Cambodia

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Asian Adventures: Cambodia

(09.15.03)

The first stop on my tour of Asia is the small country of Cambodia, population 12 million. It is sandwiched between Thailand and Vietnam just below Laos for all of you not familiar with the Asia map. I've been here just over a week. Here's what I have experienced thus far.

Welcome to Lubbock

I stepped off the plane into the capitol city of Phnom Penh and thought I was in Lubbock. The country is flatter than flat and has red dirt everywhere. Cars are encrusted with red dirt. Children are encrusted with red dirt. Everything is encrusted with red dirt. The stuff is everywhere and it gets on everything. Reminded me of my short time in Lubbock. Cambodia is only lacking the old rusted oil drilling machines. The roads here are not paved more than 10km out of the city. The road is made of packed down red dirt. Imagine that! For those of you who have been to my ranch, that road is nothing compared to the roads in Cambodia. Close your eyes for a second and imagine the most potholes you can. Now double that. Now add a couple of days of solid rain and that is the road here. I'm amazed that our bus never got stuck. We had some close calls a couple of times but no one had to get out and push.  

Insect Safari

We took a boat ride from Siem Reap to Battambang.You'd have to get out a map to know where those are. We went through "endangered wetlands". It was an interesting ride to say the least. Our boat was open on the sides, a little like a long boat I guess but a little wider. We motored through sections of the wetlands that weren't wide enough for our boat. There are plants growing very densely and about twice as tall as the boat and we just cruised right on through. The branches were scraping the sides of the boat and poking all the people inside. While we were squeezing through this narrow passageway we were actually passing other small fishing boats. I can't believe we didn't overturn them with our big waves. Everyone in those boats looked like they were holding on to the plant stalks for dear life. Now the fascinating part of all of this was that with all the branches falling inside we had all kinds of creepy crawlies enter our boat. There were some of the biggest ants I have ever seen, not to mention spiders and grasshoppers and some many other unidentifiable ones. I felt like I was on an insect safari. I pulled a grasshopper off of my leg and chucked it into the water and one of the locals on the boat was appalled that I didn't eat it! They eat everything here, including spiders. Yum yum!  

Angkor Wat

This place was truly amazing. I don't think I've taken so many pictures of one thing in my entire life. The temples were absolutely huge and the stone carvings in some places were remarkably intact. I got to climb all over the fallen boulders and climb up to the tops of the temples and I just had an amazing time. These temples though, are not for those who fear heights. The steps to climb up to them are only as wide as your foot is wide. So you have to climb up them sideways, leg over leg. There are no guardrails and the slope of the stairs is about 75 or maybe 80 degrees so it is pretty steep. One of the travelers we met said that on his first day there he saw someone fall and they must have broken both legs. But going up was nothing compared to going down. We got really good at it by the end of our three days and even Chantelle who is a weenie when it comes to heights was doing better.

A Little About Cambodia

As I said earlier, the roads are bad and the land is flat. There are rice paddies as far as you can see. The people are dark skinned but look more Thai than Chinese. They are so friendly and also very very poor. They live on only a couple of dollars a month. They seem very happy though and nurse Katie has yet to see a malnourished child. Little boys run around without a speck of clothes until they are three or four. Little girls get pants at about one but shirts are optional until 8 or 9. Since it rains so much, all of the houses are up on stilts. They are mostly wooden shack like houses with either tin on thatched roofs. There are loads of hammocks and the lifestyle is really laid back. The food is kind of a cross between Thai and Chinese. Lots of sweet and sour stuff but it has a little kick to it unlike the Chinese food I've had so far. There are lots of curries and most are made with licorice leaves. They are also pretty spicy.

That's my brief update on Cambodia. We're off to Vietnam the day after tomorrow. We're taking a boat to the border and from there we get another boat to tour around the Mekong Delta before heading up to Ho Chi Min City (Saigon).

I'll keep you updated.

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