixed with peanut paste as a dip for shabu shabu. These omlets were an acquired taste and I still am not sure quite how they managed to cook them. Jim and Mary gave up on them immediately, I ate around two thirds of mine, I needed something for the long day ahead.
As we sat there eating, a girl who looked about 9 was watching from behind a pillar, she did not have the look of a curious child though, she looked starving. We gave her some of the deep-fried bread, she smiled and moved a little way away and carefully ate every piece of it. I can't say any of us felt that good about the fact that we had been joking about how weird the bread was and here was a starving girl clearly relishing it.
We debated what to do. Giving money is not recommended - often it goes straight to the parent or an older person, for their food or more than likely drugs. We could have given her some food to take away but again we wanted to ensure she got the benefit. So Chris suggested buying her breakfast to eat with us, which he did. It helped that we had Mary with us and it was a very public place. Very warily she sat down and waited patiently for the bowl of pork and rice to arrived. When it did she eat the lot carefully and deliberately. She became less wary and Chris who lives in Cambodia asked her how old she was. It turned out she was 12 years old. As she finished the breakfast she asked for some water (in Cambodian), we had none with us as our van had driven off up the road to get things sorted before our next rendezvous. So Jim poured some into a glass out of his water bottle, at first she was cautious, but started drinking it and with a smile thanked us and went off with a slight skip in her step.
The cost of her breakfast was $1 or 65p - at tourist prices, to a local it would have been cheaper. Was this going to save the world? No of course not, but it brought home the old saying that my Mum used about eating everything on your plate because there are lots of starving people who would dearly love some food. Here was one and she did. The tragedy is that being in such a position leaves young girls (and boys) dangerously prone to exploitation. It was another reminder that our cycle ride was trying, in a small way, to do some good by helping the charities to educate and train the children out of the trap they are in.
Here is that young girl before she sat down with us, she did not beg, she was not aggressive, she was clearly looking for some scraps to eat though.
At our first water stop, we all loaded up with water, I generally drank a litre during the stop and made sure my water bottle was full. It was delicious, although we would find that towards the end of the day we had drunk so much water it was becoming too bland. Here is our driver/mechanic/snack buyer getting in some local produce from a "village shop". Although this had implications for our health at least it was putting something into the local community.
Apparently people do not travel much or move away from their home districts, however as the roads improve and bridges get restored then there is demand for transport. Here is the local "bus". It is a motorcycle pulled wagon with planks lashed to it for seats. As people get off they pay the driver, who then gets his passengers all to move forward to ensure a reasonable weight distribution, if too many sat at the back it would lift his back wheel up and he would lose traction.
As we got closer to the mountain we saw more and more temples and many looking very new and well constructed. This area clearly had a religious attraction.
As we cycled away from the main road we passed several schools, all crammed with pupils smartly dressed in their school uniforms, often we would see them cycling two to a bike. Here is one such schools bike park.
The roads were nowhere near as bad as the roads down from Pailin and we made good progress on Highway 5. Jim would often lead with Mary next and then me, generally Chris and Tonyet would be somewhat slower. Our lunch spot was to the Phnom Prah Reach (Oudong Mountain) a few kilometres away from the Highway 5. There were a number of Stupas on the mountain and it was a very popular local spot to visit, because of the religious connections. Tonyet had spent 2 years as a Temple boy and 6 years as a monk was very pleased to be visiting the site, despite his time as a monk and the importance of the Stupas it was not a place he had visited before and so he was able to make an offering.
As soon as we stopped, a group of four of five young boys ran up to offer to be our guides. I am afraid that we have become adept at ignoring such things, if you pay attention then the clamour becomes worse. Our plan was to visit the temples by climbing the numerous steps (400+) on one side and then down the fewer steps on the other. As we walked up to them we were followed by the flip-flop of the boys loose sandals. It was a scorchingly hot day and Jim, May and I borrowed some sun umbrellas from the van to provide some respite from the sun.
As we began to climb we each seemed to have a shadow, the one in front would report some little tidbit of information such as how many steps we had to climb, something we had already been told, then the next shadow would do they same 5 seconds later and then the next and so on. It was like and echo rippling down the mountain. Unfortunately when you stop cycling the pleasant self-generated breeze dies and you start sweltering so my patience was a little thin - I really did not need a shadow.
As we climbed the steps it was clear that the mountain had some great views. Tonyet also bought an offering of flowers for when he reached one of the Stupas at the top. You can clearly see how much of Cambodia is under water.
Carvings of elephants are frequently seen, especially in this pose as if their trunks are holding up the building. Some of these looked much cleaner than the rest of the stonework though.
In between two of the towers was a makeshift structure that looked as if it could take a tarpaulin roof, and below a small shrine. You can see Jim and Mary with their sun umbrellas,
There were a variety of buildings and monuments at the top, some very new and ornately carved. We did comment on the slightly incongruous aspect of people begging amid some expensive constructions. However in the Buddhist life, Monks will beg for alms to allow them to practise and the person giving will receive merit for helping to feed the monks.
The views from the top were outstanding, there is a lot of water and if you look closely there are also a lot of temples in the area.
In fact it seemed that in whatever direction you looked there was water and there were temple buildings.
The compounds were quite large as they also provided housing for the monks, I am sure I also saw some with tennis courts. These buildings also looked to be in a good state of repair.
Here this compound has its own fish farms close to some beautiful buildings.
As we walked around the last Stupa we were requested to remove any hats and shoes. These are important religious structures and need to be treated with respect. I think our route had taken us up the back way, as we climbed down the "front way" the steps were much grander.
Once we reached the bottom Jim and I went looking for a toilet, not easy around here, but we had been drinking water yet not sweating so much and so our bodies were behaving as normal, one thing we did notice is that despite drinking water continuously we hardly ever need a wee.
As we crossed a small square to the conveniences we noticed a small monument as we got closer we realised that it contained a number of skulls piled on top of bones, it was a monument to those killed during the brutal Pol Pot era. We found that Cambodians were approachable and would talk about the Pol Pot era, although it was something I always found unsettling.
As we left the toilet we were chased for payment in the end I gave the smallest amount I had $1. In England there is the saying (or euphemism for urinating) to spend a penny, which was what it cost to use a public toilet, now I could say "spend a dollar".
The area is a very popular spot to visit, especially when there are significant religious festivals. It was set up to deal with crowds, the restaurants were covered raised wooden platforms where people would eat and they also had hammocks to allow the customers to have a nap after lunch. The food was prepared elsewhere and brought to the customers. I am not sure if each platform was associated with a particular food provider or they all vied for business. Here is our meal being set out, roast chicken and a baked river fish along with rice and dips.
It tasted very good, although we only had a blunt knife to carve the chicken up which made things a little trickier.
After we had finished lunch a man came along to see if he could have some of the left overs, the "waitress" shoveled a load of rice and the fish head into a plastic bag for him. Dogs also hung around looking for scraps.
After lunch and a rest before we set of for the remainder of the journey into the capital. Every now and then we would pass a lake and see someone fishing.
There is no doubt that there is a lot of water in Cambodia.
At one point the traffic really ground to a halt, which caused lots of people to constantly blip their horns. As we approached the problem I found myself cycling up the inside of an elephant, I would like to have stopped an taken a picture, but I had to follow Tonyet, there is now way I could have found the hotel without him.
I was a little worried, cars do not have trunks to wack passing cyclists - elephants do, but this one just lumbered on as I pased it. Personally I do not like to see animals treated in this way. It is bad enough that we subject ourselves to the traffic, the elephant had not choice.
The hotel we stayed in had a number of Barang guests and promised internet access. Although I later found out that not my room. They did have a business centre, with around 5 PCs and cables for laptop owners to plug into. You had to go to the front desk and tell them you room number they would then unlock the door and let you in to tap away. We who rented bikes left it up to the guides to sort them, Jim was a little more concerned about his own bike but got assurances from Chris that the hotel had a 24hour security guard. Each bike was carefully labelled.
The view from my window was not great, however that night the sunset painted the sky a glorious colour. That night when we had dinner we met one of Chris' local team. Channa, who is married to a Belgian and expecting a baby in the next 6 months. She typified the Cambodian style, very open and smiling. She told me that her husband told her off for being so smiley when on the Paris Metro, she also wanted her passport picture to be one of her smiling but was not allowed.
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