Water Life and Cambodia Ahoy!

I have been dreaming of seeing Angkor Wat and today -when we leave Chau Doc, Vietnam and take a speedboat to Phnom Penh, Cambodia- I will be two days closer to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat.  In between there is much to see and two immigrations to go through.

As we are leaving the hotel we spot a little girl apparently alone, but actually waiting for her dad.  She’s on a bike with her own little rattan “throne” in front.  We all start waving at her and she timidly waves back.  Dad comes out and takes the veil off her face.  She stares at us and is probably wondering what the fuss is all about!  

After the bus drops us off we still have to walk through a market to get to the boat.  We pass by a temple with inscriptions in Vietnamese and Chinese: Chau Phu Temple.  You would think at this point I would be tired of temples and markets but I still find them fascinating, each generating different emotions in me every time.  

Though small, it is a thriving market the one we go through on the way to the pier.  A crate of chicks reminds me of a Spanish children’s song that goes: “Los pollitos dicen, pío, pío, cuando tienen hambre, cuando tienen frío…”  (The little chicks say peep, peep, peep, when they are hungry, when they are cold…)  These must be really hungry ‘cause their pío, pío is loud and strong!  Somehow it saddens me and I look away.       

The lanes are narrow and motorbikes and people coexist in them.  I’m so enthralled by these huge grapes that I don’t realize that a bike narrowly misses me (or I it).       

And yet, on my next photo none of the craziness is reflected.

We go through an alley  and my inner voice goes “water ahoy!” (I know it’s land ahoy but I wasn’t up for arguing with myself.)

Soda anyone?  

And had I not had breakfast, I could of gotten it at the boat that offered a hot meal to all.     

A houseboat floats by and my thoughts float with it.  I wonder how it must be to live like that. 

I have a few minutes to ponder this as our boat gently advances to a fish farm that we are visiting.   But before that, we shall pass and visit a floating wholesale market.   Another boat offers us a burst of color along with its wares (somewhat like a 7/11 on the water).   A good indication we are entering the market.  

Each boat has a long mast that has, instead of a flag, the fruit or vegetable they are selling waving at the top.

Here’s the coconut boat.  

Want to guess what this one sells?

   

We leave the market with another blast of color from a boat.  

A few minutes later we arrive at the fish farm. 

I try to pay attention, I really do, but the smell from the fish paste so commonly used in almost everything here is so overwhelmingly nauseating that all I’m thinking is getting on our new boat that will take us to Cambodia.  Not that I haven’t smelled it before but it was always intermingled with other scents.  Alone, and in mass quantities, it is hard to breathe.

Relief as I take a huge breath upon boarding the boat that will take us to the Vietnam exit border     and the Cambodian immigration.  I had wondered this morning how it must feel to live on the water and I’m getting a taste of it now.

I have learned to be patient and smile my way through every immigration process but the Cambodian immigration control is unique.

A curious local (as usual it is the people that draw my lens).    

After leaving the boat and walking for a bit there is an immigration control like no other.  

I get the usual “Paraguay?” question but with it comes a smile and a look.  And just in case you don’t believe it actually is a border crossing here are some officials to prove it as we head back to the boat.   This is not the plank we take back to our boat… 

  Back on the boat our trip leader entertains us.  

I relax for we still have about two hours till our arrival to Phnom Pehn, Cambodia.       

My stomach growls, my eyes blink open, and I spot land.     

Thaly, our local guide, and our first and only female guide on our journey, welcomes us at the dock.  This is a bustling, metropolitan city.  We check in at the Almond Hotel where we have lunch.     At this stage of the game most have a hankering for familiar tastes so they serve us ice cream for dessert!  We are all like little kids verbalizing our delight with many “yummms and ahhhs”.

Off to the Royal Palace.      

As we cross the gates the sounds of life outside seem to decrease to nothing.  Isolated perhaps by the tall walls that surround it.  What it doesn’t isolate us from is the brutal sun.

The king is in residence, indicated by his flag waving high.  

I know I should be most impressed by the Throne Hall

-that we are asked not to photograph even from the outside looking in.  In fact, today we can’t go inside at all.   But aside from the Baccarat crystal chandeliers that are certainly captivating, it is the Moonlight Pavilion that holds my eye.     

We head towards the Silver Pagoda set of buildings.  The walls are painted with the Khmer version of the classic Indian epic, the Ramayana.  

I sit and contemplate how manmade beauty is framed and enhanced by nature.  

Life outside the walls has not stopped.        

We go back to the hotel to freshen up and go back out for our ride in a remok (the Cambodian version of a tuk-tuk) along the riverside to our restaurant.  We are served Cambodian food which, as in all of Asia it seems, includes curry something.  We taste fish amok (steamed fish with herbs in a banana wrap).  I am not warming up to Cambodian food as much as I have to the rest of Asian food.

Tomorrow we will have a somber morning walking through The Killing Fields.

Fruit Memories, Courtesy of Vietnam

The morning is young though I am definitely not feeling as young as when I went to bed.  Got very little sleep and can feel the fuzziness in my brain.  My step is slow.  And this without drinking a drop last night.  The dancing did me in.  Muscles I didn’t know I had are making it known that they were there all along.   Muscle ache and lack of sleep, however, have no power against adrenaline and after I take a shower I’m all set to go.  Let’s see how long it lasts…

Today we are heading to the Cu Chi tunnels, the base for the Vietcong guerrilla fighters during the Vietnam War.  I am wary of this visit for two reasons: am a bit on the claustrophobic side and don’t know how I’ll handle the tunnels (or if I’ll dare go in) and am not sure I’ll want to hear the propaganda that may go with it.  But I’m in Vietnam and I’m going.

On the way we stop at a rice paper factory and rubber plantation.  I am learning so much about processes of elaboration of things I had never given a second thought to and am acquiring a new appreciation of them.  

I get the opportunity to try my hand at making a rice paper roll.  This rice paper is used to wrap vegetables in a sort of spring roll (which is not fried).  It’s delicate and much harder to make than it looks.

It begins by spreading the mixture of rice and water on a hot plate.  

Then you pick up the roll with a roller. (How à propos.)  Cook didn’t trust me to do it by myself and helped.  

Then it’s transferred to the bamboo to cool.  Hopefully without a hole -mine had one  😦   

Once I’ve humiliated myself enough for being so inept at it, we spot a cashew tree.  In Brazil is where I first was familiarized with one.  The top part of the fruit is the nut that we know as cashew.  My mom used to make juice of the cajú (in guaraní) fruit –or cashew apple-.  Brought back a lot of happy times to my mind.  

A little girl was fascinated by our group.  

The group went on to view a rubber tree.  I preferred to stay on the side of the road with my memories, while snapping pictures.

I find it interesting that when aware of having a picture taken, most in Southeast Asia will flash a victory sign.  

Though the passengers on the same truck did not.  

We arrive at the Cu Chi Tunnels.  

First thing to greet us is an imposing US Air Force helicopter. 

Then we are off to cross a tranquil looking setting  into an area that at wartime was as far off from tranquil as you can think of.

Breathing Hole

The tunnels were an elaborate maze (75-mile long).  A veritable city from which the Vietcong operated, coming out only at night for food and supplies.   A place of little breathing room both in space as in oxygen.

And very difficult to detect.

    

They took care of their wounded underground.  

And even had entertainment. The artist in me smiles that even under dreadful conditions that part is taken care of. 

You can go into three tunnels.  One is very claustrophobic even when it has been widened to accommodate tourists.  Tom, the most adventuresome of the group, went in and looked a bit frazzled coming out.  Another is shorter and I did go into that one.  I survived it thanks to Amarjit’s voice on the other side saying: “It’s not long.  You can do it.”  Can’t imagine what it was like to live in them!  I learned a lot about the war.  Even more so after going on the Internet to read both sides.

After this visit we need a bit of downtime which the bus ride back provided, as well as the market visit that followed.

Ah, but the flood of emotions and remembrance is not to be curtailed as I encounter a fruit that my grandpa use to grow and lovingly pick for me when I visited:  a cherimoya.  

Enough of memories?  No, as in the next stall I spot sugar canes.  Don Eladio, my gramps, used to peel the sugar cane for me so I could chew on it, enjoying the sweetness of it for hours.  Grant you, not great for the teeth but the memory of it is!  

Now that we built up an appetite we head to a local restaurant: Phò Hùng.     I would later find out that it is one of the best in the city for Phò, a Vietnamese noodle soup, pronounced “fah”.

The food was absolutely delicious.  You add ingredients that are already on the table to a huge bowl of soup.

I also sampled yet another local beer.

A wonderful meal!  

From here we are free to be on our own.  I, to meet with Jeff (my LA friend who lives in Ho Chi Min City) and maybe experience what locals do.  He picks me up and here comes my first taste of being Vietnamese.   I don a helmet and climb onto the back of his moped towards a café.  

In less than a few minutes we encounter a motorbike accident, a very common occurrence in this city.  Though he is a good driver my immediate reaction was, can I get off now?  

At the café, which is very LA’ish, talking in English with a familiar face, and about common subjects I nearly forget where I am.  

I lived!!

He drops me off at the hotel so that I can reunite with the group.

After my experience surviving as a moped passenger in the chaotic Saigon traffic, I am fully prepared for my cyclo-rickshaw tour of the city!  

For the record is was not as tame as it looked or as I had expected.  We encountered another accident on our route to the water puppet show!  

The water puppet show  did not impress me much, particularly since I had attended another traditional puppet show, albeit not a water one, in Myanmar that was very special.  I think I enjoyed the live music most.   The mechanisms for the puppets are under the water, while the puppeteers are waist deep behind some screens.  In earlier time these performers where prone to all sorts of waterborne diseases but now they use knee-high waders.  

Leaving the show I felt the zipper of my bag opened.  Looking down, my point-and-shoot camera was almost falling out.  Mary, from the tour, was wide-eyed when I looked up.  Yep, someone had tried to steal my camera!

We went off to a French restaurant where strong chili sauce on the table -and a power failure- reminded us we were not in France.

I was going to meet with my friend and his girlfriend afterwards but by the time I reached the hotel, I could not muster the energy even to call.

Tomorrow get ready for Chau Doc and another day chockfull of experiences.