Cruising the Mekong on the River Orchid: Kampong Cham and Wat Hanchey

The day after Christmas, we awoke on the River Orchid, which was still docked in Kampong Cham. The forecasted high was 91°F, with a low of 77°F. A delicious buffet breakfast was served from 7:00 a.m. - 8:30 a.m. I forgot to photograph it, but that will be fixed on later days.

I'm ready for the day!

As you can see I'm prepped for our morning excursion with my day bag, the ship-provided insulated bag that holds a nice cold bottle of water, and my receiver and ear piece so I can hear my guide. For much of the Cambodian portion of this trip, I wore dri-fit athletic clothing so the hot, humid weather was a bit more bearable. 

All guests started the day with a climb up the steep bank, thanks to the low river. First some sandy hillside steps, then concrete steps.

As an avid pre-vacation researcher, I had looked forward to this morning's excursion, which was described in the Cruise Companion as Phnom Pros and Phnom Srey Monastery. The description told of the "Woman Hill" and "Man Hill" and warned of the 308-step climb up Woman Hill. Our daily program distributed onboard, however, just mentioned an excursion by bus. While on the bus, our guide told us the story of Woman Hill and Man Hill. This got my hopes up that we would be climbing it. But, this tour did not give us the opportunity to climb Phnom Srey, the Woman Hill. Rather, our bus pulled right up to the stupa complex at the base of the hill and we walked through the grounds, which included some beautiful golden buddha statues.

The entrance to the monastery 

Beautifully ornate stupa

Monastery monkey

After walking around the stupa, we descended these stairs to the garden, which was full of buddha statues.

 The donation required to get a statue with your name on it isn't that much, at least for Americans.

As we walked out of the buddha statue/monastery area, we came upon another stupa. This was at the site of a mass grave of victims of the Khmer Rouge. The stupa itself holds the skeletal remains of many people ... and a man has lived there, alone, for over 30 years. In 1983 he returned to his village after the Khmer Rouge were defeated/chased back into the mountains, and his family never returned. He believes that they are among the victims in the mass grave, and he has stayed at this site every since. It did not seem respectful to take a photo of him, but we took a photo of the stupa from a distance. This was a very somber moment. This was also the moment when our guide, who was close to our age, told us that when he was in grade school he was required to learn how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble an AK-47. The violence wrought by the Khmer Rouge is very recent history in Cambodia.

After paying our respects, we boarded the bus to visit Nokor Bachey Temple, right off the highway outside of Kampong Cham. The bus stopped on a busy market street and we made our way up to the temple gates. It was not even 10:00 a.m., but it was already quite hot.

This temple was built during the same period as the Angkor temples, and looks very familiar. However, some of the wall carvings have been restored with magnificent colors.

Some pigs were rooting around in the dirt outside of the temple, much to the delight to some of our tour group. Aaron and I got a kick out of this, since pigs are a regular occurrence for us in Wisconsin, where we often visit farmers to pick up eggs or our weekly CSA and stop in to visit the pigs.

On our way back to the ship, we stopped at an overlook on the Mekong River to see the Ko Paen bamboo bridge. Not only is it the longest bamboo bridge in the world, but it is constructed and deconstructed every single year, since it can only be used in the dry season. It connected the mainland to a small island, which is mostly flooded during the rainy season.

Our guide said it takes two weeks to construct the bridge, and six weeks to take it down. You can cross it for $1, but we just took a look from afar. As a motorbike went across, it made quite the clattery noise!

Okay, it's quite hot! Time to go back to the ship.

Life on the River Orchid is great. When you return from time ashore, the crew takes your shoes (to clean the dust off, lest you get the beautiful wood floors all dusty), then hands you a cold towel and a refreshing beverage.

At 11:00 a.m., we set sail. The crew removed the gangway and we were off. Time for lunch! I remembered my camera this time. Lunch is served buffet style, so I did my best not to stuff myself. But of course, I always have to sample whatever desserts look appetizing.

I started with a local soup: Samlar M'Chou Kroeung Sach Ko, or beef broth and water spinach sour soup. I really like the sour flavor that was appearing in many of the Khmer soups we had.

 From the hot buffet I chose some local fish, roasted vegetables, fried rice, and white rice.

For my trio of desserts, I had a sweet corn soup, a single piece of fried banana, and a small piece of chocolate cake.

We arrived at Wat Hanchey shortly after lunch, but we had time for a rest. This was a good time to shower and change clothes, because we were required to dress respectfully for the afternoon excursion. Shoulders and knees had to be covered. As the boat sat idle, with no passengers disembarking, the local children just stood on the shore and waved. Aaron has a great zoom lens, so he could get up close.

We had yet another interesting hill to climb after we got off the ship around 2:30 p.m.

The village children were waiting for us, with the River Orchid below.

Wat Hanchey is on a hilltop. We were given the option to climb the steps or take a small air-conditioned bus to the top. While many opted for the bus, we took the climb. As the youngest people in the group, we felt it was our duty.

See the woman behind me, walking on her own? That's Ann. She was the oldest person on the trip, and never turned down a physical challenge. I hope I can be as cool as her in 40 years.

I was definitely sweaty by the time we reached the top, but we were rewarded with phenomenal views.

We were ushered into the wat for our water blessing. Aaron and I are not very spiritual people, but this was a really cool experience. We were to sit on the floor, in silence, for about 10 minutes while the monks chanted. After the chanting, we individually saw the monks to receive string bracelets, which symbolized health, happiness, prosperity, and maybe longevity (?).

Remember how we brought school supplies with us and handed them over to our tour manager? He held back a couple packages of pencils, and gave them to us after the blessing, encouraging us to hand them out to the children that were still following us around. If you get the chance to take this trip, you could bring small trinkets like pencils, crayons, candy, etc. to give out as well. This is better than giving them money. They sure did like the pencils! We made friends for the rest of the afternoon. They wouldn't leave our sides, actually, and this little girl held my hand throughout the rest of the day as her little brother trailed behind. Notice her tightly gripping her pencil.

Aaron was incredibly popular with the little boys.

We took about 20 minutes to wander through the complex and take in more of the stunning views, then climbed steps back down to a very deserted road that led us back to the ship. A few of the kids escorted us the entire way.

We were back on the ship by 4:30 p.m., and sailed away once again, back towards Kampong Cham. We had time to rest before the 6:00 p.m. nautical talk in the movie room (in the lowest level of the ship) and the 6:45 p.m. briefing on the next day's activities with our tour manager. During the talk, waitstaff passed out small bites. I had a shrimp dumpling.

Dinner started at 7:00 p.m. The tables were set with homemade potato chips, which I referred to as crack chips because they were completely addictive.

Aaron and I ended up with a table by ourselves for the first course, but were later joined by the only solo male on our cruise. He was a bit of an odd fellow, and most conversations with him were uncomfortable ... but I'll save that story for another day. For this particular dinner, he was fairly conversational and not unpleasant, although he ate very quickly and then left.

For appetizers, we had our choice of a fried pork spring roll or a fried fish cake patty. I chose the spring roll.

Soup choices were miso or cream of broccoli. I was in Asia, so of course I was going with the miso!

Dinner entrees were roasted duck rubbed with Cambodian spices, sesame pok choi, and steamed white rice or local style fish tempura. It's really hard for either of us to say no to duck.

And for dessert, we could choose from Cambodian tapioca pudding with "exotic sauce", fresh fruit, or the ice cream flavor of the day. Wanting to stay local, we both went for tapioca.

As it turns out we both really like tapioca. Can't you see the joy on Aaron's face?

There was absolutely nothing wrong with this meal, and the service was great. Even better, when we got back to our room we had clean laundry waiting for us! As past Uniworld guests, we had one bag of laundry done per person, complimentary. With the exception of about two changes of clothes, these baskets represented all the clothing be brought on our trip. Each bag was returned as part of a small basket package filled with perfectly folded laundry ... even our undies were folded!

There was a film of the Royal Ballet of Cambodia offered in the movie room this evening, but we chose to read and sleep instead. It's almost 9:00 p.m. by the time we've finished dinner, and that's late enough for us!

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