SOMEWHERE IN CAMBODIA

Yes, I’ve seen Angkor Wat. Yes, it was exciting. Yes, I liked it. But real Cambodia is far from Siem Reap. For me it starts somewhere between Krakor and Tonle Sap Lake...

When I got off at Paris Guest House (where they take this names from? oh, from France :) in Krakor, I thought my fate with being overcharged everywhere is not going to end, cos if it’s the only guest house in the town, they always take advantage. So, I didn’t agree to pay 6$, they didn’t agree with my 3$. I left the place with the silly hope that I will find something anyway. I was asking people along the road about any possible accommodation, but nobody spoke any English. Already a bit frustrated, sweating and tired, I saw the guy who was teaching maths to a bunch of students at the porch of the wooden house. I thought the teacher might speak English. A bit embarrassed I approached his „class” and asked if he knows about cheap accommodation in this town apart from Paris. Rina without any hesitation invited me to stay in his house. After the nice conversation with some unavoidable questions (name, age, marriage status, children and why I travel alone), I was ready to reach my final destination, Kompong Luong, amazing town settled on the waters of the biggest lake in Southeast Asia, Tonle Sap Lake.

Tonle Sap was absolutely amazing experience! People there live in floating houses, and the town moves with the level of water which depends on the season, lower in the dry one and high up starting from July. I rented a paddle boat only for myself, avoiding high prices and noise of motorboats and having woman as a sailor :). They have everything they need: schools, clinic, shops in floating houses, shops on the boats, Buddhist temple (but no sangha there, for ceremonies they have to invite monks to come), Christian church, gas station, bars, restaurants and Goddess knows what else. Inhabitants of Kompong Luong are almost all Vietnamese. My lovely boat driver took me to the temple and then we stopped at the tiny bar near gas station for sugar cane juice (yummy!) . I soaked up the atmosphere of this boat life with delight. I couldn’t take my eyes off children playing in water, women in their conical hats running the one boat grocery shop, man working. Or children working, woman taking care of children and man lying down in their hammocks. And if they wanted to change the place of where they houses were, they were just... moving them. Everything were going on slowly and with its own everyday rhythm. On the end my sailor invited me to her house, as far as I understood, there were her parents and two small children. I scared the older girl to death, she couldn’t stop crying :)

(By the way, I really don’t understand why Lonely Planet Cambodia guidebook didn’t put it as a Cambodia highlight. The other wonderful „living” lake, Inle Lake in Burma, made it Burmese highlight from which the whole town of Yang Shwe live on.)

Back to Krakor, where Rina introduced me to his lovely friends, usually teachers in high school there. Even though I had planned to leave the next day after being hosted by Rina, I stayed one day longer staying with Bun Thep, biology teacher.
These two sweet guys showed me around. I’ve been to beautiful countryside with bamboo huts and rice paddles, buffaloes splashing in water, people replanting rice, smiley and curious faces everywhere... I’ve been to English lesson where my revelation was not as important as unavoidable questions of marriage status, children, age and so on... I’ve been for delicious dinner to the restaurant hidden deeply in the jungle village I would never found myself. I’ve been invited for friends gathering and drinking Angkor beer together...

Then I went to Phnom Penh. I spent 3 hours seeing S-21 Genoside Museum, former Tuol Sleng High School before it became Khmer Rouge investigation arrest n 1975. It’s so hard to describe how sad it is to see what people can do to other people.

I guess that was „a real Cambodia” too...

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