Our tuk tuk driver, Hong, took us to Tonle Sap river about half an hour south of Siam Reap where we went to a desk which told us it was US$20 per person to go to the lake (the price has doubled since 2010 when it was only US$10 per person). We paid and got ushered down a steep ramp to the many waiting boats below. Each boat is about 10 meters long and has a covered cabin with some deck chairs. We had one boat to ourselves with a "driver", another young man, the tour guide, who spoke English and a kid about 10 years old to do all the jobs the other two felt were beneath them.
Our tuk tuk driver Hong. A great expense at US$10 per day. :-)
We then started to go up the river towards the lake. Our English speaking tour guide then started to tell us about the lake. During the flood season, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people live on the lake. They live in floating houses and mainly fish for sustenance. The rest of the year, they move off the lake into the various rivers where the flimsy houses can withstand the winds. We were there during the "windy time" and thus all the houses were in the Tonle Sap river.
Typical floating houses. They are usually built on top of a boat or on top of a few 40 gallon drums.
Apparently three groups of people live on the lake together. They are Cambodian, Vietnamese and Muslim. While going up the river, our guide asked us to guess where our "driver" came from. He didn't have the regular Khmer (Cambodian) features so we guessed "Thai?", "Vietnamese?", "Chinese?". After a few more guesses, by which time there were all laughing uproariously at our ignorance our guide shouted "he's Muslim"! Well, maybe it makes sense to a Cambodian, but it didn't to us. After a few more questions, our guide thought that the Muslims on the lake had probably come from Malaysia a long time ago as traders who had settled in Cambodia.
As we travelled up the river, we saw floating buildings of every type needed to support a community living upon a lake.
Floating Church
Floating drinking water plant.
Floating Police Station
As we went up, the tour guide began to tell us about the floating schools. The schools are so poor he said, but we would have the opportunity to stop in at a shop (conveniently right next door to a floating school) where we could buy fresh water or exercise books which we could then donate to the school. This started to reek of a scam to us. We went to the shop and immediately noticed that everything was at least 5 times the regular price. Everyone then started to tell us how we had to buy things for the students as the school was so poor they couldn't afford books or water. From where we stood at the shop, we could see bright red donation boxes on the floating school and we asked why we should buy something from the shop when we could just donate the money to the school instead. Funnily enough they said that all the donations at the school went to the teachers, but anything bought from the shop went to the students. We didn't believe them for a minute. We didn't buy anything from the shop after which our guide and "driver" were in a foul mood with us as they had missed out on some lucrative kick backs from the shop. We then went to the floating school where we got to meet the children and see the facilities on board. Stan looked carefully for any evidence that the "donated" goods from the shop were put to use, but none of the exercise books were of the same brand that the shop sold and there were no bottles of water to be seen. Instead, the children drank the same community drinking water everyone else did. We believe that everything you buy from the shop to donate to the school goes back to the shop overnight to be resold to the next lot of gullible tourists who come along. Its very sad really to see the scams that you come across in the rest of Asia (particularly Vietnam) starting to appear in Cambodia.
Luckily for the children, we brought something much nicer than water or exercise books. Nicole opened a bag of candy and was immediately swamped by 30+ kids.
The teacher picked up a stick and immediately they all behaved and lined up for a candy. Perhaps not the best thing for their teeth, but probably better than donating water and exercise books that they would never get to use.
We travelled a further up the river handing out candy to other children we passed.
We finally got to the mouth of the river and stopped at a large floating restaurant/shop on the lake. Our guide and driver were still annoyed with us for not buying the overpriced water to donate to the school so they told the little kid to show us around the area. There was a fish farm (catfish) and a crocodile farm on board.
Next to the restaurant there was a cute girl paddling what looked like a large bowl holding a snake which she was offering the tourists $1 to have a photo taken with. These large bowls are what most of the children used to paddle around in.
Of course, not every child had the luxury of a bowl to paddle in. Some of the poorer ones had to swim through the water and reeds.
We then travelled up river the way we came. On the way, we saw a wedding taking place on one of the large floating community platforms.
All in all, this trip is worth doing. You see an important part of Cambodian life and culture. It is sad to see that they are adopting some of the scams that are so common in other South East Asian countries. We think most people would would welcome the chance to donate money to worthy causes, but when you know that your generosity only enriches the people who are thriving off tourists, you really don't want to give them your money.
The final scam came when we got back to the docks. The "driver" and tour guide told us that they expected a tip, the normal tip being $5. When you multiply this by the number of runs per day they do, they are paid far far far more than the ordinary Cambodian. We told them that we had donated all our money to the school (which we had) and had nothing left to give them. Again they were annoyed with us, but we didn't really care.
No comments:
Post a Comment