Cambodian Encore

Pictures!

Houses of the floating village. Note the Spirit House for the ancestors on the tree stump.

T, our guide, turned off the main road onto a secondary highway wide enough for 1.5 cars. The edges of the pavement were level with the well packed red earth of Cambodia that made it possible for 2 cars to pass carefully. He cheerily talked about the crocodile farm coming up on our left - crocodile farms produce meat, leather and, more recently, agri-tourism.
And there is was with its big funky sign and advertisements on the fence. It was surrounded by a rather large moat; which seems as though it would not be a deterrent to crocodiles, but what do I know.
We travelled along the road listening to T explain that the crocodile industry is fairly vibrant in Cambodia, Vietnam and China, but Vietnam by far has the largest demand.

A Cambodian woman shows us cashew fruit from her tree.
At the bottom of the fruit is the nut we eat.

Suddenly, we were slowed right down and crawling through a local market with stalls on both sides of the road, people, food, goods and animals making just enough room for us to pass. "Sunday market busy," T offered a little sheepishly as though we may be offended by the delay.
Back on the open road, we passed by ripening rice while T explained that this close to Tonle Sap Lake the farmers can produce three crops per year because they can irrigate.
After a brief stop at a random ticket booth by the side of the road, we began to see canals with water and, although we couldn't see the lake, we could see that the land ended. We emerged from the rice fields onto a large mud flat bordered by a large mud embankment with typical longtail boats bobbing on water so muddy it looked viscous.
We clambered onto a boat with T and a driver who began to back us out of the squeeze of boats. A young man on shore gave the boat a shove and then jumped into the water to further assist. Between the driver and guy in the water, they got the boat headed down the canal toward the lake. Now, T said we were in a river, but both sides of the bank were large piles of mud and the river ended where we got onto the boat.

The canal/river with men fishing.

Also, we didn't follow a river at any time on our car ride and, later, T told me that the government digs the river every year for the boat drivers and the farmers. Language is a barrier, but that sounds like a man-made canal to me.
As we motored down the waterbody (shoulder shrug, it was definitely water), men on the shoreline swoopingly tossed fishnets into the water. Many times, heads slipped out of the water and back under as we passed. That water looked and acted more like soup as it streamed from faces, lazily slapped up the mud banks or through floating vegetation. It was the same color as the banks.
Soon, we started to see what we came to see. First a police station, then a school standing tall on beams at least 15 feet tall. Next, a few homes with life taking place in, under and down by the riverbank at each house. Small children worked alongside moms washing laundry in boats tied to the bank. Men tended fish cages also tied to the banks or repaired boats and nets. By the time we came to the village proper, one whole side of the river was side-by-side homes high in the air. The village was a busy place both on land and water. It even had a couple of restaurants up there.

The village - didn't write down the name, so can't remember it.
Names over here sound like Kong Phong Hong and can one or 3 words.

We passed a houseboat looking affair that was a government clinic and came to a similar installation that was a terminal for tourists to get out of a longtail boat and into a small canoe for a paddle through the trees in the delta. We turned down this opportunity and continued to the lake.
At the mouth of the river (?), we came across several floating restaurants and some locals in smalls fishing boats. These small boats had colorful cloths suspended on poles overhead to provide shade. The one or 2 people in the boats were chatting, snacking and watching the tourists go by while rocking on our waves. We waved at them as we sped out onto the Tonle Sap for a quick look at that water body. I've never seen the type of algae that I saw there.

Algae

T had our driver pull up to one of the floating restaurants that had 3 sections. We sat on the platform where there were plastic tables and chairs. Tied on one side of it was the family's home and the restaurant's kitchen and,on the other side of the dinning platform, a large metal platform that had the day's shrimp catch drying in the sun.

Floating restaurant.

shrimp

We sat for a cold drink and looked around at the delta with its woody plants growing out of the water and scenes of Cambodian life around us.
I find myself again impressed by my inability to judge the lives of people living such different lives than mine. It is unfathomable to me to live that life. Frankly, I didn't want to step in that water let alone swim in it or eat something that came out of it. But that's me. I live in a place where the water is clear and cold not muddy and warm.

Fisherman

Back on the road, the older children were coming home from school on their bikes. They wear uniforms and travel in packs or alone. They laugh, race and travel along that road toward their homes on high where, I imagine, mothers greet them and put them to work on chores or send them out to play.
They sell T-shirts here that say "Same Same" on the front and "But Different" on the back. Truer words have never been spoken.