Buddhism, Barangs and Bicycles...
on Sarah G in Cambodia (Cambodia), 01/Oct/2008 02:10, 34 days ago
Kampong Cham is a tumble weed town - we are learning to speak Khmer here to ensure our knowledge doesn’t extend to ‘som, khnom chang ting srabia mouy doub’ (can I have another beer please) as it might if we had stayed within the (fairly) bright lights of the capital. Khmer is hard to learn, made harder with a hangover.Cycling round the streets of this forgotten river port one of VSO's best bikes, Im greeted with a chorus of‘hellos’ and the occasional cry of ‘barang’, the affectionate Cambodian name for westerners meaning...'long nose'. Its not malicious - I don’t think Cambodians have it in them, its almost a compliment. Westerners are told 'your so beautiful, you have such a big nose'! My bike fits in well on the Cambodian transport scene; it lacks gears and brakes. So the advice to‘just keep going’ at crossroads (noted in my last blog) is valued as its my only real option.This weekend was ours thanks to the Buddhist festival P’chum Benh. Buddhism is the state religion and most of the country would class themselves so. Many may not understand the main teachings but the religion still underpins how society works and the way people think.This contributes how lovely the people are, we are so warmly welcomed everywhere and while this may be somewhat influence by the amount of wealth we are perceived to have, it does feel more genuine than other places I have visited.Some of the most friendliest people around are the monks. Most men under 30 become a monk at some point whether it is for 10 years or 10 days. Though not being allowed to touch a women is one of 227 rules, they are pretty keen to talk to the females in our group.As part of P’chum Benh Cambodians take food offerings to the temple for their dead relatives. The dead relatives don’t seem too fussy, they’ll accept anything - rice, sweets, a cup of coffee, diet coke, etc. However it you don’t take any thing you are in trouble, your relatives soul is cursed and will bother you for the rest of the year.We decide on P’chum Benh day to do like Cambodians and visit the temple:The Lonely Planet says‘local expats like to cycle to Wat Hanchey in the dry season. Err...its not quite the dry season…but we left anyways. Typically (and hence the name wet season) the heavens opened when we reached the temple. Monsoon rain is nothing like English rain, after a couple of minutes you need to squeezeout your bones to feel dry again. So there we were, two hours from home sheltering under a plastic sheet. All would have been fine had myself, Emma and Hollie not needed the bathroom....Cue our second 'adventure toilet experience’ in as many days (the previous day Emma, Janice and I had jumped off a boat into knee deep mud, to go behind a wall of different monastery - much to the amusement of our otherVSO colleagues).After far too many minutes trying to explain to the Cambodians what we needed (its one of the those you can’t do the actions for if you want to retain any aspect of your dignity) we were directed to the monks toilet - fully adorned with monk toothbrushes and buckets of orange robes. If I could have got any wetter, this would have been the place to do it. A waterfall was coming in (worryingly) through the electric light fitting but it was a toilet non the least, even if it did give ‘wet room’ a whole new meaning! We made it home drenched but fine - think if I was an expat I would stick to the dry season too.Just a few more days before I head off for a week to visit the place I will be working, looking forward to finding me a new home… photos of last weeks are here:http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33206&l=e055a&id=509349727Sx