Monthly Archives: April 2012

Another Encounter with Poverty

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One interesting thought for tourists about visiting a developing country like Cambodia is whether to choose touristy activities that show the best that the country has to offer (and may ‘shield’ the visitors for the dark reality of being in a poor, developing country), or to expose oneself to the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parts of the country. I can understand that for some, going on ‘vacation’ means going on a ‘trip of a lifetime’ perhaps focusing on the places like Angkor Wat or going to white sandy beaches in Thailand, and during that time, not thinking about the troubles and realities of the world. However, I think it’s important to not purposefully turn a blind eye on these realities or be shocked when you see such things during your travels.

When we went on the trip to visit the floating village of Chong Kneas, our boat ride towards the floating village passed some very poor villages along the river. From far away, these places look like slums with shacks, unpaved roads, and even some naked little children running around on outside the homes. It was definitely unexpected sights to see during a ‘tourist boat ride.’ Our tour guide Vanna said that these are the realities in many parts of Cambodia; a lot of tourists who stay in isolated tourist destinations like downtown Siem Reap would never see these scenes. And when you compare the GDP per capita in the last four years in Cambodia (around USD $900) to the United States (around USD $47,000), it puts things in perspective how rich and fortunate we are in the United States.

That brings interesting questions as I thought about that experience. The government of Cambodia tried to promote the visit to the floating village in Chong Kneas as a unique cultural experience that foreigners can take. The question is, should they try to ‘sanitize’ and clean up the surroundings to give a brighter, happier look at the people of Cambodia, or leave things as is and show the reality, even if it may mean ‘shocking’ some visitors?
Then, as a visitor, what should your reaction be if you do encounter such scenes? I found an interesting account from a visitor who came to visit Chong Kneas as tourist when I did search on Google.

The photo below was taken from our boat as we passed one of the villages. You can see some of the homes where people lived, and there was a little naked boy in the distance standing near one of the homes.

Poor village

Chong Kneas Ferry Port

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Chong Kneas is a floating village on the Tonle Sap Lake that has become a popular tourist destination for those who want to observe life on a floating village that is dependent on the most important lake in Cambodia. To visit the village, one must drive or take public transit to get to the port from Siem Reap (about an hour drive), then take a small boat from there to visit the village.

When we arrived at the port, one thing that was quite noticeable was how new the port building was, and it looked a bit out of place in comparison to the surroundings. Our tour guide Vanna explained that the port was pretty new — it was built a few years ago by a South Korean investment company that saw tourism there as a business opportunity. It used to be that one would get to the river bank and would have to find and haggle the price of a ride to visit the floating village with the boat driver. Now it all seemed to be organized at the port where there is a ticket booth where passengers would purchase tickets and then getting assigned to a particular boat.

While the new development sounded good on the surface to the visitors who want to avoid the hassle and the risk of getting ripped off, there was a controversy as some saw the coming of the foreign management company as bringing in the regulated system without consulting the people who rely on the boat tourism for their livelihood. Where it used to be competition among the boaters, now it’s regulated by the management company, and the boats are rotated. The equality means it’s good for some, but not for others. Tour operators also had mixed reactions to the development. Some welcomed the change that would help protect the visitors from getting ripped off, but others had already had business arrangements with local boaters to obtain fair pricing for their tour guests that now would have to renegotiated with the management company in the middle as part of the equation.

For us, since our visit was part of a tour package, we didn’t have to worry about getting the tickets. When we arrived at the port, Vanna asked us to wait at the entrance of the port while he went to the ticket booth and got the tickets for us. We didn’t ask how much we were charged for it; all we knew was that we had a chartered boat just for us: Kristi, myself, Vanna, and the accompanying boater. It might be interesting to find out out how much it ended up costing us per head, and out of that price, how much actually end up at the hands of the boater himself.

The photo below was taken from the boat overlooking the port, as we waited for our boat to leave the dock. You could see the port looked like being added on to the landscape, and you can probably imagine what it was like before the port was there with just the dirt river bank and the boats docked there.

Chong Kneas port

Tonle Sap

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Tonle Sap is a combination of a lake and river system in Cambodia that has very significant impact to the lives of people in the country. It is the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia. It is also very unusual for two reasons: its flow direction changes twice a year, and the lake expands and shrinks dramatically between seasons. For most of the year, the lake is fairly small and shallow, around 1 meter deep and about 2,700 km2 in area. However, during the monsoon season, the Tonle Sap River reverses its flow and pushes water from the Mekong River into the lake, increasing its area to 16,000 km2 and its depth up to nine meters, flooding the surrounding area. The floodplain provides a breeding ground for fish, and the area is among the most productive fisheries areas in the world. It supports a population of around three million people, and it accounts for 75% of annual fish catch in Cambodia.

After we had a little bit rest after the sunrise trip to Angkor Wat, we packed up and checkout from our hotel for our last day of sightseeing in Siem Reap area that would end at the airport as we would continue our trip to Vietnam at the end of the day. The first place on our agenda was to visit a floating village on the Tonle Sap in an area called Chong Kneas. We drove about an hour southwest of Siem Reap to get to the port before boarding a small chartered boat that would take us to the floating village. On the way to Chong Kneas, we passed villages with houses high on stilts. Our tour guide Vanna explained that they needed to do that because these villages would be flooded during the monsoon season as the Tonle Sap expanded to cover a much larger area.

Vanna showed us the map of the Tonle Sap area to give us an idea the area comparison of the lake surface between the low and the high season. On the map, the area in blue marked as Tonle Sap lake is what it’s like when it’s in low season. The red lines around the lake are actually National Highways, but the reason why they’re built where they are (further out from the lake) is because during the monsoon season, the lake size is roughly close to where those red lines are located. That’s definitely quite unique, and the people who live around the lake had learned to adapt to the changes, and hey are also dependent on the lake to support provide sustenance and as a major source for the regional economy.

Tonle Sap

Camrys

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When visiting Cambodia, one thing you will notice on the street is the popularity of a Toyota Camry. It seems that if you go anywhere, if you go on a sedan, it’s likely to be a Toyota Camry. Not really sure how that came about, but these days a lot of used Camry, mostly five years old or older, are imported from other countries like the United States and sold in the used car market in Cambodia.

During our visit in Cambodia, when we were in Phnom Penh we had two separate drivers who took us around on the first couple of days there. Both drove Camrys. When we were in Siem Reap, we went around in passenger vans, so those were not Camrys. But we still saw many of them around also in Siem Reap. On the New Year’s Eve night, while waiting for our hotel shuttle to arrive, Kristi and I looked around for the cars passing by to see if indeed Camry was the most popular car in Cambodia, and sure enough, I think more than half of the cars we saw that were not buses or passenger vans were all Camrys. We also noticed another model that was pretty common, Lexus RX300. Knowing that Lexus is made by Toyota mostly for the US market, my guess is that these cars were originally used in the US, but then in its later part of life it was sold and brought into Cambodia.

I asked our tour guide Vanna about this. He said, yes, Camry definitely is the car of choice in Cambodia. He said there are three brand names that are household names in Cambodia: Nokia, Honda, and Toyota. Most people own a cellular phone, and while you might find Blackberrys and Apple iPhones occassionally, the most popular brand of phones was undoubtedly Nokia. Not many people can afford to buy cars, so for personal transportation it’s more common that people would buy a scooter, and the most popular brand for scooters in Cambodia was Honda. And for those who have enough money to purchase a car, the popular choice was a Toyota Camry. Vanna said one day he wished he would have enough money to get one.

I looked for a photo among the collection I took during our trip in Cambodia for one that best used for this post. Below is one that didn’t make it to my photojournal album for the trip, but I think it’s a good example of what you see in Cambodia. This was taken from the back seat of our car (a Camry) during a drive in Phnom Penh after we visited the Killing Fields. The scene that caught my attention was the motorcycle on the left carrying bags full of lime, a key ingredient in Khmer cuisine. But you can also see on this photo in the background on the opposite side of the street several other people in scooters (quite a common sight in Southeast Asian countries), and on the right, another car right in front of us, and you guessed it, it’s a Toyota Camry.

Bags of lime and Camry

Breakfast with the Crew

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When traveling with a chartered tour group, typically there might be a tour guide and support crew (e.g. driver) who would take the group from place to place. But when it comes time to a meal time during the tour, when the group goes to a restaurant or a particular place to eat, the crew would either be the ones serving the food, or else they would leave the guests eating at the restaurant while they would go separately or wait elsewhere. I noticed that during our first couple of days in Siem Reap; our tour guide Vanna and driver Hour would take us to a restaurant, and then would leave us there to enjoy our meal and meet us outside the restaurant once we’re done.

On our last day in Siem Reap, after we spent the early morning at Angkor Wat experiencing the first sunrise of the year, it was time for us to head back to the hotel to pack up and later on continue with our tour for the day. However, since it’s a private tour and we got to call the shot on the itinerary for the day, I asked Vanna and Hour if we could go to a good place where local folks would go for breakfast, and I told them that Kristi and I would like to have them join us for the meal — our treat. The only ‘requirement’ was that the place we would go to has to be one that both of them would go themselves if they were to go out on their own.

Vanna suggested a restaurant in downtown Siem Reap that was popular with the locals. The price was not cheap for them, but it’s still reasonable enough that he said he would go there once every few weeks or so when he would like to eat out. So we went to a restaurant called Kids Plaza — named that way because it had indoor playground for the kids. Vanna said it’s one of his favorite restaurants in the city, especially good for breakfast.

We had really good breakfast there. Good food (noodle soups, rice porridge, fresh juice) and also good conversations. We found out that our driver Hour used to be a driver at the Amansara, an ultra-luxurious but low key resort in Siem Reap. The Amansara is part of the Aman Resorts, which is a small but among the highest rated hotel groups in the world. The founder of Aman Resorts, Adrian Zecha, is part Indonesian. Hour told the story how Mr. Zecha was very down to earth and friendly to his employees and guests.

The photo below was taken right before we enjoy our meal together. It was a nice experience as we got to thank them for their service taking us to places during our visit to Siem Reap. We also got to learn about their life stories; now we consider them as friends rather than simply people who serve us during our trip. I think if you can, that would be a great idea to do when visiting a place, try to make it personal by building friendship / relationship with the locals you encounter. It makes for a unique, unforgettable experience.

Breakfast with the crew