Angkor Ban Village Visit & An Unruly Guest

The date is Sunday, December 27, but at this point, a full 12 days into our journey, we really don't have any concept of time and are just taking things day by day ... a perfect attitude for life on the Mekong River. Once again, the temperature didn't dip below the mid 70's, and highs were in the low 90's. After another delicious breakfast in the dining room (the special was homemade waffles), we left the ship at 8:30 a.m. in the village of Angkor Ban.

Angkor Ban Village Visit

Our daily guide simply said that this was an "authentic, Khmer village." Some googling after we got home turned up this article, which explains that most villages in Cambodia are not as long-lasting as Angkor Ban because their homes and infrastructure were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. This particular village, however, was requisitioned by the Khmer Rouge and the buildings were used as housing or storage, so they survived. While this is not a rich village, I believe a good portion of their income now comes from the tour groups like us, who pay a fee in exchange for the privilege of exploring the village.

Children were playing a game of soccer, accompanied by the village cow.

It was another uphill climb once we got off the ship, but the nautical crew was ready to help anyone who needed assistance.

Today's tour was a village tour. We walked past a pagoda and entered the village, where we happened upon an adorable little boy who had made a kite out of string and some plastic shopping bags.

For about an hour, our guide walked us through the village, explaining the intricacies of every-day life in rural Cambodia.

Cambodian houses are built on stilts. This has a variety of benefits—staying out of mud in the rainy season, providing a nice breeze on a hot day, and creating additional living space in the area below the home. This woven house is usually a temporary step towards a fully wooden house, but this particular one was never upgraded.

The cows are incredibly important, because they're used to work the fields and transport goods. Once they reach the end of their life, they are used for food ... but because they've worked instead of fattening up on pasture, it's quite chewy beef.

The cart under the house is pulled by cows. Our guide referred to it as a "Cambodian BMW." The area below the house stays shady during the day, and often has a hammock for naps. Some houses wall off a section of this area to create extra living space.

The color blue brings happiness, so it is the traditional color for doors and windows to allow happiness to ender the home.

 Meow!

Food preservation in action. These cucumbers are left to dry in the sun for a few days before they are pickled. This is not how we make pickles in the U.S., so I may need to do some research to see if I should amend my technique.

Large buckets surrounded the homes, and the water spigot could be moved so all rain water would drain into whatever bucket had available space.

Free-range chickens are the norm, which means you're likely to happen upon a spontaneous cock fight.

I didn't notice any obvious gardens in the village (farmland is outside the village), but that doesn't mean they weren't growing food! Along a path we found okra and bananas, as well as herbs and other fruits and root vegetables.

We even had the opportunity to tour a home (with a shoes-off requirement, of course). This woman now lives alone; her husband died years ago in a car crash, and her children have moved in with their own families.

A large front room serves as the bedroom, living room, and closet. We did not expect the see-through bamboo floors, but apparently they serve an important purpose. In the summer, it allows for better air circulation, and in the evening the family may light a fire below the house and let it smolder so smoke rises up and deters mosquitos. Even then, most folks sleep on a mat covered in mosquito netting. The village recently got electric power, so fans can be added to these rooms. They've had TV for a while, which they would watch over the air using car batteries.

 The back of the house had the kitchen. This is about all there was to it.

 The kitchen sink is a tiled area with some bowls for holding water, which is carried in as needed.

 A wood-fired cook stove meets their needs.

 This is the kitchen counter and cupboards.

 A good supply of rice, which is eaten at every meal.

This container is full of fermented fish paste. Our guides said may times that while it "smells like hell, it tastes like heaven." We agreed—this adds a nice pungent flavor to soups and stews. Note that we did not eat this particular fish paste.

Our next stop in the village was an English classroom. Yes, it was Sunday morning and the students were in school. They don't have public school on Sundays, but this English class is a type of supplementary instruction. Like we'd done in Siem Reap, we visited with some students for a while. It's important for them to speak with Western English speakers so they can begin to correct their pronunciation. Some words in our language just don't make sense until they hear them spoken. For example, "dropped." They wanted to keep saying it drop-ped, with two syllables. If they hear visitors speak it enough, they can improve quickly. Our guides had impeccable English, but they shared that they used to have these same struggles when they were young.

A few students showed off their English and public speaking skills by telling us a bit about themselves and their families. I love listening to them talk at this level; they have a full grasp of vocabulary but are still learning how intonation, pacing, and even tone of voice works. You can see this in our videos.

They also showed us how they complete reading exercises on the board, and asked us to correct them when they made a mistake. That's how we learned about the "drop-ped" dilemma.

We just can't get out of an English classroom without singing a song! This one was "If You're Happy And You Know It." We also left some donated school supplies with this classroom.

As we left the village, we walked out to a busy road and passed by some market stalls.

Salted sails are a traditional local snack. I believe the snails came from the rice paddies. Unfortunately, we did not get to try one on this trip.

 All along the road in Cambodia and Vietnam you'll find recycled bottles filled with a golden liquid. A few of our fellow tourists seemed to think they were a sort of local drink, but you do not want to drink this! This is how they sell gasoline for use in a motor bike. You'll often see it in Jack Daniels bottles as well.

These not-so-little piggies went to market ... still alive, but docile as they lay flat for their ride on a motorbike.

 As we re-entered the pagoda complex, the monks passed on us on their way to collect alms in the village.

We returned to the ship passing once more by the Angkor Ban Pagoda, surrounded by many stupas, stopping for a moment to take in the views of rural life on the Mekong.

Now it was time to climb down the hill to get back on the ship. As before, staff were available to help guests and make sure they did not lose their footing, and our dusty shoes were removed immediately after coming aboard.

I noticed that some of the monks were boarding a boat that had docked next to us, and at the time wondered why. Now that I'm home and have sufficiently Googled, I know that some cruise tours have the monks come onboard to offer a blessing to the ship and/or the passengers. There was no need for us to do this, as we had attended the water blessing just the day before.

Mid-Day Activities

Since it was still only mid-morning, we had another activity before lunch. The ship set sail for Phnom Penh, and we went to the movie room to hear one of the guides give a lecture on Cambodian geography and life along the Mekong River. What really stood out to me was the discussion of the dams that are being built in Laos and China, and how they appear to be reducing the levels of the Mekong in Cambodia. This is of great concern to the country, not only because fish from the river are a major food source, but the rising river floods the rice paddies that are necessary for dietary sustenance. A member of our group tried to challenge our knowledgeable tour guide, which I thought was unnecessary, as his job was to explain to us what life was like for the Cambodian people. We could fact-check and debate on our own time if need be.

After the lecture, it was time for lunch. I snapped a picture of the lunch menu, which had the same general format each day: a trio of salads, build-your-own fresh salad greens, a hot soup, multiple hot entrees, fresh bread, a sandwich, and multiple desserts.

My choices today were the snow mushroom salad (the yellow dish in the photo below, which was absolutely phenomenal and unlike any mushroom I've ever tried before), pineapple broccoli slaw, hot and sour mushroom soup, bread and butter, baked pumpkin with caramel custard, and lemon grass and dark chocolate ice cream (both flavors were delicious).

At around 2:00 p.m. we arrived in Phnom Penh. No more sandy steps on the shore—this was a proper port city that had infrastructure for ships, and we could walk right off the boat onto permanent scaffolding that led to a pier. The afternoon was completely free, but we only had about an hour because we wanted to see the movie playing onboard this afternoon. We convinced one of our guides to write down (in Khmer) the name of three signature local dishes that he would eat with his friends, asking him to recommend the most "pungent" options there were. Then, we hired a tuk tuk driver to take us to a place that served those dishes. Our cruise director, Celina, was not very happy with this plan. She was afraid we would get sick. Throwing caution to the wind, we set off.

But, we were disappointed. Our driver tried mightily, and took us to three different places, but only one had any of the items on our list, and then just two of them. After trying a fairly bland egg dish (I guess it had fermented fish paste in it?) and a sweet and sour soup that we had already tasted, we went back to the ship for movie time.

The movie on offer was The Killing Fields. Far from an upbeat movie, it tells the tale of what the Cambodian people went through during the terror-filled reign of the Khmer Rouge. I really wanted to see it because we were going to be visiting historical sites related to that time period the next day. We made it downstairs just after the movie had started, and the two single women on the trip were down there, so we thought it would be a quiet foursome. Then everything changed, and we had an experience quite unlike what I would expect to have on a trip like this.

The Unruly Guest

I mentioned in my last entry that there was a single man on the boat who was a bit odd. He didn't really socialize with anyone, and there was just something that didn't feel right about him. It didn't help that he often seemed to be drunk. Apparently while most of the guests were out enjoying our free time in Phnom Penh, he'd been enjoying time with the open bar. He stumbled loudly down the stairs, threw up on the floor, and then proceeded to take a seat and watch the movie as if nothing happened. Except he didn't just watch the movie ... he added color commentary to it. Completely inappropriate, racist color commentary. The tour manager was summoned, and he tried to get him to go back to his room and take a nap, which he did ... for about thirty minutes.

When he returned, he was back at it. Then the tour manager tried to corral him in a corner opposite us to watch the movie, but he didn't stay put for long and came over by us. At one point, after a particularly insensitive and hateful remark directed toward the film, I spoke up and asked him to be quiet and let us enjoy the movie. I was ignored. Our tour manager was clearly exasperated and didn't know what to do. I think the fact that this guest would have physically overpowered him if there was a struggle, combined with the fact that the Asian culture is not big on conflict (our tour director was Vietnamese) made this a pretty impossible situation. I was insistent on watching the film, so I stuck it out, but I would not have hesitated to hit this man if he came near me.

This was the first of multiple incidents caused by this man's drinking over the course of the trip, none of which ruined our vacation, but all of which clearly left an impression on us (I'm writing this from memory over four months later). I won't write about the rest of the incidents, because I don't want them to detract from the otherwise amazing time we had.

We wondered if maybe there is something that can be done to enforce a code of conduct on trips like this, where you have the ability to impact the experience of other guests. I just hope that this particular guest is no longer allowed to travel with Uniworld. If I was to see him on a future cruise I would go straight to the cruise manager and voice my displeasure and seek reassurance that my cruise would not be affected. Fortunately for Aaron and I, this man was not in our daily tour group. I would likely feel much more strongly about this if he had been.

Dinner

The movie wrapped up around 6:00, and we enjoyed a cocktail before the 6:45 p.m. talk with the tour manager. Dinner options were as follows.

Starter

• Shrimps "Mermaid" - baby shrimp and tiger prawns, pineapple carpaccio, mango, cocktail dip.
• Khmer style cucumber salad - sesame toast, cherry tomatoes, onions, bean sprouts with "Tirk sa-ieu chu p'em" sweet soy sauce.

I chose the shrimp.

Soups

• Tom Yam Gai - famous Asian soup, scented with lemon grass, chili, galangal roots, coconut milk
• Cream of local tomatoes - with Asia basil oil

I'm not having tomato soup when I can have Tom Yam Gai!

Entrees

• Lamb Stew - served with potato gratin and vegetables
• "Trey Chienn Svway Kchey" - Pan fried fillet of Groper, mild spiced mango chutney, steamed rice

For some reason I chose the lamb.

Desserts

• Mango bread & butter pudding with lemon grass ice cream
• Selection of fresh local fruits
• Premium ice cream of the day with baby banana and caramel sauce
• Selection of cheese and condiments from the buffet.

Did someone say bread pudding and that yummy ice cream again?

There was another showing of the movie after dinner at 8:45 - perhaps we should have seen that one! But, as we did most nights, we retreated to our room instead.

This final picture belongs with the previous post because it's from the night before, but I'll post it now. When the cruise companies and guidebooks recommend that you bring insect repellent and wear it all times, they are not kidding! Look at the swarm of insects (mostly moths) that were attracted to the lone light on our ship!

On nights like this where it was particularly bad, the crew turned off almost all the lights on the ship so it was easier for us to move around. It was essential that you close the blinds in your cabin if you had the lights on, and waiters were stationed at the entrance to the dining room to make sure the door shut promptly and any invading insects were promptly dispatched.  

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