Nightswimming (Khymer version)

(photos to follow) The last three days I have awoken to a (pre)dawn chorus of dogs, cockerel, numerous exotic birds and the whooping of gibbons. The jungle is never quiet – less so in the morning. I was staying at an eco-lodge on the banks of Taitai River, only accessible by boat. It’s off grid and not internet connected. People with Blackberries can pick it up but I had a couple of well- deserved ‘disconnected’ days.

Thursday I did a jungle trek. It was humid and hard work (ducking under all the fallen bamboos). A good experience but I think an overrated one. The jungle is best seen from the river (when trekking you are too deep in the forest to see the pattern). But we did see a red squirrel (like, scarlet red), a clearing with rapids that was full of many species of butterfly and – on the river journey home – a toucan. I would have seen none of those things without a guide by my side (well OK I found the butterflies by myself but the rest would have passed me by).

I was in the Cardamom Mountains – apparently the largest standing area of rainforest left in South East Asia. But it’s under threat. One massive hydro-electric dam has gone in – apparently eliminating the last remaining crocodiles in the river (not necessarily a bad thing for the development of river based tourism) and there are more planned. The high mountains are already quite deforested - where there are roads. It’s estimated that Cambodia has lost 25-30% of its forests in the past 25 years. The government just doesn’t have the capacity to patrol them and local officials are easily bribed. There’s a sort of domino effect. Thailand got (a bit) more serious about protecting it’s forests about twenty five years ago - so the loggers just moved next door to Burma and Cambodia. That’s how those who exploit natural resources operate – just find the place with least effective system of governance.

But the highlight of staying on the Taitai was unexpected and unannounced. The water is phosphorent at night. A couple of us went swimming at nine or so – kind of scary in a dark unlit river with no moon and just a couple of flashlights, but as soon as our pinkies hit the water little blue flashes of light started flashing off our toes. We soon jumped in and were giggling like kids and every stroke sent streams of blue particles darting through the water.

The extremely tall and leggy New York journalist who was my swimming partner asked if I minded if she skinny-dipped. How could I object? “As long as you don’t mind if I do”, I said. It was too dark to ogle her anyway. At some point I started singing ‘nightswimming’ – it felt so fitting – and when we got out of the water she told she had met Michael Stipe several times, as he is a patron of her magazine. We shared a long and deep ….conversation. We held hands walking back from the river to the bungalows and she went on straight to bed. I stayed on for a drink. My bungalow was two below hers on the hill. My last sight of the night was her standing naked with her back to the window (and the curtains open) still wet and dripping after the shower. Still phosphorent.

Bye bye Cambodia. Thanks for a great five weeks

Travels in Asia: week 11: Kampot / Kep

This one has taken more than a week to write:

Kampot: A (French colonial) provincial capital. One could almost imagine walking onto a set for Camus' 'l'etranger', except its not so dusty. But it was incredibly hot. And as soon as you left town and hit the dirt roads it got very very dusty. The river meant cool breezes in the morning and evening but stepping but in the afternoon was hotter than anywhere than had been in SE Asia. I'd been there four days and hardly seen anything out of walking distance from my hotel. A bout of (sort of) flu) (one of my fellow hotel guests helped greatly by asking me if I had ever had dengue fever) and a batch of work put paid to that. So I decided to slip it all into one day and do the 'grand tour.' The problem was that the grand tours on offer are designed for two or more people, so I had to discussion to get a reasonable price.

My taxi driver picked me up at 0845 and we headed for our first stop, the salt fields just outside Kampot. This is one of the poorest communities in the area (some people at my hotel were working at schools so had an idea of the social geography) and it felt kind of wrong and awkward to just turn up and take photos and not put anything into the community. Harvesting salt seems like very hard work, is largely seasonal and the workers have very little control over 'the means of production'

.

We then went onto visit an impressive (though not easily photogenic) limestone cave and an impressive pepper and durian plantation. Kampot used to be world famous in France for its pepper production and retains that reputation today. It actually has a geographic designation - presumably dating back from colonial times.

The best (and worst) bit of the day was driving along all the back roads looking at the smallholder agriculture as we went by. My tuc tuc driver was into food and every time we passed a new crop he told me what it was. This evolved into a kind of game with me trying to pre-empt him. He didn’t know the English for marrow and there were a couple of squashes (growing on trellises) that we didn’t recognise. At a couple of points we stopped the tuc tuc and went out into the field to have a closer look.

We passed morning glory (two varieties: the wild local one that grows in ditches. and the cultivated Chinese variety), maize, tomatoes sugar cane, chillies and lettuces. People were obviously growing these on a market gardening scale rather than just for home consumption. There were pigs, ducks, chickens and cattle (though the later looked very malnourished). The blessing of water became obvious. Settlements with irrigation had their second paddy crop planted, had green and fertile plots, more livestock and the villages were more densely inhabited with better quality buildings. Water – source of all life. Everywhere we went to children screamed out ‘hello, hello’ at see a farang pass.

But the journey was also a curse in that the roads were dusty and bumpy and I was felling a bit weak after my bout of flu and didn’t appreciate being flung around in the back of the carriage. So I was kind of glad when we got to our destination: Kep. Famous for its crabs and beaches. It was once the Cannes of Cambodia and its tree lined white chalk beaches are probably the most beautiful I have ever seen – anywhere - ever. It also feels like a ghost town. Being the Cambodian bourgeoisie’s favourite watering hole the Khymer Rouge were particularly ruthless in razing it to the ground. There are burnt out villas and vacant sea front lots all over the pace. Perhaps the beauty of the place makes it all the more poignant. The beach was quite simply the most beautiful that my pinkies have ever squeaked on. I was tempted to spend a few days there – but the ghosts of the past seemed too close and to still infect the town. One day I hope it will arise from the ashes It surely has the potential to be one of the finest resorts in South east Asia

Postcard from Phnom Penh

I had to do some business around town today so hired a tuc-tuc (a moped with a rickshaw attachment) to ferry me around the city; ferry terminal, post office, ATM, printers and opticians. During our trip we went past the American Embassy and I remembered that harrowing scene at the end of Killing Fields when the Americans had to abandon the embassy and the shots of the last helicopter taking off from the roof leaving many Khymers who had sought sanctuary there to a doubtless grizzly fate. Couldn't take a photo though as US embassies are kind of sensitive about that thing.

The litter collection service is on strike here (a 'garbo' earns less than $100 a month, drivers and technicians a little more). Piles of rubbish are starting to mount up at collection points. Its going to get very smelly around soon if they don't come to a agreement with (their Canadian owned) company.

Yesterday I booked my fight to Bhutan (and on to India and back to Brussels). Wow its really going to happen! I have a whole week in Bhutan exempt from visa charges (normally $300 per day) as I will be attending a government - supported conference about organic farming in mountain ecosystems I should soon receive a letter of invitation from the government (which I shall frame and put on my wall). At the same time there's a little sadness - my sojourn in Asia now has defined limits and I face the prospect of an extremely gruelling journey home - with a a fifteen hour layover in Delhi.

Asia Travels week 9: Some 'minor' temples in the Angkor Complex

Day 1 visiting temples (26/1). These are just a couple of the 'minor outliers'! (For real templeheads the first five shots are from Bakong, the second five from Banteay Srei).