Cambodia and the Floating Village

We woke up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight out of Koh Samui, back to Bangkok and then transfer to a flight to Siem Reap. The picture above is of the Koh Samui airport, which is probably the coolest airport of all time. It is made of all teak wood and bamboo and there are no walls, just bushes of tropical flowers. And a warm tropical breeze flowed through. Seriously, I was thinking, "Is this an airport or heaven?" Usually that confusion doesn't exist!

Right before leaving our hotel on the big island, Gwynyth stubbed her toe on the corner of the tile shower and completely ripped her toenail off. It made a bloody mess everywhere. I guess when you have size 10 feet that you haven't quite grown into, you run that risk on a daily basis! Thank goodness I had a doctor in the room because he bandaged that puppy up like a pro--but it caused Gwynyth serious pain for all the rest of the trip.

Here we are on our flight to Cambodia.

Upon arrival we were greeted by our tour guide and our driver. We dropped off our luggage at the hotel and went for lunch. Cambodian food wasn't quite as wonderous as Thai food, but it was sure as heck a step up from Korean food! It was a mix of Thai, Indian curries, Chinese food and Vietnamese food. Some of it was fantastic, other of it was a little questionable depending on what mystery body part was included in the dish. But that's typical when you travel third world.

After lunch we traveled through the Cambodian country side (ie. rice patties) to Tonle Sap lake. In the wet season it covers a good share of the country side, but in the dry season it shrinks way down and leaves fish in the rice patties. It was a common sight for us to see people fishing and swimming in giant puddles left over from the monsoons. Equally common were giant, horned water buffalo wallowing in the thick mud along sides the roads and in the rice patties. It was such a world apart from what we know. I saw something similar to this in Vietnam, but the poverty here was even greater than that and closer to what I experienced in Liberia. We were all in for an eye opening experience in Cambodia and opportunity to reassess our life's mission. I repeated over and over to my kids a line that was given to me in a blessing, "Where much is given, much is required."

We boarded a boat to travel across the lake to the floating village in the center. I was in awe. I know I have shared so many pictures in this post, but I want to really portray the feeling of this almost surreal experience. This village has existed in some form for almost 1000 years and the people still living there are direct descendents of the original inhabitants.

One of my friends told me that she had heard that the villagers really don't like being stared at and photographed by tourists. It would be a lot like a bunch of Japanese tourists on a bus driving through a dilapidated trailer park in Alabama taking pictures of everyone and everything. (Only at the lake people actually work to survive instead of living off of the government. . . .) I felt sort of badly staring at them like they were aliens. . . until I later found out from our guide that they were staring at us and pestering him with questions. They wanted to know how I had given birth to some white children and some black children. They wanted to know why the black girl had a weird thing on her mouth (orthodontic retainer and head gear) and why snakes were coming out of her head (dredlocks). They wanted to know why I had so many children. If they had had cameras they would have been snapping pictures of us as well. Our family was as equally incomprehensible to them as their poverty and lifestyle were to us.

Floating Buddhist Shrine.

Floating schoolhouse. Cambodian children go to school in the morning, sell things to tourists in the middle of the day and return to school for late afternoon and evening.

I observed that the people were truly happy. They didn't have televisions or internet (although I did see that there were advertisements for cell phones on the sides of some of the shanties), they only had each other. Their happiness was not determined by their money or their "stuff," but instead seemed to be reliant upon their connection to each other. Often with my clients I hear stories of loneliness, isolation, disconnection. It's become my opinion that as society begins to pursue wealth and success, the opportunity cost of that is a disconnect from close social and familial ties. I haven't fully sorted out an explanation in my head as to why that happens, but I have recognized the pattern countless times in my travels around the world. Poverty is not necessarily synonomous with deprivation and unhappiness. Which makes you wonder, who is to pity who?

This is a picture of the local boat/battery repair shop.

In the center of the village was a high spot of ground. Upon it was built an 700 year old Buddhist temple. It was the center of life in the village and the only place the children could run and play games. When we arrived there was a plethora of village children playing games. They stopped to stare at us and follow our children around.

At the end of the visit to the village, we got to see an crocodile farm and fish farm. Our guide told us that there are tons of crocodiles and poisonous snakes in the waters, but that they mainly stay away from people. He also told me that the children of the village learn to swim before they even learn to walk. It seemed like a perilous life to me, but I guess they don't have to worry about their children being hit by cars or their teenagers rolling the new SUV down a cliff. I guess it's sixes in the end.

As we returned to our van, this sweet little Cambodian girl with six fingers waved goodbye to us. This day was one of my favorites. It made me grateful for all of my blessings, but it also made me reassess the definition of wealth, success and happiness.

Speaking of wealth--our hotel, the Majestic Angkor Hotel was beyond spectacular--and dirt cheap by American standards. I felt a little guilty returning home to this place--but it definitely made for a nice stay, especially considering they had hot showers.