This morning we visited Kok Chen 35km North of PP on the Tonle Sap River. This village is famous in Cambodia for its silver smith skills, having provided the Khmer royalty with their silver ware.
Silver is moulded into bowls with rubber moulds and then the detail etching is done by hand. These items are then sold to the markets in cities like PP.
We took a walk through the village on stilts, looked at the unique ‘island-like’ temple, the monks dining hall and their local long boats – used to represent the village in the yearly Water Festival boat race in PP.
From there it was on to a visit to the local primary school, just about to take a 10 minute break. Chaos ensued as we were overwhelmed by little people with friendly hallo’s,smiles and vigorous ‘high fives’.
We returned to the boat for a rest and lunch and sailed to Andaung Russey Village that specializes in Khmer style pottery. Mrs To gave us a demonstration of making a cooking pot of clay. The clay is put on a little table and the potter walks around the item forming it in this way – quite unique. She also showed us how rice is cleared from the husks in the traditional way.
An adapted version of a foot-driven pottery wheel is used to make knick-nacks to sell as souveniers. Yup, I’m going home with (yet another) pottery candleholder.
From there we visited the ‘production plant’ for Palm Sugar. They showed us what the ‘flower’ looks like and how they climb up the very high trees and cut the flowers to harvest the palm sugar juice. The morning’s harvest is used to create Palm Sugar – an almost caramel-like paste. The afternoon harvest is perfect for Palm Sugar beer. And then there were these perfectly innocent looking 500ml water-bottles filled with clear liquid – nope, not water… Moonshine – Palm Sugar ‘Whisky’ – 48% proof. At 2US for 500ml a steal! Actually not bad neat… and I don’t even like whisky as a rule.
From there they showed us the production of new types of coal barbecue type portable stoves… made from cement, clay and covered in Zinc. The traditional version is clay pottery. It uses less coal and produces less smoke emmitions. An NGO has taught the locals how to produce these and sell them to the rest of the country. Quite a nifty little contraption, not much bigger than a 10L bucket.
Our young guide has some trouble pronouncing the “T” at the end of cement. One of the group kindly explained to him in private why for an english native speaking group that T is quite important š He was ‘horrified’…
We returned to the riverbank and took a motorboat cruise around the floating village with it’s ‘in-house’ fish farms and even a local pub.
Just as the sun set we returned to the boat for tea and a lecture around ‘life on the mekong’ before sitting down to a four-course meal. Dieting on this cruise is not an option… not if you do not want to miss out.
Tomorrow – Silk weaving and attending an english lesson at a school. Best be on our best behavior.
My feet are still swollen, but less than yesterday. All and all it was a great day and we are looking forward to tomorrow’s adventure.
I’m sitting on my bed watching the houses and fishing boats with their flickering lights as we chug along the river. Feeling deeply blessed to be fortunate enough to be able to experience this paradise.
We heard tonight that this way of life is in danger due to plans to build numerous hydro-electric dams upstream in the Mekong. These will threaten this way of life, the fish population (disrupt breeding migrations) and agriculture (less silt coming downstream, less fertile soil).
One can only hope that ‘progress’ can be balanced with the social and environmental consequences for all involved.
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