Saturday was a great tour day, just a half day with Mao and our driver, but superb nonetheless. Despite lukewarm recommendations from the guidebooks, we drove to Boeung Tonle Sap, a lake about 10 miles from Siem Reap. It is a remarkable lake, one of Asia's largest. In the dry season, it covers about 3,000 square kilometers. But it in the wet season, it swells to 5 times that size. How it does this is the remarkable part. The lake is on the Tonle Sap river, one of the Mekong River's many, many tributaries. With the spring run-off in the Himalayas, a thousand miles or more away, and then the monsoon, the Mekong rises so much that water is forced back up the Tonle Sap, swelling the lake to 15,000 square kilometers. So the Tonle Sap river runs “downstream” half the year and “upstream” the other half. The lake itself is said to provide half the fish consumed by Cambodians.
The hydrologic facet is one reason to see the lake. The other is the floating villages that inhabit it year-round, moving with the water levels and fishing prospects. We rode a long-tail boat well out into the lake proper, beyond Chong Khneas, and got to see such village life up-close, at least briefly. In addition to the hundreds of fishing/residential boats moored among the vegetation, somewhat reminiscent of Florida mangroves, there are also floating general stores, repair shops, restaurants, saloons, schools, churches, police stations, a gym, clinic, and on and on. An entire village, and not a small one. Mao said 14,000 people live on the lake year-round, 4,000 of them Vietnamese. Over-fishing has become a serious problem.
A short drive on the Phnom Penh highway took us to the so-called Roulos group, a cluster of three temple sites that were the first instances of Khmer capital-building, all 9th century. The largest of these is Bakong, where the mountain-temple style of the next 400 years was first attempted on a large scale. Preah Koh is a short distance away, more brick than stone, but nevertheless impressive. The third Roulos site is Lolei, mostly brick, and far more ruined, but still with good carvings on the lintels. Lolei is significant in that it was set in the first baray, and thus was the first island temple here. The Roulos group is a bit off the tour-bus-beaten track, and so we had all three sites virtually to ourselves.
We spent the afternoon by the Angkor Le Meridien's pool and spa complex, sipping cocoanut milkshakes and tanning ever so slightly—this is what you are required to do at 5 star hotels—and then took a tuk-tuk to the old market downtown. There we strolled and shopped, gawking at the meat and fish and vegetables (“Cambodians eat everything” Mao had informed us), stimulating the local economy modestly, and then had dinner at the Angkor Palm, a seven-dish Cambodian sampler for me, and spare ribs for Vicki.
Further culinary note: tamarinds. At Moore Park, in 1950s Miami, near where my family lived, there was a tamarind tree. My father and I used to walk in the park, and he introduced me to this sweet and very sour shelled, bean-like fruit. I would see them in supermarkets occasionally when we lived in Columbus in the 1970s, but not in the last 20 years or more (and certainly not in Montana!). Tamarinds are native to SE Asia, and an ingredient in Thai cooking especially, and I saw several tamarind trees among the Khmer ruins the past few days. Tamarinds were all over the old market in Siem Reap, and so I bought a dollar's worth. Well, it was probably a nickel's worth, but who's going to bargain when re-connecting with his inner Floridian child of the past? Alas, the tamarinds I bought were not nearly so sour as I'd had in the past. You can't go back.
Further note: vegetation. Many, if not most, of the more interesting and exotic plants ones sees in Florida—and with which I grew up—come from SE Asia, where they are far larger and more prevalent. Every plant I look at here, from cacti and calamandons and hibiscus and orchids to gigantic gum trees and more, evokes memories. Hedges of ming aralias I have seen also evoke memories of the dozens of these fragile plants I have killed, regrettably, over the years, trying to make them thrive in places like Columbus and Dallas and Missoula. And then there are my favorite rhapis palms, everywhere, all the way from northern China to here...rhapis palm trees! My last two potted rhapis palms I left in the care of The University of Montana student center, which has an incredibly large and diverse tropical atrium. I hope to visit them again some day.
The hydrologic facet is one reason to see the lake. The other is the floating villages that inhabit it year-round, moving with the water levels and fishing prospects. We rode a long-tail boat well out into the lake proper, beyond Chong Khneas, and got to see such village life up-close, at least briefly. In addition to the hundreds of fishing/residential boats moored among the vegetation, somewhat reminiscent of Florida mangroves, there are also floating general stores, repair shops, restaurants, saloons, schools, churches, police stations, a gym, clinic, and on and on. An entire village, and not a small one. Mao said 14,000 people live on the lake year-round, 4,000 of them Vietnamese. Over-fishing has become a serious problem.
A short drive on the Phnom Penh highway took us to the so-called Roulos group, a cluster of three temple sites that were the first instances of Khmer capital-building, all 9th century. The largest of these is Bakong, where the mountain-temple style of the next 400 years was first attempted on a large scale. Preah Koh is a short distance away, more brick than stone, but nevertheless impressive. The third Roulos site is Lolei, mostly brick, and far more ruined, but still with good carvings on the lintels. Lolei is significant in that it was set in the first baray, and thus was the first island temple here. The Roulos group is a bit off the tour-bus-beaten track, and so we had all three sites virtually to ourselves.
We spent the afternoon by the Angkor Le Meridien's pool and spa complex, sipping cocoanut milkshakes and tanning ever so slightly—this is what you are required to do at 5 star hotels—and then took a tuk-tuk to the old market downtown. There we strolled and shopped, gawking at the meat and fish and vegetables (“Cambodians eat everything” Mao had informed us), stimulating the local economy modestly, and then had dinner at the Angkor Palm, a seven-dish Cambodian sampler for me, and spare ribs for Vicki.
Further culinary note: tamarinds. At Moore Park, in 1950s Miami, near where my family lived, there was a tamarind tree. My father and I used to walk in the park, and he introduced me to this sweet and very sour shelled, bean-like fruit. I would see them in supermarkets occasionally when we lived in Columbus in the 1970s, but not in the last 20 years or more (and certainly not in Montana!). Tamarinds are native to SE Asia, and an ingredient in Thai cooking especially, and I saw several tamarind trees among the Khmer ruins the past few days. Tamarinds were all over the old market in Siem Reap, and so I bought a dollar's worth. Well, it was probably a nickel's worth, but who's going to bargain when re-connecting with his inner Floridian child of the past? Alas, the tamarinds I bought were not nearly so sour as I'd had in the past. You can't go back.
Further note: vegetation. Many, if not most, of the more interesting and exotic plants ones sees in Florida—and with which I grew up—come from SE Asia, where they are far larger and more prevalent. Every plant I look at here, from cacti and calamandons and hibiscus and orchids to gigantic gum trees and more, evokes memories. Hedges of ming aralias I have seen also evoke memories of the dozens of these fragile plants I have killed, regrettably, over the years, trying to make them thrive in places like Columbus and Dallas and Missoula. And then there are my favorite rhapis palms, everywhere, all the way from northern China to here...rhapis palm trees! My last two potted rhapis palms I left in the care of The University of Montana student center, which has an incredibly large and diverse tropical atrium. I hope to visit them again some day.
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