My National Geographic Moment

The blog has been jumping around a bit but I realized that my favorite day of the trip so far has not been blogged.

We set up a day trip with our guesthouse in Siem Reap to get out in the country and see some of the floating villages and forests on the Lake in Cambodia. Because it is the dry season and the lake has shrunk considerably the only way to get there was by 4x4. Now with Catherine, the three of us jumped in having no idea what to expect. After a bumpy ride that had us literally jumping out of our seats and thrown around the vehicle we arrive at the shore of a small river about 10 feet wide, crowed with bushes and filled with colorful wooden longboats. We board with our hired driver and head out, no idea really where we are going. All we knew was that our driver had on a SS Titanic cap and we found this hilarious. I am pretty sure though the irony of this was wayy lost on him. The river is hard to navigate; boats come from both sides; fisherman and low boats holding dozens of locals huddled on for transport to the next village. You have to push against boats surrounding you to pass and try not to hit the fisherman wadding through the water in their speedo underwear. About 30 minutes into the ride the water opens to the lake and the view is beautiful. Cruising through the lake another 15 minutes later we arrive at a floating village. Words are difficult here. The floating villages are comprised of dozens of bamboo "houses"built on stilts above the water; some several flights up. They look so unstable it is scary and I can't imagine what this is like during the rainy season. Floating in the middle of the water are cages with pigs; this is where they keep the livestock to eat! Everyone there is so excited to see westerners; from their boats at the base of the houses and from the doorways they wave at us; children yell broken English, and we float by amazed at everything we see. Little did we know our driver was going to pull into one of these docks, let us get out and explore the village on the land side. We bring the boat to shore and the only dock to land is a plank about 18 inches wide and about 50 feet long that definitely starts to bow down towards the water when I am halfway across. I had to walk a balance beam to get to land. I made it to shore and said a little prayer. Right away we are greeted by yards and yards of shrimp drying out in the sun. This village is one of the fishing villages that produces the dried shrimp and shrimp paste used all over the country. They catch the shrimp in the water and then leave thousands of pounds of the shrimp out in the sun to dry out right in front of their homes.

We walk through the village; which to be fair is only one dirt path about a football field in length with bamboo stilted houses on either side. The children there are awesome. They are enthralled with us, the color of our skin and my height. They come out shy at first and then are in our faces, jumping all over us, waving and repeating "Hello, Hello" before they giggle and then run to hide. This pattern repeats itself over and over until finally they are comfortable with us and just start to swarm. I took so many amazing photos of these kids it was fantastic. I showed them some of the photos on the back of the camera and they went ballistic. They thought it was hilarious and started giggling up a storm. We showed them how to do a peace sign with their hands and they just kept doing it the rest of the afternoon no matter what we said to them. They also loved a game where they would latch on to us and we would lift them up; sometimes 4-5 attached to our arms at a time. The three of us stayed, took pictures and played with the kids for awhile until we were so hot and sweaty in the 100 degree weather that we had to retreat. It was so sad to see them go. You try to figure out what you can do to help; most of them did not have clothes or if they did only a top of bottom. None had shoes and it was obvious they did little more than play with the random trash in the area. We wish we had brought a soccer ball or such.

We went back to where the boat was docked for another surprise. We were greeted by two floating bamboo boats. These are essentially rafts with slight upturns on the front and back. They lay down rugs on the "boats"and motion for us to sit down on them. They are so close to the water and my panic starts to set in. I am pretty sure I am going to sink one. I sucked it up and got in. No sinking but if you think about moving the whole boats sways from side to side and when you start about two inches above the water the reality of falling in is pretty real. At this point I put my feet in front of me to give me a center of gravity, hold my breath, and just pray I will not flip. An old lady is in the front of my boat and starts to paddle me away from the village. We enter into the floating forest. The floating forest is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It sounds obvious, but it is what is sounds like. A full Forest, tall trees growing up about 100 feet to form a canopy above your head. Only catch; there is no grounds, just water. You paddle through the trees! All close together like a regular forest and you have to swerve and bounce off the trees to zig zag your way through. The old women paddles me through the forest and slowly I have enough confidence to take out my camera and get some great photos of what this looks like.

Our original longboat meets us at the end of the forest and we have to climb from the bamboo boat to the longboat in the middle of the lake. Again, holding my breath I make it safely.

It was an amazing day of mind blowing nature, culture, education, and an encounter with children that rivals some of my biggest National Geographic fantasies. Again, so many amazing photos I do not know what I will do with them all. Any ideas??

Much more later.