But before we leave for Phnom Penh we go to the water and take a boat trip to see the traffic on the water. Unfortunately there isn't much to see probably the upcoming holiday made people starting to go home. In the end a nice stretch that delivered some shots of my companions and some fisherman getting the daily catch.
Today the final lap to Phnom Penh where the amount of traffic makes us feel a little bit at home. Difference with Bangalore is that the traffic seems to follow little bit more rules. But before we leave for Phnom Penh we go to the water and take a boat trip to see the traffic on the water. Unfortunately there isn't much to see probably the upcoming holiday made people starting to go home. In the end a nice stretch that delivered some shots of my companions and some fisherman getting the daily catch. On the way to the water we crossed a local market, so before going back to the hotel and heading for Phnom Penh we walked across the market to get a feel for the trading. As seen earlier there is not much of a Dutch market mentality as most of the people have time and just wait relaxed in the hammock or are busy with creating the food they sell. After this we went to the hotel and headed for Phnom Penh. Here the main item for us was after lunch the Killing Fields memorial. A place where many people died in a terrible way. With that the official program of our trip was over. In the evening a last dinner with the four of us which was the end of a very nice holiday seeing another country with a remarkable history, nice food and again very nice people.
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Today we moved from Battambang to Kampong Chhnang which is on of the few places were a lot of pottery is made. Trip was relaxed as there was not much to stop for from photography point of view. First to hotel and drop our cases and next out to the village and the potteries. Here the created all kinds of pots in different shapes, sizes and usage. The first place was creating ovens for the houses and this was done more or less in a factory. Process was quite strict and monotone resulting in a nice reproducible product. Other places it was smaller scale with only a few people or a family working together. Backing of the product was done by putting it together with a lot of hay and then burn it. In the meantime adding enough to keep the heat. The girl in the next place didn't have a mold and was just walking around the clay. She was just to this so did't have any problem of getting dizzy as I would have had. And after some shots in the field of a lady busy with the rice and people on the bikes the day was over.
As yesterday the timings are quite nice for the rest of the trip, no early calls as all things are focused on day activities from the people. The start for today is a trip with what is called the bamboo train. It is called a train as it is using an old railway track. The train part used is the wheels which is two set of wheels. On top of these a square made from bamboo is placed with a small motor. Easy to take apart for the return trip but also when you encounter a train from the other side. The track took us to the next small set of houses, with the local market for tourists. Just stopped getting of the train we were already approached by some young girls that sold bracelets. Two for one dollar was the message. As I didn't want to buy this directly I said no, took some times but they accepted it without problem. Only thing I had to promise was that I would only buy from them if I wanted to get some. This was agreed with what I understand is called pinky swear. In the meantime to showed and gave me a beautiful grasshopper made of a leaf. After having a coconut and buying the bracelets and a shawl we went back to the start of the track. Enjoying the wind, speed and environment. Next target of the day was the local trades Starting with the production of rice noodles, which is quite some labour. Done by the complete family. They produce for the restaurants in the neighbourhood and it is made for the same day, so made in the morning eaten during lunch and evening. Creating batter which is pushed through a mold to create the threads of rice noodles. This is taken through several baths of water to cool it and wash it. In the end it is taken from the last one in a hand full and then folded and put in the basket for delivery. Next stop was at the sticky rice creation. Sticky rice is a combination of rice, black beans, some spices and coconut water. This all is put into a piece of bamboo and then slowly heated over a fire. The bamboo is turned around for two hours if I remember correctly during which the rice is cooked. After this the outside of the bamboo is removed as this is completely burned. What you get is a piece of bamboo that contains the rice and beans. It is quite easy to eat, just split the bamboo and you can take the rice and beans, as it is sticky you have it in pieces. Sold along the road more or less as snack I would say. Not a new one was the creation of sugar cane juice. But she had some nice "lamps" hanging created from the standard metal juice cans. After this we had a short stop at the temple and the monument for the local Killing Fields. This one had the full story of what happened and how the Khmer have picked up life afterwards. Will give an overview in a separate blog entry. Next short stop was at the fish factory, looking at this I would almost say that I am glad that I don't like fish as food. Enormous amounts of fish were coming in and we saw them in different moments of processing. One of the steps is just drying in the sun. Interesting to see but also leaving with no regret. Next stop was the production of rice paper for the spring rolls. This was one of the places where the product is created and dried in the sun. It is created on a pot that has a top layer of a material I didn't recognise but seemed like a drum but very thin. Also the rice paper is very thin and after a very short period it is taken and put on piece of bamboo. From this it a put on a raster of bamboo pieces but mainly holes. After drying it is used to create either fresh spring roles or the fired fresh spring roles. For us the veg version of both was created at the spot. Next was the production of dried banana. Every one that has seen the result was wondering how this was created. Main reason for this was the fact that the result was rather thin, resulting in the question how is this possible. Again a simple process but difficult to perform I would say. Take a banana (the small ones) take of the skin on one side and take slices. These you put on again a specially created pies of bamboo strips. This time you put them all together slightly overlapping and this way creating a sheet of banana. Result was a very nice snack. Last one of the day was the blacksmith. The first one was taking his afternoon break so not much to see there, but second was still busy creating all kinds of tools for the others. As method not different from what I was used to, only the amount of knives, sickles etc. created was amazing. After this we went back to the hotel and after food another try for the bat cave. Even now a little bit late but still amazing to see the amount to came out.
This day we used the start for traveling from Siem Reap to Battambang. During the trip not much to take photo's. We stopped to look at all the different animals that you can get in fried version. Grasshopper, frog, spider, rat and a lot more. Most of it didn't look tasty to us. Another item we saw for the first time was the sticky rice which is made in Bamboo. Later we would visit one of the families that was creating and selling it. In Battambang we put our bags in the hotel before leaving for the Pagoda and the bats. At the pagoda we visited the first Killing Field monument of the trip. This was located at a cave where the prisoners were thrown in from the top with broken bones and tied to make sure they couldn't get out. Most of the places are having monuments to show the horror that took place and give the remains of the people involved a proper place. Not everything is found and much is left in the earth to not disturb further. A difficult period in the history but it is remarkable how the Khmer have handled it. The text on one of the other monuments that we visited gave the full overview. Silently walked to the top of the hill were another temple was build. Here a nun was busy with a putting "glitters" on a big poster. Which would take her 5 months to finish. Slowly putting up every bead carefully. Now it was waiting for the sunset and enjoying the view over the area as we had a marvellous overview. Unfortunately we were too late for the bats as they had already left the caves when we came down after the sunset Walking down, back to the car and hotel for a nice dinner at the Lonely Tree restaurant. Small but with a very nice atmosphere and food.
End of a relaxed but impressing day. Early start again to get the morning prayers of the monks together with the special offerings of the people from the village. The fact that there was mainly candle light was a nice challenge as this doesn't give much light for photo's and a flash would have taken away the atmosphere. Accepting the high ISO and a short range of sharpness. Part of the ceremony was the walk around the temple, three times and at several places they offered food and water. This was put in some baskets and looking at the way it was done it would get no further use. The walking made it almost impossible to take good sharp photo's. Also as this was my first time it was difficult to find the right spot and scene. This was the first place to see nuns as I haven't seen other than the catholic nuns in India. For them it is a combination of home life and being nun. They live at home but come for the prayers and offerings. The whole ceremony they were dressed in white, but soon after they changed the "skirt" from white to any dark colour. Did some extra shopping and went home. Next target of the day was the floating village (Kampong Khlean) where the houses are on high sticks to make sure that in the monsoon time the feet stay dry. This year there was not that much water so we could just walk around in the village. The water level also dictates the place for the shops. These were located between the sticks but easily can be put on higher level I understand. Here I noticed for the first time that the shop owners are just waiting in the hammock for the customers to come. Later we noticed the same on the market in Battambang. No shouting about how good or cheap the products are, just relaxed waiting for the customer. The complete trip you noticed that same relaxed style of living, only Phnom Penh it seemed a more hectic lifestyle. Busy for the day and the food but still having a lot of fun with the complete family. At the end of the village we took the boat to go to the area where the "house boats" were located. These are shifting along with the water level to stay close to the lake and the fish I would expect. But also close enough to the shore to have stable water. Many of them are having fish below the boat. Growing these for sale. All things are done on the boat. This means that on one side of the boat you find the toilet, the kitchen and also the laundry is done at that same end. And I didn't get the impression that they had tap water. It was amazing to see the small kids capable of handling the long boats. Slowly went back to the village and to the hotel. Rain kicked in during the trip back. So we stayed close to the hotel for dinner, which was half the price of the pub street.
My holiday in Cambodia was the first in South East Asia and outside India. A week going around some of the well known places but also more into the country side to get a feeling for the local places. The trip was organised by Darter with focus on photography. Not my first trip with them so knew what kind of trip it would be. A nice group size with one organiser, one local agent for the whole trip with driver for the mini van, three of us and at every place a local guide. This resulted in a lot of local knowledge and easy contact with the local people as the guides knew them very well. Also here everywhere good food opportunities. We started in Siem Reap where you will find the famous Angkor Wat temple. This place is is well known for its sunrise. At least it must be as you see a large crowd waiting there at 5.30 or earlier too get a good place for the sunrise. Looking around I saw a huge amount of camera's and most of them not the really cheap ones. All waiting for the 6 o'clock sunrise. Unfortunately the clouds were not that friendly and kept away the sun until quite late. Still some nice shots of the temple against the back light. The clouds stayed with us the complete day and also supplied a good amount of freshening in the form of rain. We left the main temple and went to the backside to visit the Ta Prohm temple, an old temple that is going back to nature. It feels a little bit like the Asterix version with the copy of Rome in the forrest. Don't know the English title but in Dutch it is the "Romeinse lusthof". Also here you see that most of the buildings are captured by trees. Challenge is to find the right spots that show the interesting places of the ruins. The advantage of the clouds is that the light was quite good through the day which gave good opportunities for this place. The religion is mainly a form of Buddhism that is having a lot of Hinduism influences that come from the early days when the area was ruled by "India". During this time Hinduism was the main religion and you still see a lot of religious habits coming from this time. One of them being the people that are praying and performing Puja kind of ceremonies. This takes place at for us sometimes strange places like here in one of the passages. Here a lady took care of it and "sold" the coloured pieces of cotton used as bracelets. After the tour through the ruin we went for lunch and back to Angkor Wat to have a better look at the temple it self. One part was called heaven probably because it was at the top of the temple. Had a steep staircase going up and we got a special lable before going up. Assume they didn't want to loose anybody. From up in heaven we had a good overview of the environment. And lot of beautiful sculptures were present. There also a man was telling the future. For this you had three changes to find a future that would make you "happy". It was a set of cards that you would keep on your head with one hand. The other hand was used to put a ruler between the different pages. This marked the page with your future. Which would be opened and read by the man. In total three possibilities so be careful with number 2. Walking back we were almost caught by the rain, at least I was close to our next stop when it started to rain. This somehow triggered the local kids to come in undress as far as appropriate for the age and run to the pond and swim around. returning the moment rain got less and more peoples showed up with umbrellas. With the rain not stopping but getting less we could look for the young monks that were waiting for the moment of food offering by the local community. This means that the local people have gathered money to prepare and offer food to the monks. As we were in Cambodia during the period of celebration / offering we saw several places with the local people offering food to the monks. Our next stop was another temple that had 4 faces on every "tower". Strangely enough it took some time before I saw the first one. After this I the others came in almost one by one. Not sure what was the cause but the state and colours probably helped for the disguise. Last photographic action of the day was the sunset. Not a spectacular one but still nice to stop and try to get some nice views. After this we went back to the hotel and out for diner at Pub Street. For all photos see the photo page
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I am Wim Corbijn living in the Netherlands after 8 years Bangalore. Archives
October 2021
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