Bank Holiday Weekend.... Kampong Cham Stylee!
on Meg's Cambodian Adventures (Cambodia), 01/Oct/2008 01:55, 34 days ago
30thSeptemberThis weekend was a very big Buddhist festival which meant that everything closed down and we had a Monday without Khmer school… yay! The festival rests around the idea that once a year the people in hell are allowed to come back to earth to eat since there is no food in hell. So people are expected to take food from far and wide to the temple for the monks to pass on this food to their dead ancestors in hell, otherwise they will cry and haunt the family on earth…but for us it means a long weekend!On Saturday we had our weekly pub quiz, run and attended by only us… kampong cham doesn’t have a lot going on in the evening and we have to amuse ourselves! We do attract attention from the locals since we extended the scope of pub quiz to include3 legged races and the like! On Sunday we got up early, we had hired a wooden boat and driver for $4 each to take us out on the Mekong for the day. First of all we went to a wooden pagoda, one of the only ones left undistorted by the Khmer rouge and it was beautiful. As always we were accosted by tinyold nuns who have no hair and teeth, but very big gummy smiles! Last time we went to a temple they were stroking holly’s ‘long’ nose and gave us all rice to give to the monks for our ancestors. We also attracted the usual crowd of children wanting to talk and have photos taken, on this occasion they hijacked my camera and showed off their skills as budding photographers, I was glad to get it back though! Nextstop on the boat as the silk village where people live in wooden house amongst the lush green plants (banana trees and other green stuff?) and dye and weave beautiful silks. Before the Khmer rouge they made the silks here entirely, but during the era the mulberry fields used to feed the silkworms and now they have to import the materials from Vietnam. Its astonishing learning how the Khmer rouge had an effect on everyone and left no-one untouched,… On the way back we were caught in a monsoon downpour in the boat and got totally soaked but luckily we had already had a swim in the river so wewere wet anyway, I did however get a very attractive sunburnt face! Ouch!On Monday, we set off early on the 20km cycle to Wat Hunchey, not an easy task on very uncomfortable ancient bikes in the baking heat (especially whilst already sunburnt!) Once there, pretty exhausted, we has to climb a million steps to the wat built on the top of the hill… why must they always e on hills?! Howver we were rewarded with gummy nuns, happy kids and breathtaking views. It is a suoer atmostphere, very carnival like and relaxed! But after about an hour the torrential rain started and we decided to brave it back… luckily our bikes had not been washed away at the bottom of the hill, although secretly it would have given us a good excuse to get a tuk tuk :o) The cycle back was very difficult since the rain was so heavy and the roads had turned to mud and it was difficult to serve past the cows and every 2 seconds along the road children were tryingto talk to us, at first I was cute but oi have a feeling that after a year it will be very nice to feel invisible! We eventually made it back, drenched again and hoping that the very uncomfortable bike seats have not done permanent damage to our bums. :o)