Cambodia Dispatch I: Chong Kneas
It's dry season in Cambodia, the waters of Tonle Sap have receded and left behind its bouquet that makes your nose twitch and wonder who's drying fish around here. We were sitting in a tuk tuk, bumping and thumping our way over a dried riverbed that is overrun with air-conditioned buses and dusty pickup trucks. Doesn't take much to guess which carries the tourists, which carries the locals.
It was an hour's ride on the tuk tuk to get out to the waters, so we could check out the floating village of Chong Kneas (pronounced "Chong kh-nee-uhs"). When the lake waters are at their height during the rainy season, the villagers move upwards closer to the hill of Phnom Kron. There is a temple on top of the hill, so when the rains come and floods threaten everyday lives, people seek refuge in the embrace of this hill. In the dry season, however, the earth is naked, cracked, and all its insides seem to be turned on its outside. The thatch huts where people live in display their stilted undersides. The debris and rubbish that used to calmly sit underwater are now bared in the sun. Dogs and cats and chickens run wild, pecking and tearing at any possible food in sight, while kids run naked, covered in dirt and dust, waving a finger in the air at anyone carrying a camera, for the vain hope of a U.S. greenback. Their little legs pump hard and they scurry after the tour buses, squeaky noises screaming "hello hello" and when told "Dteh" ("No", in Khmer), they scream something else that sounds less polite, then smiles nicely and waves that finger again and say "hello".
Bey was our tuk tuk driver. He was paid US$10 to spend 3 hours with us, one to drive us out, one to wait for us, and one to drive us back. He was a gracious driver - stopped when we asked him to, so we could hop out and take pictures of things he must find so mundane... paddy fields, Phnom Kron hill, sleeping old man in a hammock under a thatch roof. Superb skill with the tuk tuk because neither one of us tumbled out of it, and invaluable when we needed a translator.
Bey tells us that the road out to Chong Kneas boats is long, because the dry season means we have much more ground to cover before we reach water. But reach water we did. The villagers of Chong Kneas make their lives temporarily on dry land at this time of the year, piles of dead fishes are placed on canvas sheets, to be sold together with the flies on top of them. The poverty is sobering - little shacks that are no bigger than an office cube house an entire family, all crouched around a little butane flame, some helping the others pick off lice in the hair. There are few lights - the ones that do have them are the center of activities. Any electrical power around here seems to be directed to the odd black and white TV, which flickers with local programs, its disembodied light adding a gleam to the black black eyes of the local kids.
Ironic as it seems, there were two snooker tables under a thatch roof in the middle of the dried riverbed, while stray dogs run around and nip at the ankles of little kids, still waving a finger and yelling "hello, hello".
The floating village itself, on the water, was charming... in many ways very similar to other floating villages I have seen. Our timing was good though - in time for sunset, the golden hour, where even the poorest and most destitute little shack looked charming under the amber sun. We had a fun time taking pictures of 3 kids in the middle of a tub war -- each was sitting in a tub, floating around the river,
splashing enough water into the othér's tub so it will sink. Defense weapon is a cut up liter container that used to hold soft drinks... a prime tool for bailing water out of one's own tub. The loser has to pull his tub out from under him, turn it upside down to empty it and then with admirable agility, scramble back in, and round 2 begins. It was a three-way war... which ended when one of them was called back to carry a huge python so Korean tourists could take pictures.
As dusk settled, the boat took us back to the sandy temporary village. As the smell of Tonle Sap drying in the heat wafted up to our nostrils, we turn our heads instinctively towards the water as if it could be avoided. And saw the most beautiful full moon coming up over the horizon as the sun was setting on the other side. There were several kids on the grassy banks of the lake playing a makeshift game of soccer, the moon glowing in its intensity like a god-like presence while they scream and kick away. The moon's pure brilliance and sheerness was a jarring contrast - a cold impartial and emotionless observer while such poverty and destitution barely manages to eke along, scrabbling for any chance to hold on to a dollar. I found its presence a mocking one - such beauty overlooking such sadness. Then the darkness settled in, the fireflies came out, and shadows covered the nakedness of the people's hard lives.
Tour buses with headlights on snake their way along the bumpy riverbed back towards Siem Reap, past more delapidated shacks that are invisible to tourists in the dark. A cortege of commercialism that is glad to have finished this day because a hot bath is waiting, to be followed by a dance show with a traditional Khmer style dinner. The children of Chong Kneas are still yelling "hello, hello", waving their fingers at the air-conditioned coaches whose wheels spray a cloud of fine dust from the riverbed, its mocking presence still hanging in the air long after the tourists have gone.
It was an hour's ride on the tuk tuk to get out to the waters, so we could check out the floating village of Chong Kneas (pronounced "Chong kh-nee-uhs"). When the lake waters are at their height during the rainy season, the villagers move upwards closer to the hill of Phnom Kron. There is a temple on top of the hill, so when the rains come and floods threaten everyday lives, people seek refuge in the embrace of this hill. In the dry season, however, the earth is naked, cracked, and all its insides seem to be turned on its outside. The thatch huts where people live in display their stilted undersides. The debris and rubbish that used to calmly sit underwater are now bared in the sun. Dogs and cats and chickens run wild, pecking and tearing at any possible food in sight, while kids run naked, covered in dirt and dust, waving a finger in the air at anyone carrying a camera, for the vain hope of a U.S. greenback. Their little legs pump hard and they scurry after the tour buses, squeaky noises screaming "hello hello" and when told "Dteh" ("No", in Khmer), they scream something else that sounds less polite, then smiles nicely and waves that finger again and say "hello".
Bey was our tuk tuk driver. He was paid US$10 to spend 3 hours with us, one to drive us out, one to wait for us, and one to drive us back. He was a gracious driver - stopped when we asked him to, so we could hop out and take pictures of things he must find so mundane... paddy fields, Phnom Kron hill, sleeping old man in a hammock under a thatch roof. Superb skill with the tuk tuk because neither one of us tumbled out of it, and invaluable when we needed a translator.
Bey tells us that the road out to Chong Kneas boats is long, because the dry season means we have much more ground to cover before we reach water. But reach water we did. The villagers of Chong Kneas make their lives temporarily on dry land at this time of the year, piles of dead fishes are placed on canvas sheets, to be sold together with the flies on top of them. The poverty is sobering - little shacks that are no bigger than an office cube house an entire family, all crouched around a little butane flame, some helping the others pick off lice in the hair. There are few lights - the ones that do have them are the center of activities. Any electrical power around here seems to be directed to the odd black and white TV, which flickers with local programs, its disembodied light adding a gleam to the black black eyes of the local kids.
Ironic as it seems, there were two snooker tables under a thatch roof in the middle of the dried riverbed, while stray dogs run around and nip at the ankles of little kids, still waving a finger and yelling "hello, hello".
The floating village itself, on the water, was charming... in many ways very similar to other floating villages I have seen. Our timing was good though - in time for sunset, the golden hour, where even the poorest and most destitute little shack looked charming under the amber sun. We had a fun time taking pictures of 3 kids in the middle of a tub war -- each was sitting in a tub, floating around the river,
splashing enough water into the othér's tub so it will sink. Defense weapon is a cut up liter container that used to hold soft drinks... a prime tool for bailing water out of one's own tub. The loser has to pull his tub out from under him, turn it upside down to empty it and then with admirable agility, scramble back in, and round 2 begins. It was a three-way war... which ended when one of them was called back to carry a huge python so Korean tourists could take pictures.
As dusk settled, the boat took us back to the sandy temporary village. As the smell of Tonle Sap drying in the heat wafted up to our nostrils, we turn our heads instinctively towards the water as if it could be avoided. And saw the most beautiful full moon coming up over the horizon as the sun was setting on the other side. There were several kids on the grassy banks of the lake playing a makeshift game of soccer, the moon glowing in its intensity like a god-like presence while they scream and kick away. The moon's pure brilliance and sheerness was a jarring contrast - a cold impartial and emotionless observer while such poverty and destitution barely manages to eke along, scrabbling for any chance to hold on to a dollar. I found its presence a mocking one - such beauty overlooking such sadness. Then the darkness settled in, the fireflies came out, and shadows covered the nakedness of the people's hard lives.
Tour buses with headlights on snake their way along the bumpy riverbed back towards Siem Reap, past more delapidated shacks that are invisible to tourists in the dark. A cortege of commercialism that is glad to have finished this day because a hot bath is waiting, to be followed by a dance show with a traditional Khmer style dinner. The children of Chong Kneas are still yelling "hello, hello", waving their fingers at the air-conditioned coaches whose wheels spray a cloud of fine dust from the riverbed, its mocking presence still hanging in the air long after the tourists have gone.
posted by tygertyger at 6:24 PM
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