Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Day 20 - Monday, March 5, 2018 - Sihanoukville, Cambodia

Some of the best days in life involve a little adventure, and even better is when that adventure comes about unexpectedly. But I get ahead of my account of our day in Cambodia.

It was scheduled to be an 8am arrival and my group arrived on time at the Ocean Bar. But we were joined by a large HAL group that was doing an overnight trip to Angkar Wat. So we headed down to the gangway before any announcement of being able to disembark the ship was made. When we reached Deck 1, we were motioned to go off the ship. Easy peasy. The HAL buses were lined up on the dock so we walked the length and our guide was waiting for us along with our bus for the day. We were a group of 10 in a 15 to 20 person van.  

As we left the port area, the first thing that impressed everyone was the sheer quantity of garbage littering the streets and ditches and waterways. It was so sad to see. The second observation was that the roads were in fair to poor condition. Like Indonesia and Thailand, there were lots of scooters and motorcycles darting in and around the bus. Near the port area on a hilltop was our only temple stop of the day at Wat Leu and it was much like many of the Hindu temples we saw in Indonesia (Bali particularly). This one also had a monkey colony and they definitely scampered up to us in search of food handouts. As well there were women with small children who were looking for a handout.

From the temple we made our way down the main highway (potholes and all) and past the small airport when suddenly the driver pulled over just short of a bridge. We hopped out and walked through a sort of small village down to the water and boarded a long boat. It turned out that we were going to be taking a long ride down the river through the National Park. The river was absolutely muddy with mangrove type banks and there were numbers of fishnets and traps and some fisherman plying their craft. About 2/3 of the way through the voyage, we suddenly crossed the river and pulled up to a rickety looking dock. The dock deck was covered with former boat deck wood and partially round slabs. One really had to be careful in walking this deck as there were gaps from time to time. But that made it part of the adventure. At the end of this dock was a tower about 150 feet tall that looked much like a Western USA or Canada fire tower. The four corner columns were made of concrete and on top was a shaded viewing platform. To get to that platform, one had to navigate a series of stairs of about 10 steps each made of what I'll call "vintage" wood. The steps were pretty easy to navigate, but only one person could be on a section at a time! The views were spectacular over the river and swamp area, but we saw no animals or birds from the platform.  

After our brief visit there, we retraced our steps down the dock and reboarded our little boat. The engine man coiled his starter rope around the starting pulley on the front of the motor, gave it a pull, and the little engine came to life. The front deck hand with only one arm, pushed off the boat and the engine man lowered the propellor into the water, pulled on his throttle string, and off downriver we went.

At a little dock we disembarked the boat and passed by shrimp being dryed on the dock and walked past what in their culture would be considered a "cafe". We reboarded our bus and headed off a red clay dirt road in search of our next destination which was to be the Kbal Chhay Waterfalls. This collection of waterfalls was at the headwaters of the river we had just sailed on. It was at the end probably a 10km or 6 mile gravel road off of the main road. About 1/3 the way up the road we noticed a large dump truck positioned at an angle backwards off the left side of this rough two lane road. It was totally sunk in the mud, but we didn't think much more of it as we had the expectation of seeing a waterfall.

After passing the water treatment plant, at the end of the road is a little village which has little vendors selling various food items and renting out 10'x10' covered platforms that people rent for $10 per day and hold picnics there. Numerous vendors pressed us to purchase flowers and other small items. After a short walk, the waterfalls were actually quite pretty, and people were enjoying the water, although it seemed a bit dirty to me. On the walk back we purchased some deep fried bananas that were extremely yummy.  

On board the bus, we headed back down this rough road; and when we reached the point where the dump truck was in the ditch, however there was now a huge crane positioned in the roadway blocking all but motorbike traffic. After waiting in the bus a bit, I asked the driver if I could get out and take closer pictures and watch the recovery process. He said it was okay so I got out and walked up to the scene where the recovery crew were positioning cables around the truck. Keep in mind that 4 or 5 electrical cables were between the crane and the truck and the crane operator had extended the boom over the wires and the plan appeared to be to lift the 24 ton truck over the electrical wire and place it back upon the road. We watched this process for about 45 minutes to an hour. I went to our guide and asked if his company could send another van to the other side of the incident, but his response was that his driver would probably not permit that. I told our guide that I estimated that it would likely be a couple more hours before the road might (the operative word is might) get cleared. I'll also add that we learned this road was heavily mined and supposedly all the mines were cleared back in 1993 or 1994. That was comforting news. . . Right?

Suddenly a man on a little black Honda scooter rode up to the guide and explained that there was a back road we might be able to take get around this incident. So, we all reboarded the bus and the driver turned it around and headed for that road which turned out to be one I saw earlier, but had no idea where it went. A car turned into the detour road ahead of us and shortly about 8 people bailed out of that car to give it more ground clearance and eventually our driver passed the the car. I should add that the road was the type of road that I routinely ride my dual sport motorcycle on. It was really not a piece of cake to drive in a car, but our bus had lots ground clearance and low gearing.

Eventually we got out to the main road past some little villages, and turned left on the left shoulder (they drive on the right in Cambodia unlike other SE Asian countries) and the driver accelerated to 20-30mph with traffic coming towards us on the shoulder. When a gap appeared, we made our way to the right hand paved lane. Whew, we dodged another bullet.

We then made our way to a nice but rustic beachside cafe where we had the opportunity to enjoy some Khmer food. Both my wife and I chose seafood and vegetable dishes and they were yummy. Angkor beer was $1 per mug on draft and it was very good on such a hot day.

Let me make one further comment on the garbage. Our guide indicated that the previous garbage collector did a fine job, but that the current collector is not adequate. The sheer quantity of the rubbish everywhere was staggering.

Also the Chinese are building extensively here (like they are in the rest of the world). And generally they don't use local labor.

After our lunch we made our way to the local downtown market which was pretty large and had all manner of goods for sale. A visit to a local fishing village was next and it was cool to see some pretty large and very old lathes. There was also a timber framed ship under construction and it was really interesting to see the construction method. They were drilling holes and countersink bolting the exterior planks to the ribs. Those countersunk bolt holes were then filled with a wooden plug and further sealed with a plaster sealer. For a mere $25kUS it could be yours!

The Volendam was within sight distance so the trip back was quick and we said our goodbyes to our guide and reboarded the ship around 4:30pm.

As we reboarded the ship there was more adventure when Angela was flagged by security and told to wait at the entrance and there was a message from the front office. After a few minutes wait, a security person said they would call us in our stateroom. But rather than wait for message, we went directly to the front office and were told that Angela's passport had no blank pages and the officials had to affix a full page sticker over one of her pages that had immigration stamps over 5 years old. Since we got off the ship before the immigration officials processed passports, they were unable to get her permission, so they just went ahead and did it which was fine with us. So it looks like we will need to renew our passports before our next trip so we have enough blank pages. That will be 18 months before they officially expire. I'd say we've done a bit of traveling!

After that little bit of excitement, we enjoyed a light fruit based dinner before going to the evening Main Stage entertainment which was Rikki Jay. He basically did the same show as we previously saw. Unfortunately the Filipino crew show was at 11pm; but fortunately tomorrow is a sea day before we start 4 ports in a row in Vietnam. Hopefully our sea day will not be quite as adventuresome as today was. But you'll have to stay tuned to learn if it was.

 

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