Siem Reap, Cambodia over Lunar New Year - Part Two

So, while writing Part One, I forgot to upload any videos!  I went back and reviewed what videos I had shot of that day, and I decided to include just three here.
The first two are on the Angkor Balloon.

This next video is of the Land Mine Victims Musical Band.  Land Mines are still found in Cambodia all the time, just by folks walking around collecting firewood or looking for honey in a beehive.  These musicians are all victims of land mines and can no longer work regular jobs.  They accept donations from tourists to help pay their bills and take care of their families.  

The man in the middle is playing a leaf.  He picks a very specific leaf and puts it in his mouth.  He blows on it to get it to vibrate and make a tune.  It's easy to pick out the tune if you watch the video.

I'll now pick up where I left off in my story in Part One.  The next day, it was the Eve of Chinese/Lunar New Year. Our hotel had a Buddhist shrine in the lobby and, due to the holiday, they had brought in special offerings to place before it.  There was a whole pig stretched out on the floor and a few cases of beer, as well as other groceries.  That was not the only pig we saw that day stretched out on the floor in front of a Buddhist shrine.  It was a little shocking at first, but we got used to it.
We had a long drive to Beng Mealea, a temple further out of town. (The far purple dot on the eastern edge of the map.)

 
Along the way, Poy Pines told us many interesting things about Cambodia and its rich history.  We saw scarecrows near the street, in front of many homes.  Poy Pines said that those were put there to scare away the cholera.  We also asked why the houses were built up on stilts.  He said originally the houses were built like that to keep the wild animals away.  But nowadays there are no more wild animals.  They continue to build them that way though, for a few reasons.  They can keep their cattle under the house, and they can hang hammocks under there for a nice shady spot to rest, and also to keep their house dry during floods.

He also told us that in Cambodia men can decide to be monks for a short period of time and then go back to not being a monk anymore.  It's kind of a way to clean up their act before getting married and a potential wife would find it appealing to know he had been a monk, since that would mean he had some education.  Our driver had been a monk for a year.  The monk and nun we had seen the day before were not officially ordained, but were older people who had decided to live as monks in their old age.  Poy Pines said this was very common, and was usually obvious when they shaved their heads.
Poy Pines taught us all the many uses for the Palm Tree and the Coconut Palm.  They use every part of the trees, including the "bark", the leaves, the whole trunk, and the coconut itself.  And he talked about how Jasmine and Basmati rice are the biggest exports out of Cambodia.  He said that Cambodians will eat many types of bugs, like tarantulas, scorpions, grasshoppers, crickets and frogs.  He said even Angelina Jolie ate some of them when she was in Cambodia.

Beng Mealea has only been opened to tourists since 2003 because it had to be cleared of land mines first.  We saw this sign at the entrance.

This is Naga, the Snake.  This one has 5 heads.  We saw carvings of Naga everywhere.  This one is the most intact.  Naga can sometimes be depicted as guardian statues, at the entrances of palaces or temples.

It is unknown when Beng Mealea was constructed, since they have not found the engraved stela yet with its dedication in Sanskrit (as shown in Part One, at the other temples).

This temple was not at all restored and they had built a wooden boardwalk to allow tourist to walk above the ruins and look down into it.  This original entrance is not accessible anymore.  We had to walk around to the side.

This was a library.

This temple was very overgrown with trees and the roots had caused the stones to tumble in huge piles.  Most doorways were boarded up to keep people from entering.

This temple, more than the others, had a presence to it you could just feel as you walked through it.

At one point, we descended into the only hallway left standing.  Poy Pines called it a meditation hall.

On the other end of the hall there was no boardwalk.  This gave us a little freedom to wander around a bit more.

As we were walking out of Beng Melea we heard firecrackers go off for the Chinese New Year.  Poy Pines told us that when he was a kid if he heard a sound like that, it was machine gun fire.  He told us about growing up during the Cambodian Civil War and the Khmer Rouge.  It started before he was born and didn't end until he was a teenager.  His parents, who were educated, had to pretend to not be able to read, so they wouldn't be executed.  It sounded like a terrifying time and place to be a kid.  He said when he heard the machine gun fire, they would all run to a bunker, even if it was in the middle of the night, and they would just stay in the bunker as long as they could.  Hearing about the war straight from his mouth, was so much more powerful and impactful, than reading about it or watching a movie based on it.  It not only makes me appreciate the life I have so much more, but it makes the war REAL.  I think our kids now have a greater understanding too.  For Americans my age, there hasn't been a war fought on American soil our whole lives.  To us, war is always something that happens somewhere else.  Well-architected war memorials in the US never could deliver the message in the same way going to the DMZ or Cambodia did.

From Beng Mealea, we drove to a place for lunch.  These two videos say it all.

The food was incredible.  We had such a relaxing time there, swinging in our hut.

Willow and Charlie ordered the ribs.

This was my Phad Thai.

Our hut, hidden behind the banana trees.

After lunch we drove straight south, to the edge of Tonle Sap Lake.  On the map, it is the purple dot along the water.  We saw many rice paddies that were still green.  (They were only green because we were so close to the lake.  Everywhere else they are dried up and brown.)

We hired a boat driver to motor us through Kampong Phluk and out into open water.  Kampong Phluk is a floating village.  It is called that because of the extreme range of water levels between dry and rainy season.  During the dry season, the water level drops dramatically and the houses appear to be balanced on thin stilts way up in the air.  During the rainy season, the water level rises to the point that the stilted houses appear to be floating in the water.  We were there in the dry season, so the houses were all towering above us on stilts.  The people living in the village are all fishermen, eating and selling the fish they catch.  Willow declared she wanted to live there.

shrimp cages hang under the house

The village gave way to mangroves and finally we were out into open water.  We sped out to a floating restaurant/crocodile farm.  

This is Willow's reaction to it all.

We saw the stuffed crocodiles, the skins, and then the live ones!

We took the time to buy some Fantas and lie in the hammocks before heading back.

This is what the Khmer written language looks like.  No idea what the sign said.

Did I mention this restaurant served crocodile burgers?

We got a better look at the mangroves and some of the fish catching contraptions they had set up,

while riding the boat back to the village.

I took this video of the village after passing through the mangroves. It's long, about 10 minutes.  But it really gives the full picture of the village.

I also started to notice how the boat was actually steered.  There was a rope wrapped around a wooden spool that turned when the driver turned the steering wheel.  The rope was run through pulleys around the edge of the boat, leading back to the rudder sticking out the back.  The gear shift looked to be made from a bicycle chain.

I am endlessly fascinated at what can be engineered with very little resources.

Here are few more pics of the village.

After our tour ended, Poy Pines and the driver took us back to Siem Reap and dropped us off in the Night Market area.  Look for the green fish spot on the map.

I had a little surprise waiting for everyone.  A fun way to sit back and relax after the long day.

After our wonderful Fish Massages, we took a Tuk Tuk ride through town to the spot where I had made reservations for dinner.  The restaurant was across the river and in the top part of the map.

Marum is a restaurant under the Tree Alliance, providing training and social support to former street youth in the hospitality industry. 

To Be Continued....