Siem Reap is a pleasant enough place to while away a few days, but its main reason for existing is to provide accommodation, food and drink for the thousands of tourists who pass through on their way to the temples.
We spent our fair share of time in the restaurants and bars, and donated daily to a selection of desperate characters such as the ragged little boy who wheeled a blind, wrinkled, toothless old lady (maybe his grandma?) around in a wooden cart. Beggars even approached us inside restaurants, and eventually I had to look in the mirror to see if I had 'ATM' stamped on my forehead.
People-watching other tourists became a favourite pastime here; back-packing twenty-something white boys with dreadlocks, scary serious-looking girls with tattoos, grandads with beer bellies older than their very young and lovely Cambodian girlfriends, and annoying orientals photographing each other, and very often themselves, at every possible opportunity.
One day our tuk tuk driver, Mr Sam Bo, drove us along a bumpy, dusty, red dirt road to a place on the river where we hired a small boat to travel down to a village on the Tonle Sap lake. There are many huge rivers in South East Asia, and Phnom Penh sits on one of them, the Tonle Sap. On its 4000 mile journey from its source in Tibet to the South China Sea, the Mekong, possibly the mightiest of all these rivers, joins the Tonle Sap at Phnom Penh. When the waters of the rainy season fill the Mekong to bank-bursting point, the Mekong pressures the Tonle Sap so hard that its waters actually turn and flow in the opposite direction. Amazing! Anyway, it's true, in August the Tonle Sap river flows north to Siem Reap where it empties out into the vast Tonle Sap lake, the largest lake in South East Asia. The lake teems with enough fish to feed everyone in Cambodia, giving rise to many villages on the banks. Because the water levels vary so dramatically depending whether it's wet or dry season, the resourceful villagers build their homes on very tall stilts to avoid having their homes flooded every year. The photos below give a glimpse into the lives of these 'floating' communities, which we found endlessly diverting.
See the pigs in the pen behind the little boy.
Typical homes on the water.
Brian's next 'screen-saver' when he gets home.
Who needs flushing toilets when you can pee in the river?
Canoes rather than motorbikes are the favoured mode of transport on the lake.
We fell for the charity mugging when we got off the boat to walk round the part of the village that was built on higher ground. Two little girls separated me from ten dollars 'to buy books and pencils for the poor children who can't afford them'. They then invited us into the school to see their classmates.
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