Koh Paen, agrarian paradise

We were up early to catch the bus from Siem Reap to Kampong Cham. There's not a huge amount to do there, but it was a massive relief not to be constantly harrassed by people trying to sell us stuff, or otherwise extract money from us. I had read another blog post about the town, saying that it has the "only bridge" across the Mekong. I've since seen plenty more, so I now know this is rubbish, but maybe it's the only one in Cambodia. Since the bridge has been built the ferry trade has apparently nearly completely died out and Kampong Cham has become an important transit town.

Inside the tower

The bridge is pretty ugly. However, walking to the other side of it, there is also an old French lighthouse / look-out, which we climbed to the top of. On the way back from the tower, a woman threw a corn cob at Joanne, from the back of a truck. It hit her quite painfully in the chest and gave her quite a shock. We had read that people are much more conservative away from the main tourist areas, and that they object to tourists wearing overly revealing clothing. In preparation for this, Joanne had bought a pair of long baggy trousers before we left Siem Reap, but she was still wearing a vest top. This is the only explanation we could come up with for the attack, but it left Joanne with a rather negative impression of the town. I loved it though.

Bamboo Bridge

The town itself was nothing to see, but there is an Island in the Mekong, called Koh Paen, just as the river passes Kampong Cham. Connecting the island to the town is a bamboo bridge, which we walked across to have a wee look at the island. The bridge seems pretty rickety, but people were driving cars and (mostly) motorbikes across it. The bridge is rebuilt every year after the rainy season ends. During the rainy season the island is accessible only by boat, once the rain sweeps the bridge away. In fact it seems like the bridge may be under continual repair while it is up; some guys were trimming bits of bamboo and laying new strands down as we crossed. When we got to the other side if the bamboo bridge there was a ticket booth where we were charged $1 each, which seemed a bit excessive to me considering we were on foot. Other people on bikes were handing over what looked like smaller notes, but I didn't get a good look. We had a brief look at the island, but it was getting dark so we headed back to town.

Bamboo bridge

The next day I returned alone on a bicycle so I could see more of the island. Again I was charge $1 on the other side, but this time I decided to question it. "How much are they paying?" I asked, indicating some people on a moped. "You are foreign" was the response. I watched someone hand over a 100 riel note. So tourists pay forty times as much as locals then. This is the kind of rip-off I objected to in Cambodia. Some people complain in Vietnam they rip you off, but I never found that; they might start with an outrageously high price, but they are very willing to drop it a lot, if you just play the haggling game a little. I don't think tourist pay much more than locals in Vietnam if they are just willing to put the effort in. In Cambodia, though, most prices seem to be fixed and the price difference for tourist is "official", so there is no way of arguing them down; that's just what the price is for foreigners.

Happy peasants working in the fields

Anyway, it was well worth the dollar. The island is absolutely gorgeous. Everywhere I cycled, there were children shouting "hello" and running after me. Everyone on the island was very friendly and smiley -- with the exception of the older women; most of them are sour-faced and shaven-headed. I mentioned this to someone later, who said "well the older women in this country have had a pretty rough time", which is fair enough I suppose. I didn't find out why their heads were shaven; it may have been permanent mourning, or it may have been that they were nuns. The island is very rural, all the buildings are traditional wooden stilts bungalows, and it just has such a lovely remote village feel to it, which is all a bit strange when there is a regional capital town just over the bamboo bridge. Much of the island is given over to agriculture: tobacco, sesame, and bamboo seem to be the main crops, but most people seem to have jack fruit trees in their gardens too; all over the island chickens, pigs, ducks, and cows wander freely. I wondered how anyone knew which chicken were whose; it seems possible that they are living in the kind of agrarian collectivist utopia which Pol Pot had envisioned. Maybe he visited this island at some point. Mind you, he probably wouldn't have been very impressed with the two schools and one college I passed on the island.

Making my sugar cane juice

On the way back I stopped off at a press, where people squeeze sugar cane juice for you. I'd seen a few of them before, but never bought any. I ended up waiting around for ages while a woman cleaned and re-assembled the equipment, and her husband shaved the bark off several sticks of sugar cane; meanwhile loads of children gathered round to laugh at and watch me, and wait for their juice. The guy had to work pretty hard to turn the press, which works just like a mangle, and for the first time I saw a Cambodian sweating. It was very hot, and I was glad for the crushed ice they filled my glass with from a cool box, before pouring in the sugar cane juice. Surprisingly it's not that sweet. I was expecting something clawingly sweet, but in fact it must have less sugar in it than most of the soft drinks it goes into once it's refined. Ridiculous!

Sugar cane juice

The island left me with a nice warm glow, before we headed off to catch the bus to Kratie.

written by

The Happy Couple on March 9, 2009 from Kampong Cham, Cambodia

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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