Kampong Chhnang

As I mentioned earlier, one of the more interesting things we did on our Mekong cruise was to stop and visit a number of small villages. One particularly different one was Kampong Chhnang, a Cham village.  The Cham are mostly Muslim in this 95% Buddhist country. We happened to be docked there so we scrabbled up the river bank for a visit with our guide. It seemed a bit more prosperous than some of the other villages we'd visited - more cars and better maintained homes, a school that seemed to be thriving, and a lot of small stores along the way, including a pharmacy. 


Our guide told us that they follow Islam, but are not as strict in some practices as in other parts of the world. Women were riding motorbikes and while most had their hair covered, we only saw one or two with their faces covered.  We didn’t see any women driving cars, but we didn’t see that elsewhere either. 


School was just letting out for mid-day as we arrived



This baby was only a few days old. She was born by Cesarean section and was now settled in her mosquito net/crib while her mother and family worked. Note the ever present motorbike nearby. 

Pagodas and temples

One striking thing about Cambodia is how many temples and pagodas there are everywhere. Along the river and in our travels on land we would see several to a dozen an hour. Perhaps it’s my inborn Protestant sensibilities, but it’s hard to see so much gold gilt and statuary in a country so poor. I understand the idea that a place of worship can uplift the even those who struggle daily , but surely some moderation  in favor of food and healthcare would be better?  

Still, many of these temples are beautiful and a number of them have a palpable sense of spirit and stillness. The most remarkable to me was the Vipassana Dhura Pagoda near Oudong. The video gives only a small sense of its majestic vistas. There is also a huge reclining Buddha. This one does include a school and a monastery for nuns who take vows mostly in later years after raising a family. 

This Buddha’s scale can be appreciated if you know that the small portrait near his shoulder is about 24 in. across

The inside of the temple at the top of the hill

We visit a school and chat with kids learning English

One if the most enjoyable moments in our explorations of the villages along the Mekong was a visit to a school in Chong Koh outside Phnom Penh. The cruise line takes a collection from each group of passengers to support weekly English lessons since that’s a skill that leads to better employment. So we arrived in time to  help them with their dialogues. Our guide who is a former teacher led us in a clapping/name-recognition game. 


I lost and my penalty was  to dance or sing. You can guess which one I chose so I led a group rendition of "If you're happy and you know it".


We all left smiling. 

More photos of silk farming and production

We went to two silk factories.  One was mostly concerned with weaving. This one showed the whole process from worm to fabric.  I've read about this,but never seen the actual process.  The larvae hatch and are placed into baskets with mulberryleaves to eat (according to our guide, they tried many other plants, but the worms only like mulberry leaves which have to be imported). When they mature, they are moved to frames of branches where they weave their cocoons.  These are collected and spun into silk thread (video). 

Factories small and large in the New Cambodia

We've visited a number of small businesses: people making sleeping mats, running small, single-family run fish farms, weaving silk, making coconut candy and popped rice.  Some are probably kept alive by the tourist bus trade, but they are interesting in a historic way.  Others seem to be part of the new Cambodian push for greater prosperity. It's hard to watch some of the working conditions (many of us came away from the mat-making factory with coughs leading us to wonder about the lungs of the women who work there all day.  The fish farm was bustling and apparently successful, but had evidence of all the concerns regarding fish farming generally (cramped tanks, overflow to the surrounding river and wild fish, fed a diet of old fish bones and flesh cooked down....).  Hard to decide when our first world filter is appropriate or not.  These people are happy to have steady work. Too easy to judge the way they achieve that.  And yet, one could hope for a more sustainable model to be introduced.  In the countryside yesterday our guide explained that one of the biggest industries here is clothing manufacture.  The government is trying to push more of the factories out of the big cities.  Advantages include less pollution density and more abundant jobs in the rural areas.  Also since the workers (mostly women) can then live at home, they don't have to spend as much on living expenses as they would in the city and can remain integrated in their communities.  To get to work and back, they travel by bicycle, motorbike, or many ride in commuter trucks - flatbed with rails all around in which up to 50 or so women ride standing up and packed in like a Tokyo subway car.  One of our lecturers noted that an interesting development from that ruralization of industry is that there are now a large number of young women with money enough for a smart phone - allowing them to be informed and connected in a new way. He mentioned that already some local candidates have been voted out.  Many layers to the changes here.  Another guide mentioned that the dominant party (Cambodian People's Party) still manipulates election results to make sure they're still on top so it seems the old guard will die hard. 


This woman is dyeing reed strips before they’re woven into sleeping mats (high on my suspect list for the cough many of us developed that evening). 



Family-owned fish farm on the Mekong.  The big metal tank is a giant cooker where all the unused fish parts get cooked down to feed the next generation of fish





Silk-weaving factory. This one was in-between. Probably fewer than 100 workers.  





Commuter truck - this one was near the end of its run. Imagine about 50 more people standing in the back.  

Cao Dai

Cao Dai is a religion that was founded in Vietnam in 1926. It attempts to unite Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism, with elements of Christianity and a wide variety of saints, including Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc,Victor Hugo and Sun Yat Sen, Muhammed, Louis Pasteur, and Lenin. Adherents believe this is "the Third Great Universal Religious Amnesty" when all religions can unite.  Women are viewed as equal to men, but cannot hold either of the 2 highest positions in the church (don’t get me started). 


We visited a Caodaist temple in Sa Dec.Their churches are famous for their eclectic architecture, colorful ornamentation, and use of neon. We also learned hat the Caodaists offer free burials, including pick up of the body, within 2 hours of being called, in a wildly decorated "dragon car" (the vehicle behind the gate in the picture) So families who are too poor to pay for a funeral can see their loved ones taken care of it. 

:  

On the other hand, in order to join the sect, a vow is required

"I vow that from now on I will know only one Cao-Dai Religion (God-Way Religion), I will never change my mind, I will live in harmony and be a close member of the believer's community, I will observe Cao-Dai Laws and Regulations. Should si change my mind shall be exterminated by Haven and EarthRegulations.  Should I change my mind,"


Wild stuff

Sa Dec continued

Day 4 afternoon had 3 stops: a visit to "the Chinese House" which is reported to be the family home of the Older Chinese man the Margueritte Duras wrote about in her autobiographical novel, The Lover. 



Next we had a walk through the local open air market where the vegetables looked so beautiful I wished I had a kitchen to cook them in. There were other less familiar items like live snakes, skinned "river rats" (yes actual rats, but supposedly only feeding on rice), and buckets of swimming eels. I'll spare you the pictures of the animals. , but I did manage to capture several vendors calling out their wares. 


The last visit was to a Caodaist temple. More on that in the next post. 

Cai Be and Sa Dec

On Day 4 we took a small tender boat to the little town of Cai Be and the larger, more prosperous seeming, Sa Dec. In Cai Be we saw a sweet little French Gothic Cathedral and then  visited a rice paper factory (the kind you use to make summer rolls or spring rolls). The process is a lot like making a crepe and just as deceptively simple on first glance. One of our companions had a go (not too successful).


We also watched women making coconut candy. The kids just stay by the side while the women are working.  You can see that methods of occupying them are similar to the ones employed in the states. 


Over on the side a fellow was making popped rice using superheated black sand which then gets sifted out. In order to waste nothing, the hulls are burned to heat the sand resulting in a smoky flavor in the final product.