See The World

with BILL'S EYES

Not sure if the colour variation is intended but I choose the blue one.

Palm sugar guy and his wife in the background.

The buildings of the school look impressive but the spirit of the children was more impressive

Mexican restaurant in Phenom Phen –who would have thought

Lee had a great chat and I think she was offered a taste of a local fruit.

Our guide speaking with the children and then to us

Pots aplenty and now you know how much effort it takes to make each one

Fashion it is not - safety it is

A carriage made for two and I think the carpet was a special treat just for us

Surprisingly the ground about the pedestal is not lower than the surrounding floor of the home.

Hard to imagine 50 locals on this trailer but a great picture it would make

Day 8 Cambodia and Vietnam

The mighty Mekong River wider than you think and this is one of the narrower parts.

They smiled most of the time – it was a delight to see their world

No need to cover anything OH&S is survival of the fittest

The catch from that mornings’ efforts

Still in Cambodia and our cruise vessel is heading in the direction of Phnom Phen (the capital city of Cambodia). The vessel halts mid-river, and we clamber into a small riverboat and get up close to a village floating on the river.  As we pile into the small riverboat and we all don a bright orange life safety vest - not a fashion statement but necessary. 

It is hard to imagine living on a rectangular platform with a rudimentary iron roof perched on posts located along its boundaries, creating a single room with three and a half sidewalls for escaping the wind and rain, and a balcony about the same area as the room. The balcony faces onto the river, and the occasional boat-load of tourists takes pictures of you laying on a hammock playing on your mobile phone. Actually, I have paid a fortune to rent a river houseboat to do exactly that as other houseboats pass us by.

The main difference, though is that I do not derive my living from the river and neither do I gather most of my food from that same river except the occasional fish if I am lucky. 

One such floating house is being visited, as we pass, by the boat of the local grocer laden with fresh vegetables and fruit. Another of the floating houses has its balcony devoted to selling packaged and tinned goods, and also has a petrol pump, so the local delicatessen and petrol convenience store is alive and well, even in the middle of the Mekong River.

A van awaits at us on the shore to take us to a small village called Kampong Chhnang at least 15 minutes’ drive on dusty dirt roads so that we can observe traditional pottery making and palm sugar collection.  

This area of the Mekong River is well known for pottery since the soil is of the appropriate consistency. A young lady is going to show us how to make a pottery pot. We are told she is in her mid-thirties and has a daughter, and she is also the daughter of a man we will meet later who will demonstrate the collection of palm sugar.  The young lady has gathered clay from the surrounding field and formed a lump of clay. She begins to knead it and then proceeds to plonk the lump of clay with aplomb on to a pedestal. No wheel here, as she uses her hands to form the clay and her feet to move her hands in a circle about the pedestal. She occasionally uses a flat handheld paddle to tamp the outer surface of the sidewall of the pot that is slowly being teased upwards, as she continues to walk around and around the pedestal. She then deftly creates a top lip of the cylindrical shape of the pot by forming a bead of clay that seems to appear from nowhere. She has done this many times before, and within 3 minutes a cylindrical wall of a forming pot has been formed. 

No bottom to the pot yet. The first cylindrical piece is placed in the sun to harden, and she picks up a prepared and hardened cylinder of clay and uses the tamping paddle in one hand and a small smooth stone inside the cylinder as she walks about the pedestal to even the thickness of the wall and to complete the shape of the bowl. 

The young woman then sits on the dirt floor, and with the finished, open-top of the half formed pot nesting on her lap, she begins to tamp the bottom edge of the still open cylinder to slowly close the bottom opening of the pot to form the base of the pot. Finally, a wet cloth is used to smooth the almost flat bottom, and the pot is ready to be fired. Literally fired - since although there is a kiln. The most common method of drying is part sun and part being left on hot coals spread over the ground. Very interesting to see and we left the workspace below her home with an appreciation for a skill learned over many years for a product still used in this agrarian river basin of the mighty Mekong River in Cambodia.

It is only a short walk (between neighbours –Daughter and Parents) to a formally laid out seating area under her parents’ house to get ready to see a demonstration of how the palm flower is massaged every day to promote the creation of its sap known as palm juice. Sounds easy, but you do not realize until told, that the massaging and collection of the juice takes place 30 meters above the ground. The demonstration comprises some palm flowers, which look like green berries but which are very hard, as the gentleman demonstrating the massaging technique closes two sticks joined at one end, over the berries and squeezes the berries forcefully between the sticks. The berries do not break but are softened, and the sap is eked out. The muscles of arms of the gentlemen are sinewy but strong as they repeatedly flex to force more of the sap from the berries. We find out that the gentleman is 67 years old, and looks as fit as a 30-year-old.

Yet further, the spritely gentleman was soon climbing up the trunk of a very tall palm tree to get access to the palm flowers at the top.  We take lots of photographs straining to their limit the long-distance magnification capabilities of our phone-based camera.  I wished I had a decent SLR camera and long lens with us. After about 15 minutes the gentleman sidles down the trunk and presents us a tin can of fresh palm juice. This juice is turned into palm sugar, having a soft toffee consistency, and we are encouraged to smell then taste the raw juice.

Palm sugar, as mentioned previously, is often used in Cambodian cooking. The brave and agile old gentleman has a broad smile and few teeth, likely the result of too much dipping into the palm sugar bowl. He says hello and shakes our hand, and Lee has an animated exchange of sign language with him about his exploits and also has a photo taken with him. Lee spy's the old man's wife in the background and sidles over to her to have a chat and also has a picture taken with her. Smiles all round.  

The old man then brings out some typical farmers clothing and a couple in our group dress up and play the part very well. 

On the way back to our van, we walk by a young man banging a thin galvanized steel sheet into a shape, which later we see is used as the outer liner of a hard fire stove with on opening at the top and a small air in-take opening half-way down the bowl shape. 

We are told that some ten years ago an NGO devoted a year to develop a stove that could be simply made, using the local clay and that the oven should burn the fuel it used much more efficiently than the well-known stove of the day. One and half million of those new design stoves are now in use, saving energy and providing more convenience to the people of Cambodia.

Lee is missing her grandchildren and enjoys an opportunity to play high-fives with some of the children looking on as the rest of us board the bus.

Later that day, all 22 of us pile on to a very long trailer hooked to a motorbike. The trailer has two long bench seats, and it has a tourist capacity of 22 passengers, but with the locals, the capacity is 50 passengers. That would be a great picture. 

Down a country road we go, not too fast such that a slow-moving motorbike with Dad, Mum and two little children pass us by. I wave to the children, and they wave back.

We arrive at Green School. Walking along the entrance road to the school we cannot escape the reality that we are in the countryside, as a pond of water lilies is to our left and fields of crops stretching out on each side of the roadway.  There are four small buildings located about a dirt quadrangle at the end of the short roadway. The classroom is a tin roof atop nine tall, sturdy timber posts to provide some shade over the dirt floor. 

Approximately forty children are waiting for our arrival. Four to five children share a bench joined to a wooden tabletop. Very old school, but we soon appreciate the very dedicated children and their skilful teachers as they make the very best of a rudimentary environment. 

The children fall silent as soon as the head-teacher requests their attention. We learn about the school and the support it has from foreign and government organisations to provide a learning environment for the local children aged 5 to 11. 

The children learn English, and two girls aged seven and eight are asked to stand at the front of the class each in front of a whiteboard. With pen in hand, they have three minutes to write as many English words as they can. We get a chance to predict how many correctly spelt words they will write in the 3 minutes. I guess 15.

The range of words written on the board with clear and neat writing (certainly much better than my handwriting) is surprising, and at the end of the allotted period, one child has 23 correctly spelt words and the other 22. Extremely impressive! 

You could see the way the teacher identified the spelling mistakes and how they encouraged the child to correct them before providing the correct spelling that the teacher was caring and encouraging. 

We are asked to name a song that the children can collectively sing to us in English. The song Old McDonald had a Farm wins out, and the children begin the song with perfect pronunciation of the English words and very loud and enthusiastic animal sounds. 

Lee and another cruise participant are asked to draw five common items on the white-board that had children enthusiastically shouting out the English name for each item. 

All the children look very happy and attentive, and when they are encouraged to come out from behind their desks and speak in English to us, they all rush to our group and the noise is almost deafening. 

I learn the names of a boy and girl who approach me, and I find out that the young boy likes playing football. I also learn that the girl has one sister. 

All too soon, this great experience is over, and I make a special effort to approach the teachers and thank them for their dedication and great work. We leave a donation knowing that it will be put to great use.

Yet another unusual form of transport awaits us - a cart for two people drawn by two oxen. Getting both of us on the cart is not a pretty sight.  The ride along a compacted dirt road is bumpy, but Lee and I have plenty of padding in the right places, and we survive the ride back to the cruise vessel.

Our riverboat docks in Phenom Phen before sunset, so we are off the boat tonight to see a local market and eat out. The streets were busy and navigating our way across the road is a test of nerves and blind faith, as the many motorbikes zoom past, but we are told that Phenom Phen is tame compared to Vietnam cities where there are millions of motorbikes. 

The night market was busy with local families walking about looking over the wide range of homewares on sale, and every type of clothing was available, and Gucci and Prada were represented (not legally though). Lee purchased a sarong and pantaloons for less than 4 US dollars each. 

You would never have guessed - we had Mexican food that night. Great food and great company made for a memorable conclusion to a most memorable day.