Cambodia – January 13th, 2016

Today we woke up cruising up, the Tonle Sap river a tributary to the Mekong as we find our way to Koh Chen one of the many silversmith villages in the region.

Upon climbing up the banks from the boat we stopped at the village school greeted my smiling kids and lots of hellos, wonder where Adele got her inspiration. Schooling In  Cambodia is free but teachers are extremely low pay, uniforms and books still need to be purchase, so most kids just barely finished primary schools – anyone that can afford to send their kids to private schools does.

The walk through the silversmith village was a little disappointing, most of the craftsmen were working in cooper and the shops selling items were so overpriced although I saw a few nice pieces I was not in the mood to haggle.

The poverty contrast of river life between Vietnam and Cambodia is tenfold, where in Vietnam you see cement houses in Cambodia you see corrugated metal shacks. We never saw beggars in Hanoi or Saigon but in Phnom Phem was different.

We continued our trip upriver to Kampong Chang, a small town on the bank of the river that specializes in Khmer pottery, we watched a demonstration, as they made a clay pot without a wheel by constantly walking in circles around a wood post where the clay stood as slowly the lump of clay took its pot form, it’s a 3 step process the pot in its first stage does not have a bottom that is done at the last step  – only tools used are wood paddles for shaping and water to keep it pliable – amazing demonstration. Found a beautiful tea set.

At this same village we tasted palm sugar candy, palm sugar moonshine (jet fuel) and saw how the Palm sugar is harvested

A cruise back to our boat through floating villages, the interesting part is that they are habitants are Vietnamese immigrants – this is sticky issues with the Cambodians.

Cruising back to Phnom Phen to rejoin the Mekong.