See The World

with BILL'S EYES

Tai Chi to start the day at 7:00 am was certainly different from my normal morning routine. I think the movements are simple enough, but we are doing the most basic of the more than several sets of motions.

After breakfast, we are going to visit a small village called Angkor Ban, but only after a short small boat ride and a walk up the rough and steep riverbank, followed by a long walk over a field.

The temple and village common have many buildings, and as described before, the buildings all have uses that benefit the village. All of the buildings are well maintained, and most are very colourful. There are many flowers and statues, so I am very impressed by what I see of what is meant to be a remote village. 

We are led by our guide to a home in the village, and we are invited into that home by its owner, an old looking gentleman, but we find out later is but in his early fifties.  Our invitation means we are welcome to join the family under the house structure, which is their living room year-round, whether it is sunny or raining.

A raised platform located on one side of the space below the upper floor where we could if we were staying longer, be seated. That same platform is also, used for sleeping at night, and I note a thin rolled-up rattan mattress leaning up against a wall. I also note a small green coloured cubical located in one corner of the underfloor area, which on closer inspection is a toilet and presumably showering room.

The kitchen comprises a small bench against the back wall, and some cooking implements hang from the wall all neat and clean but only a few of them. There were five large 20-kilogram bags, some of rice and similar sized bags of sweet potatoes stacked against the bamboo wall. There in the middle of the ground floor covered area was a table and bench chairs made of solid concrete with tiled upper surfaces on the seat and the table, making them hard to sit on but extremely easy to keep clean. I also notice two ceiling fans, so there is electricity. There were also two fluorescent lights.

The villagers mainly work for themselves, selling fruit and vegetables at the local market, work in the fields growing corn, rice and sweet potato, some service the many motor-bikes that are used to transport everything, there is a public school so there  are teachers and support staff (and I note the school has an air-conditioned library).  Many others work for the local and state government since every village needs administrators.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I notice a dark timber clothes cabinet of about 2 meters height. The cabinet has glass in the four doors that provide access to the cabinet where I see clothes hanging from pegs on the inside of the cabinet. Such a formal piece of furniture is most unexpected but surely a sign of pride and a touch of affluence, in a relative sense, compared to other under-floor areas of homes I have seen so far.

Rainwater is collected from the roof and stored in 3 large pottery containers located just outside the underfloor area. The containers are not covered. There are three boys playing scissors, paper, rock and a small token of stick and twine is placed in-between them for each success. They smile, and after asking permission to take photographs, we capture those smiles.

We are then allowed to climb the outside concrete steps to the room above, but we all need to take off our shoes before we enter the room. I have mostly seen wooden steps, but there are some homes which have tiled concrete steps.

The bamboo floor is very smooth to walk on, but there are gaps between the bamboo strips revealing the ground floor area below where we had just been standing. The room was bare of furniture except for a rope between a pole and a nail in the wall supporting clothes positioned in one corner of the roughly 5 x 5-meter living area, and there were two doors into separate 2 x 2.5-meter rooms adjacent the large room. One of those two rooms may have been the master bedroom as there was a thin double bed mattress on the floor. 

In the main room, there were pictures of the family on two of the walls and at least six open windows but no fly screens or glass. Many people in the village use mobile phones, but it seems that important telephone numbers are best written in chalk on the walls or ceiling joists of their homes for all to see. 

The ceiling is peaked and the timber roof frame exposed, and I notice a television antenna fixed to a ceiling joist but do not see a television.  I have seen a satellite dish on the outside of some village houses, and there must be two satellite services since two of those dishes were pointed in different directions.

We thank the family for letting us see their home and Lee gives the boys some small denomination notes. Hopefully, it is enough for them to buy a treat.

Out the side opening of the home we step onto a concrete path which wends its way between the houses of the village, and I notice street lighting along the path. Walking about the rest of the village I do not notice any other street lighting, so this path must be a major thoroughfare, which is soon proven by a mother and small child both on a motorbike cruising along the path, followed by two children in white shirts walking presumably to the local school.

The neighbouring house of which we had just visited has a cow tethered to a pole under the house, and the cow seems happy munching on straw. The next house also has a cow, which is sitting down in the centre of the ground floor under the house and no-one seems to mind.

The path is flanked by greenery, mainly 2 to 3-meter tall palms and then the path opens up to a street. The street is much wider than the path, wide enough to allow cars and tractors to use, even side-by-side as they pass each other.

The homes on this street are set well back from the path of the traffic, and they have neat front yards and sturdy looking structures for the homes. I cannot help but think this looks no different from holiday shacks along a riverside in my own country.

Walking along the main street of the village we see the front yard of a house covered by corn drying in the sun, and next door a shop selling necessities, including cigarettes in cartons -but glad to see that each cigarette packet has pictures of cancerous growths all over it. 

It has been an interesting morning excursion one that has provided good insight into and an understanding of life in a Cambodian village.

Exposure to Cambodia would not be complete without personal experience with a Buddhist monk, and a senior monk and a fellow junior monk who visit the cruise vessel to give a blessing to the Buddhist staff.

We are encouraged to sit in on the ceremony and listen intently to the chanting and interplay between the monks and the ceremony leader, a layperson who leads the ceremony. The lay-person begins the chants and then the staff chant and say the words of the blessing chanted by the monks and we look on being calmed by the rhythmic sounds even though we do not understand anything they are saying or chanting.

After lunch, the Cambodian staff of the cruise provide a demonstration on how to dress in traditional Cambodian clothing to entertains us. Some of the passengers volunteer to be dressed as well, including Lee and I. However, there is no time for lounging around in our new clothes as we are soon whisked away to visit a silk-making and weaving establishment on, the aptly named, "Silk Island" Koh Okhna Tey.

Tuk-Tuks take us to the establishment, and we are soon learning about the two types of silk, the rough type which is the outer layer of the silk retrieved from the cocoon of the silkworm, and the fine silk which is the inner layer. The life cycle of a silkworm is days, and since they are a delicacy when fried, it seems that the fate of the exhausted silkworm is destined to be a small treat on someone's dinner plate.

The raw silk is a golden colour, so natural dyes are used to create a reel of coloured silk. Then the magic happens when skilled weavers sit at a weaving loom sitting under a roof, but still outside in the heat and humidity, to fling the correct colour of silk between selected rows of waft threads with the separation accomplished equally skilfully by a kicking action with their feet.

It takes ten days to make a silk sarong.  To have now seen the skill and working conditions of those weavers I much better appreciate the cost of fine silk goods and sincerely hope the weavers get a good proportion of the sale.

We finish this busy day with the challenge of making a fashion statement with a scarf supplied to us by our tour guide so that when we turn up to dinner that evening, we will look resplendent in our new clothing accessory. Lee skilfully wrapped her bright coloured scarf about the frame of her glasses, making them look like bright “Tuk-Tuk drivers goggles". A bow made from the scarf tied about my head draws many a laugh and promoted friendly banter to finish off a pleasant and busy day.

Day 7 Cambodia and Vietnam