Breathing Different Air

About a month ago I had the opportunity to do some of my first real traveling in Cambodia since arriving here. Aside from several trips into Phnom Penh to see my MCC friends and a short YALT retreat to Siem Reap to see the Angkor Wat temples, I had not done any other significant travel. This trip began with an MCC staff retreat with most of the MCC Cambodia staff and their families, and then ended with some independent travel making my way back to Mesang on my own.

I’ve been trying to find a balance between traveling and spending plenty of time with my host family and community in Mesang, and the first half of my time here has leaned heavily on the latter. This decision was intentional, as I wanted to do everything I could in the beginning of my time here to build connections that would help me during the rest of my term. I'm still doing what I can to connect more with my community here in Mesang, but also starting to do a little more exploring of my less-immediate surroundings in the second half of my term. It was nice to have a chance to breath some different air and see a bit more of the country I am living in.

Our MCC Cambodia staff retreat this year was located in the city of Battambang, about a 9 hour drive from where I live, located in the Northwest portion of the country near the border with Thailand. After Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, Battambang is the next largest city in Cambodia (still not huge though, with a population of about 120,000 people). Cambodia remains a majority rural population, with about 76% of people living in the countryside, and half of all urban Cambodians living in Phnom Penh. Battambang is known for being a Khmer culinary hub, retaining a strong French architectural legacy, and being one of the major rice baskets of the country.

View of the Battambang countryside from the summit of Phnom Sampov.

The past several months have presented some serious challenges for me both in my placement here as well as in my personal life, and having the chance to spend four uninterrupted days with my friends and the support structure of the MCC group was really good for me. I ate meals with friends, went for lots of walks, played cards, danced, explored the city, and just enjoyed relaxing in a group where I felt comfortable and free to be myself (and speak English).

The highlight of this time for me was the afternoon and evening we spent at Phnom Sampov. This is a mountain near the city of Battambang with a number of attractions including a pretty serious hike, caves to explore, a Pagoda on top of the mountain, and a pretty special cave of bats. On the hike up the mountain, we stopped at some caves known as the Killing Caves, which are a collection of caves formerly used by Khmer Rouge as a place to dispose of the weak and the dying during their regime in the late 70’s, and now turned into a memorial to remember these victims and others who suffered under the Pol Pot regime.

Pagoda at the summit of Phnom Sampov.

One of the most special and exciting parts about this place despite the heaviness of the Killing Caves comes from the presence of a large cave that holds over a million wrinkle-lipped free-tailed bats. In the shadow of the mountain these bats emerge from the cave every evening at dusk to a crowd of onlookers waiting for the river of bats to take flight. Sitting under a giant statue of the Buddah carved into the mountainside, we could hear the bats starting to get antsy as the sky darkened throughout the early evening. When they finally emerged, it was a spectacular living trail of animals flowing and pulsing across the sky. A dank and musky smell like the corners of an old crawlspace settled in the valley bottom around us as the bats squeaked and chirped above us on their way to the surrounding rice fields where they protect the nearby crop from pests and fertilize the fields on the way.

The bats emerging from their cave in the side of the mountain at Phnom Sampov to hunt for insects in the surrounding countryside.

The 40 meter high statue of the Buddha carved into the side of the Phnom Sampov.

On the way back from Battambang, the bus dropped me off in a town called Pursat in a province of the same name about 4 hours from Phnom Penh. A sleepy provincial capital town not accustomed to seeing many tourists, it was a fun place to spend a few days and put my Khmer language abilities to the test. A former MCCer who has lived in Southeast Asia in a variety of capacities for the past 50 years, Max Ediger, now lives on a small farm with his adopted Cambodian family just a few miles outside the edge of this town. He and I met up a few times during my stay here to eat together and so I could meet his family.

The main reason for my stop in this town however, was as a jumping point to a small floating village called Kampong Luong on the Tonle Sap Lake about 30 miles from town. I found a moto driver willing to take me there and back for a modest fee of about $12, and set out in the heat of early afternoon. Cambodia, and especially the places I have spent the most time, is a very flat country sitting in the delta of one of world's major rivers. However, as I got closer to the Great Lake, we came upon land about as flat as I can imagine land ever being. As the largest seasonal reverse flow lake in the world, and one of the most productive inland fisheries in the world, it is a special and integral part of the Cambodian landscape. Each year, it expands about 600% in area and 8,000% in volume for a few months during the rainy season when the river that drains the lake reverses, and water from the Mekong River runs into the lake. All the land for kilometers around the lake is inundated, flooding forests and rice fields and restoring the soil.

The floating village of Kampong Luong on the edge of the Tonle Sap Lake.

Floating villages are fairly common around the lake and in various larger rivers in the region, and in many ways function similarly to any other Cambodian village on land. By floating, this allows the entire village to move with the water as it pushes inland during the wet season and stay close to the shoreline. In Kampong Luong, there are homes, gas stations, schools, medical facilities, pagodas, repair shops, and more, all floating on the lake and connected via an intricate network of boating channels. These villages exist for several reasons. Most people who live in these villages rely on livelihoods that are a part of the lake, namely the highly productive fishery. Being on the lake gives them good access to fishing waters and acts as a hub for the export of these products across the region and the country. There is also often high poverty in these villages and a large population of stateless ethnic Vietnamese.

A floating cell phone repair shop in Kampong Luong.

After my short visit to Pursat, I caught a bus to another provincial capital about 2 hours away, Kampong Chhnang. I stayed here for another 2 nights before heading back to Phnom Penh and then Mesang. In Khmer, Kampong Chhnang means “port of pottery,” and the region is very well known for the beautiful and unique pottery created here. There is a single mountain with a name translated as the Mountain of Golden Soil, where the clay for this locally famous pottery is sourced, and a few villages that specialize in this art.

My first day, I rented a bike, and set out to one of these villages situated near the main town to see this production in real time. Andong Russei village sits in the shadow of the aforementioned mountain, looming overhead with obvious pockets of exposed earth where people have harvested large sections of clay. The village was like any other small rural Cambodian village, except under nearly every house, there were stacks of clay pots, and people making more. I had a fun time going over to several homes and watching all the different techniques and chatting with the artisans.

A woman prepares clay for shaping into a mold while sitting under her house.

I spent my other full day here exploring the countryside around the town on bike, hiking another locally famous mountain, and taking another boat ride through a floating village situated on the Tonle Sap River that runs through Kampong Chhnang town. The mountain I climbed is called Phnom Kong Rei, and is the subject of much Khmer folklore that claims the mountain is the body of a fallen ancient deity. The trail leading up the mountain is called the Kings Path, and leads straight up the mountain fading from steep, rough-cut, well-worn stairs at the bottom, to a lightly worn dirt trail at the top.

View of rice paddies and mountains (the mountain where all the pottery clay comes from) from near the top of Phnom Kong Rei on the King's Path.

The floating village here is in much worse shape than the one I saw in Pursat. Local government officials came through this village and destroyed a lot of the semi-permanent structures about a year ago, leaving the people living here in an even tougher conditions than they were living in before. Many people have tied boats together and built makeshift raft platforms on plastic drums where they now live. I found a Vietnamese fisherman who was willing to take me out on a tour of the village, and spent about an hour slowly weaving between floating rigs in his old freshly swept houseboat.

One of the only house-structures left among the floating village residents.

The fisherman who took me on a tour of the floating village along with his grandson.

I spent a lot of time in this post discussing a pretty short period of time, but that’s because a lot of my life in Mesang is falling into a bit more of a rhythm. Not to say things are too easy, or boring, or I have nothing to talk about, but rather that I felt this post should be primarily devoted to another topic besides my homelife and work. I’ll be talking more about those topics in future posts, but for now, please enjoy some additional photos from my travel excursion...