7/15 Inle Lake Boat Trip

7/15/2013: It seems that the big thing to do at Inle Lake, once you arrive, is a "boat trip." I was hesitant, since it sounds like a major tourist trap. My trekking crew all agreed to go in on a boat together, although Vitse had to cancel because of massive blisters on his feet. Stef, Vic, and Matt met me at my hotel in the morning and we hopped in the long-tail boat. Unfortunately I left my camera battery charging in my hotel room, so I wasn't able to take any pictures. We cruised back south and pulled into a different canal, then the boat driver signaled that we get out and go to the "market." We didn't see any markets, and I was afraid it would be a market with strictly tourist schwag like mass-produced paintings and various trinkets. We had to walk thirty minutes and eventually reached an actual market where we were the only tourists. It may sound boring, but it's pretty interesting to just wander around and see the strange food products for sale, the funny t-shirts in broken English, and just getting a snapshot of a typical day for an Inle Lake resident.

The next stop was the goldsmith and silversmith shop. Again, I had low expectations, but it was actually very interesting to see each step in the process of extracting silver from ore and then turning it into jewelry. There were a number of kids working on the jewelry, which was disheartening, but we figured maybe they were "apprentices" and not "child laborers" and that if they weren't working in this shop, they'd just be farming or fishing.

After that, we visited the lotus weaving shop, which followed the same format as the silversmith where they show you the raw material and every step along the way and then try to sell you something by the end of it. The shop was built like all the other buildings in the area, on stilts above the shallow lake. Different buildings were connected by rickety bamboo bridges, so it was fun just wandering around. The lotus weaving was interesting - they take the stem of the lotus, break it apart, and there are thin fibers that can be collected and then spun into thicker string. They showed us some women (and some girls) working looms and producing lotus fabric, as well as silk and cotton. The tour guide girl estimated that it takes between 20-25 lotuses to produce one meter of lotus string. There's a huge swath of lotuses floating outside the shop, so their raw materials are cheap, but producing the lotus material is expensive - lotus fabric costs around seven times more than silk, but supposedly Inle Lake is the only place in the world where lotus fabric is produced.

Working the loom

We stopped for lunch at a "floating restaurant," which was great. The next stop was a pagoda, which wasn't mind-blowing. After that we visited a cigar-making shop, which once again was better than I expected. We just sat on stools and watched four women (well, two women and two girls) make cigars while they explained what goes into the tobacco and how the cigars are made. They let us smoke a "sweet" one, which was decent - along with tobacco, it contained banana, anise, honey, and other things I can't remember. Each girl makes around 500 cigars per day.

Cigar making - the fastest  one in the group

 The last stop of the day was a monastery, purported to have cats that have been trained by the monks to jump through hoops. Clearly this was the grand finale, and we had all been looking forward to it. We got off the boat, entered the monastery, and saw a number of cats lounging around. There were also a lot of other tourists, obviously eagerly waiting for a cat jumping show. Unfortunately, it never came. The cats all seemed pretty sleepy, so maybe they had been jumping earlier in the day. We watched some kittens and petted some cats, but that was it. The end of the day was a bit disappointing, but the day turned out to be much more fun than I had expected.

I grabbed some Indian street food for dinner back in Nyaungshwe, which was more like oil soup with bits of beef, then packed up and got ready for my bus ride to Bagan early the next morning.

7/14 Inle Lake Trek Day 2

7/14/2013: We were back on the trail fairly early, as the village seems to go to sleep rather early and then wakes up soon after dawn. The night before, the family that owns the house we stayed in slept in the adjacent room to ours, and we had all heard the grandmother talking in her sleep and we all had a good laugh. She didn’t remember a thing.

The hike took us past a big monastery where we could hear little monks reciting Buddhist scripture. We had one more big ridgeline to cross before starting the descent towards Inle Lake. We met up with a bigger road, one that can support cars, and apparently it had been built for access to a planned power plant and cement factory. We came across a smaller village as we continued to ascend, and they were in the middle of their annual procession up to the top of the mountain to pay respects to their ancestors and make offerings of food. It was a long line of people in colorful clothes, maybe 50 or 75 people in all. Many of the women had big plates of food balanced on their heads, and some of the men were carrying large drums, others with big crates of potatoes or other vegetables. One man offered a potato to Stef as he passed by, and he didn't know what to do with it. We waited for the procession to pass and it felt like two different worlds colliding. Many of the hill-tribes in Myanmar still practice some mixture of animism and Buddhism, where they believe that certain animals are spirits and they worship their ancestors.

We reached the top of the pass at around 4,500 feet, high enough and cool enough for pine trees to grow, then dropped 1,500 feet down to a long inlet on the west side of the lake. The other side of the pass was much drier and hotter, and reminded me more of the New Mexico landscape. We arrived at a little village along a canal that leads into the lake and had some fried noodles and celebrated a successful expedition. We hopped in a long-tail boat and cruised across the lake to Nyaungshwe, on the northern edge of the lake. Along the way we passed people fishing from dug-out canoes, as well as other people practicing the traditional fishing technique that Inle Lake is known for - standing on the back end of the canoe and handling a net while using their leg to operate a wooden paddle. The sun was shining and the surrounding mountains were beautiful. Inle Lake was a nice, clean, cool relief from the rest of Southeast Asia.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130714InleLakeTrekDay2?authuser=0&feat=directlink

 

7/13 Inle Lake Trek Day 1

7/13/2013: At my hotel I arranged for a two day, one night trek from Kalaw to Inle Lake. Inle Lake is a popular tourist destination between Yangon and Mandalay and a little to the east. It is higher in elevation, so nice and cool, and is home to many different hill-tribes. Two days of hiking is not enough to get from Kalaw to Inle Lake, so I was driven part-way and met up with a trekking group that had left Kalaw the day before and were just starting their second day. This was nice because it made my trip cheaper and I also had some companions that spoke English instead of just the local guide.

There were two incredibly tall Dutch guys named Steph and Vitse and an English couple - Vic and Matt. Steph and Vitse were really getting stared at a lot - Steph was probably 6'5, and Vitse around 6'8. I'd guess that Myanmar is one of the shorter countries in the world. Everyone was very friendly and had really enjoyed their first day on the trail. Our guide was Uzaw, a 60 year old Burmese guy from Kalaw that has been guiding for fifteen years.

The hike wasn't really in the wilderness, but more through farmland and villages throughout the rolling hills outside of Inle Lake. The scenery was beautiful, and it felt like another world seeing how the local people lived. Uzaw was pointing out all the different crops and explaining how people make cement, etc. Whenever we got to a village, he would explain what hill-tribe it was and some of their customs. Children would come running, knowing that Uzaw gives them candy, and then some would get scared and run away when they saw us. These villages all had their own local language and customs, and in some of them, marrying outside of the tribe meant being ostracized from the village. All of the people were very smiley and friendly, although there was no way of communicating with them. People still typically wore "longyis," but the women typically wore some colorful scarves around their heads. Most people were out in the surrounding fields working on their crops. 

A hill-tribe village

We stopped for lunch in one village and were seated on the floor in a room upstairs. We had the same cook for each meal. He would cook for us in whatever house Uzaw picked in the village, then clean up and drive ahead on his motorbike to the next village and get the next meal ready. We joked about the term "trekking," which no one uses in regular conversation at home. I thought it sounded a bit more grandiose than what we were actually doing, and we debated about how to classify hikes, treks, and expeditions. For the rest of the trip, we were on any one of those three types of trips, depending on the current conditions (i.e. drinking a warm beer bumped the trip up to an expedition). A little girl, around maybe 10 years old, was hanging out in our lunch room with us and made a "paper flower" for Vic, and was practicing other origami (like "fortune tellers"). I only know how to make a cup in origami, so I made her a cup with some scrap paper I had, but she didn't seem very impressed.

The hike continued through the afternoon, passing over ridges, then dropping back into farmed valleys, crossing paths with local people along the way and smiling and waving. We eventually reached the only gap in a steep ridgeline where a bigger village had formed, and Uzaw told us we'd be sleeping there that night. 

Our sleeping arrangement for the night

Complete with electricity

We got settled into our sleeping area - an upstairs room in a wooden house, sleeping on straw mats on the floor. The little kids from downstairs were curiously watching us and eventually ended up playing with all of our electronics. Dinner was delicious, and then we headed down to the main road where there was a little shop with tables and chairs and we drank some beers before calling it a night.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130713InleLakeTrekDay1?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/12 Day 2 in Yangon

7/12/2013: I was woken up in the morning when the cleaning crew came into the 8 bed dorm room I was sleeping in and didn't notice me, the only one remaining, sleeping in the corner. Eventually they saw me and scampered out but it was too late and I was awake.

I wandered through Shrimp Hell Market again, looking for a big poncho for my upcoming trek, but was unsuccessful. I passed by my umbrella guy, then up and over the train tracks, where I actually got a double-take from a girl coming out of an office. It's a bit odd being such an unusual sight, but also it's pretty amusing.

A guy around my age followed me for about 15 minutes trying to tell me something in Burmese which I didn't understand. I finally handed him 1,000 kyat and told him to leave me alone. I was meeting Toki and Naing at Shwedagon Pagoda at 11am, so I eventually caught a cab so I could get there in time. I paid the $5 foreigner fee, and we took the escalator up to the pagoda. This is a very important Buddhist site in Myanmar, and many make the pilgrimage to the pagoda at some point in their life. We got off the escalator and were blinded by the bright white tiles and the shimmering huge golden pagoda. The area was a lot more involved than I expected, with lots of smaller shrines off to the side. The main attraction, though, towers over everything else and is much more impressive than I was expecting. 

There are all sorts of smaller sculptures and features at the base of the pagoda, and people pay their respects to these different smaller deities as they circle the pagoda. One series of figures encircling the pagoda is different animals representing different days of the week. So if you were born on a Wednesday, you go to the animal that represents Wednesday and say your prayers there. I thought the animals were funny:

Monday=Tiger, Tuesday=Lion, Wednesday=Elephant, Thursday=Hamster, Friday=Mouse, Saturday=Dragon, Sunday=Dragon Slayer.

Unfortunately, I was born on a Thursday.

Shwedagon Pagoda

The diminutive yet powerful dragon slayer

My hamster deity, barely visible but getting lots of attention

After taking lots of pictures, we drove to a nearby mall and enjoyed some ramen-like soup and air conditioning. I learned that Toki is from the Karen ethnic minority, also from Shan state, and that he actually spent the first few years of his life in Chiang Mai, with Thai being his first language. He eventually forgot most of that, but he can still speak Karen as well as Burmese and English. There are some Karen people in Thailand, too, and I often saw tuk-tuk drivers in Chiang Mai trying to sell trips to tourists to go see the Karen hill-tribe villages with "longneck ladies."

Naing, on the other hand, is of Chinese descent - his grandparents emigrated to Myanmar from China. He speaks Mandarin and Burmese, and understands English well but struggles speaking it. His parents run a snackfood company, and he works there as well.

We didn't have enough time to go to the National Museum before I had to catch my bus, so they generously drove me back to my guesthouse where I picked up my backpack, and then they drove me outside of town to the bus station. On the bus, my seat was right next to a guy that was on my flight from Phnom Penh to Yangon. At the visa counter at the airport, one of the immigration officials gave me his passport, thinking I was him because we look pretty similar. We also have the same first name, so it was a little creepy that in addition to looking similar and having the same first name, we were also doing the same exact itinerary in Myanmar and sitting next to each other on the bus. He's from South Carolina but lives in Phoenix and was on a long vacation traveling through Cambodia and Myanmar. His plan was actually to take  the bus all the way to Inle Lake, whereas my plan was to get off a little sooner and then "trek" the rest of the way to the lake over two days. The bus ride allowed us to get some nice views of the countryside before the sun went down, then it was a dark, bumpy ride. It seems that roads in Myanmar were built to be wide enough only for one bus and maybe a motorbike, so oncoming traffic has to get out of the way. The road was bumpy the whole time and it was difficult to sleep. After around nine hours, I was woken up and we had arrived in Kalaw. I stumbled out and was greeted by a guy who led me to the hotel I had booked, and I slept for four hours before having to wake up to start my trek.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130712YangonDay2?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/11 Day 1 in Yangon

7/11/2013: I checked into the "Motherland Inn 2" rather late the night before. My room smelled like the bathroom, probably because it was right next to the bathroom. I woke up really early the next day, checked my email on their slooooow internet, and then got to work planning the rest of my time in Myanmar. With the help of the girls at the front desk, I determined that I'd spend two days in Yangon, then take a night bus to Kalaw, trek for two days from Kalaw to Inle Lake, then spend another day at Inle Lake. After that, my plan was to go to Bagan, and then up to Mandalay, with my flight back to Bangkok on July 20. I also made plans to meet up with Toki, another Bucknell alumnus that Pam (from Thailand) put me in touch with. I left the guesthouse to see check out the city.

It quickly became apparent that Myanmar is not like other countries in Southeast Asia. It still appears to be relatively untouched by tourists, and I had to wait six whole days before hearing "Gangnam Style" for the first time, which is my super-precise gauge for how modernized an area is (in most other places I'd hear it multiple times per day, even in Chi Phat in Cambodia...). Most men and women still wear "longyis," which are like sarongs, or skirts. Men and women both also wear traditional Myanmar makeup still, which appears somewhat similar to the zinc oxide worn by lifeguards in 80's movies, but with different designs and amounts. Myanmar is also a betel nut country, where many of the men chew betel nut, which is a nasty, addictive substance that turns teeth, lips, and gums into a disgusting red color, and I could spot many red stains from spit on the pavement everywhere I went. Myanmar might be the only country in the world where the steering wheel in cars is on the right side of the car and people drive on the right side of the road. I read that traffic used to be on the left-hand side, but the government wanted to distance Myanmar from British colonial history, so they made the switch basically overnight. Couple that with tight restrictions on the import of new cars that might have the driver's seat on the proper side of the vehicle, and the result is a very odd driving scheme. Some newer cars had the steering wheel on the left-hand side of the car, but most were on the right. And getting on buses was confusing, because I never knew which side had the door.

Other oddities of Yangon include the fact that there are no motorbikes in the city, as they were banned around 2000. I read that the rumor is that a motorbiker crashed into a government official's car so he banned motorbikes, but that's just a rumor and Toki hadn't heard of it. And perhaps the strangest feature of Yangon is the method of getting a waiter's attention: making a smooching noise. It's pretty amusing to be sitting at a restaurant and to hear a big puckering sound and it's a guy asking for more rice.

So I ventured out into Yangon, with my guesthouse being a bit outside of city center. I walked North towards a market (Toki later told me it translates to English as "Shrimp Hell Market") and marveled at all the strange vegetables and other goods for sale. I was getting a lot of attention, with many people shouting "hello!" at me, and also just staring and then calling over to their friends so they could stare too. About five minutes into my walk I was greeted by an old Muslim man with a skullcap on, a big white robe, and a goatee dyed orange. He practiced some English on me and invited me into his stall for tea, but I had just had a lot of tea and was anxious to get out and see the city. I thanked him for the offer but moved on.

Discrete market shot

The rain started to pick up, and as I started to go up some stairs I noticed a man was selling umbrellas from his tiny stall, so I popped in and said I needed an umbrella. He asked me to have a seat, which I thought was strange since purchasing an umbrella is usually a straightforward process. It turns out he had a lot of partial umbrellas, but had to do a bunch of jury-rigging to produce one complete umbrella, so I sat there for about 10 minutes and watched him hammer out an umbrella. In the meantime he practiced his limited English and showed off his limited knowledge of US culture.

"Where from?"

"United States."

Puzzled look.

"America."

"OOOOOH America! Very good!" Pause... Michael Jordan!"

"Yes, yes, Michael Jordan."

2 minute pause.
"Mike Tyson!"

Eye roll from me.

"Obama!"

Incredible that Obama was the third American person he thought of, after MJ and Mike Tyson. I think he was trying to say "wait five minutes" but I mistook it to mean that it would cost 5,000 kyat (around $5), which is WAY too much for a second-hand Frankenstein umbrella in Myanmar, in retrospect. So I must have made his day. Anyhow, I now had a functioning umbrella and continued my walk into the city center.

As I walked, I still got stared at a lot, and was feeling like a mini-celebrity. It was nearing lunch time, so I started looking for places to eat. I considered stopping at an Indian food street stall, but got scared and kept walking. I got to the big lake and park area, but it was just a lot of non-authentic Myanmar food, so I went back out towards a mall with tons of street food vendors around it. As I walked around, I got a better look at the sanitary conditions of these places, and it was pretty scary. The rain wasn't making anything cleaner (or less smelly), and I decided this was not the same as getting street food in Thailand. I found a restaurant called "Food Center" and it was decent - I had some pork curry with rice. The staff stared at me while I ate. I played a little game on my phone and a waiter hovered over my shoulder to appreciate the wonders of a touchscreen. Myanmar is a bit behind technologically, so my "old" Android phone always got some attention wherever I went.

Not the nicest apartment building in Yangon

I returned to the lake and park surrounding the lake, and enjoyed a nice view of Shwedagon Pagoda in the distance. Shwedagon Pagoda is the biggest landmark in Yangon, and possibly in Myanmar. 

I walked around the lake, but realized part-way around that I had to catch a cab to meet up with Toki in time, so I flagged one down and he dropped me off at "Coffee Circles." Eventually Toki and his friend Naing showed up. Toki was wearing a Bucknell basketball t-shirt, so he was easy to spot. He and Naing grew up together playing basketball, and they still play on a team together. We talked for a couple hours and it was great to get the perspective of some locals. When talking about various issues in Myanmar - slow internet, poor healthcare, weak transportation infrastructure, etc. - Toki was always optimistic about where things are heading. With the new government, it seems things are improving, but he said that they could use assistance from outside countries on developing infrastructure, and that countries like the US would be more "nurturing" than the current major player China. Toki's parents are both doctors and just recently built a new hospital, so he had been busy with the construction management. He and his wife also just had a baby, so he's been pretty busy. Toki had brought Naing along to help offer some advice on places to go and things to do in Myanmar, but his recommendations were fairly similar to what I'd gotten at my guesthouse. Toki and Naing had basketball practice (they play in a nationwide tournament each year and they had enlisted their former high school coach this year), so they headed off but we agreed to meet for dinner later.

I wandered around some more and checked out the area surrounding Shwedagon Pagoda, but didn't go in because I was going to check it out with Toki and Naing the next day. I had a quick beer at Oriental House, which was very large and empty, and then I met Naing, Toki, and Toki's wife Amy for dinner. We had a Myanmar dinner, where we picked a number of smaller dishes (curries, grilled meat, etc.) and ate them with rice. Amy is from Hsipaw, in the Shan state (Northeast Myanmar, bordering Thailand). Amy had to get back home to the baby, while Toki, Naing and I headed to Chinatown for beers and, as it turned out, a second dinner.

Chinatown in Yangon is pretty big, since Myanmar has a large Chinese population. It also seems to be the liveliest spot in the city at night, and we grabbed an outdoor table along a busy pedestrian street. Toki ordered a bunch of dishes from surrounding street vendors and we drank a bunch of beers. One snack he ordered was called "duck candy," which is a strange tasting type of nut that isn't sweet at all and gives you terrible breath. We had a tasty dish with green beans and chilis, some grilled meat, some grilled squid, and lots of beers. By the end of the night, we'd had 18 beers between the three of us, and the final bill totaled up to a little over 17,000 kyat ($17), including all the food.

Throughout the night, beggars flowed past looking for money, and Toki told me they're most likely part of a ring of beggars with a boss, where they have to pool their money together at the end of the night and they only get a fraction of it. He said the best thing to do is to not give them money, but it was difficult because so many of them were kids. Toki said that organizations have tried to put these street beggar kids in school and pay for their supplies, etc., but they just ditch school and go back to begging because they see it as the easiest way to make money.

Toki drove me back to the guesthouse and I called it a night. We agreed to meet the next day at Shwedagon Pagoda.

Photo Album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130711YangonDay1?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/10 Phnom Penh

I woke up early and went out walking again, this time hoping to see some entertaining morning aerobics at the Olympic Stadium (not sure why it is named that). I guess I didn't make it in time, since the stadium was pretty empty and there were only tons of squeezed lime peels on the ground, so I assume lime juice is the drink of choice for post-workouts. The stadium itself is very odd, probably built in the 70s, no-frills, and doesn't seem to be used for anything besides aerobics. I'd guess it seats around 3,000 people. Outside the stadium there are some unused tennis courts, some guys were playing beach volleyball, and there was a small soccer game going on.
I had breakfast at a Chinese place with a bunch of Cambodians and Chinese men. I was seated at a round table with a bunch of other guys, and one man just watched me eat the whole time.
The next stop was the genocide museum, which was as chilling as expected. The museum is at the site of the infamous Khmer Rouge Tuol Sleng prison, a converted high school, where prisoners were kept before being sent to the killing fields. Around 20,000 prisoners passed through this prison, and all but a handful were then sent to the killing fields to be executed. The museum showed what the rooms were like, and each prisoner's picture was displayed. Apparently some Cambodians visiting the museum are still finding the pictures of their loved ones and are finally at least getting closure. It's amazing to think about how recent the genocide was - it ended in 1978 or 1979. It seems that the typical prisoner had been accused of being against the revolution, so they were carted off from their village and landed in Tuol Sleng. There, they were tortured and forced to confess to whatever the torturer wanted to hear - many of the written confessions involve secretly working for the CIA it KGB, even though many of these people had never heard of these organizations. The average length of stay was around 3-4 months, and very few survived.
It is obviously a very sad place, and it is a bit weird that a genocide museum is a top attraction. What is weirder, however, is that all the tuk-tuk drivers try to take tourists out to the killing-fields, where not only do you get to see mass graves, but you can go fire weapons at a shooting range and then drive go-karts. They hold up laminated signs showing giddy tourists holding AK-47s, which seems a little distasteful to me. According to Lonely Planet, there are rumors that you can even fire rocket-propelled grenade launchers and maybe even fire it at a cow or a goat. I passed on that.
Instead, after lunch, I went to the Royal Palace, which includes temples, gardens, and royal buildings. It was about as interesting as a royal palace can get, which isn't very interesting.
I caught a tuk-tuk to the airport in the evening, and checked in for my flight to Yangon. I talked to a Burmese guy on the plane who had been in PP for some sort of training with the government. He was very nice, as was the lady next to him, and they both said "welcome to my country!" when we landed.
I made it through immigraton and breathed a sigh of relief that the Visa On Arrival program is still available in Myanmar. Apparently I was on one of three available flights to Myanmar where VOA is possible.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130710PhnomPenh?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/9 Back to Phnom Penh

While I would have preferred to stay another day, the woman in the Chi Phat office had already arranged for a motorbike taxi for me to Andoung Teuk and then a bus to Phnom Penh. The trip back was uneventful.

Back in the city, I got a guesthouse, took a shower, arranged for my laundry to be done, then hit the streets to see some new parts of PP. I got a phone call from Rat, who wanted to know if I made it back ok. We said goodbye and he said "don't forget about Mr. Rat!" I headed south to Wat Botom Park, which was very nice but there was a political rally being held there that day, as the election is taking place July 28. The thought crossed my mind that political rallies in developing countries aren't the best places to be hanging out, but everything was fine.

I headed farther south and stopped for some coffee, where I was able to set up a time and place to meet Bryse Gaboury. I talked for a little while to a nice Muslim man who had escaped Cambodia during the civil war, lived in Australia and New Zealand for 25 years, and had just returned home a few years ago. He was trying to start a coffee wholesaler business.

I kept heading south and wandered through some poorer areas, with narrow streets and one-room apartments filled with entire families (many had their doors open). It was a bustling little neighborhood, I assume everyone had just gotten home from work and school.

I turned east to see the Mekong river, but the surrounding park was pretty ugly and the river was even uglier.

I turned around and walked back into the city and met Bryse at his office. We got some beer and bbq pork at a place near his office and then met his friend for real dinner at his friend's restaurant in a more upscale part of town. The restaurant is tapas style with some Cambodian dishes as well as international. The dinner was for Bryse to offer structural engineering advice for Corbett, who is looking into starting his own Crossfit gym in the city. I was mostly just a fly on the wall but it was interesting to hear about the issues involved in starting a business in PP.

7/8 Chi Phat Trek Day 2

7/8/2013: After breakfast and packing up, we hiked about five minutes to a big waterfall where it was possible to do some cliff jumping. Mao and Rat didn't jump as they claimed the water was too cold because of all the rain the night before. I decided I needed a good wash, so I jumped off the 15 footer and the water was the perfect temperature. Rat picked another well-fed leech off of my back and I had another jump before continuing on.



I tried asking Mao about what other animal sounds he could make besides the civet but he misunderstood and just made more civet noises for me. I couldn't think of any animal sounds that I can do well so I impressed him with my water drop sound like in Ferris Bueller.

We heard some gibbons whooping in the distance but never managed to see any wildlife besides a squirrel.

Wild guava

We took a more direct route back and got into town around 11:30. We stopped at the waterfall on the edge of town and had lunch and talked about Rat's job at the school. For 4 hours of work each day he makes $1.25. He has a wife and 2 kids. He's very happy that the Wildlife Alliance has started the ecotours as it has given him a better source of income. He taught himself English and studies whenever he can.

We returned to the lodge. I tipped Mao and Rat $10 each, and Rat teared up a little. He invited me to visit the school that afternoon to see what it was like. I first went to check out the shower conditions at my guesthouse and found them to be very low - essentially a big tank of water next to the toilet with a questionable source (possibly rainwater) and a large cup to pour the water over one's self. I decided I wasn't ready to try it so I went to visit the school. There was a big field with school buildings along three sides of it. All the kids were playing barefoot in the field - either soccer, volleyball, tag where the person who was "it" had to run on one foot, or just hanging out. Rat's small house is in one corner of the field, and I sat with him on the wooden platform outside the front door. I helped him translate a children's book of animals into English so he could teach the kids.

His friend Vunny that is also a teacher showed up with a full plastic water bottle of homemade rice wine, and Rat's wife fetched three cups. Vunny started pouring and a dead bee came out, which he casually picked out and continued pouring. We said cheers ("jurl muay" in Khmer) and drank our rice wine and ate some mystery bbq'd meat on a stick and some papaya salad. We finished the bottle, and out of nowhere a ten year old boy on a motorbike showed up and delivered another bottle of rice wine. Another older man had joined us by this point so the four of us kept saying cheers and drinking and the older man left and came back with some homemade pickles. Again, we finished the bottle (just a plastic water bottle) and the boy on the motorbike once again appeared with another bottle. We drank that one, too, this time paired with some fish. Rat was the only guy that spoke English, and his is rather limited, so it was mostly a lot of smiling and nodding and drinking. The older man looked me very earnestly in the eyes and gave me a long explanation in Khmer about how happy he is to have the Wildlife Alliance in Chi Phat, and that it has vastly improved life in town (translated by Rat). It was really touching and we toasted to it.

After that bottle everyone pretty much dispersed as I think we were all feeling pretty buzzed. I played with Rat's kids for a little bit, then got up the courage to shower at my guesthouse. I got dinner back at the lodge after that, and then Rat came by to hang out and drink beer with me and practice his English.

It was a great day, especially drinking with Rat and his buddies. It does appear that the NGO has had a really positive effect on the community, although it still appears to be a very poor area. The people were some of the friendliest I've met though, and hopefully the ecotourism continues to benefit everyone.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130708ChiPhatDay3?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/7 Chi Phat Trek Day 1

7/7/2013: We hit the trail by 7:45. My guide's name was "Rat," a boyish looking 33 year old with a big smile, and his helper was "Mao," a weathered looking 26 year old with a lazy eye who Rat referred to as "Mr. Mao." Mao used to be a poacher in the Cardamoms, so he was very adept at identifying animal tracks and animal noises. Rat is a teacher at the elementary school in town.

Yes, it was overkill to have one "client" and two guides, but it was nice to have three people to make things less awkward since Rat's English is limited and Mao's is mostly nonexistent. Rat and Mao could talk and I could just enjoy the scenery and not have to make conversation.

The plan was to hike 21km to a campsite in the jungle, spend the night in hammocks, then follow the river 14km back. For this hike, Rat and Mao were both wearing sandals.




The first part of the hike was just through some farmland, some land where cows and buffalo were grazing, and a bit of open space. We passed through an area with wild rambutan trees and picked some fruit for snacking. We also got some oranges. After that we passed through an open area that apparently had been cleared during the Khmer Rouge days, but I'm not sure for what purpose the trees were cleared. It allowed for a nice view though, as we were passing over a small hill. The view was of the surrounding hills, covered in dense, lush rain forest. It was now raining off and on, and we entered the next area, which was actually a burn area where there had recently been a big forest fire during the dry season due to a discarded cigarette. While passing through the burn area I noticed a big glob of red ants at the end of a leaf and remembered them as the same bastards that bit me at Angkor Wat. Mao grabbed a handful and popped them in his mouth, and Rat said they typically put them in sour soup.

We got out of the burn area and Rat stopped to tell me to tuck my pants into my socks and that we were now entering the real forest. I asked what they were going to do about leeches since they didn't have socks and shoes and pants, and Rat replied "we don't need to because we're Cambodian." By the end of the trip, it seems I would have been better off taking their approach.

The forest was very dark and moist, and the rain was no longer an issue. We crossed little streams and climbed over fallen trees, and the rest of the forest seemed impenetrable. We caught the first leech climbing its way up my leg and flicked it off. This became a routine, about every ten seconds I'd have to pause and flick off some leeches that were charging up my socks, looking for skin. I discovered that some were able to get right through my socks and caught a few that had already started to dig in. Meanwhile Rat was just stopping briefly and casually brushing leeches off, and it seemed like Mao wasn't having any issues at all.

We stopped for lunch near a stream and Mao and Rat got to work on preparing food. They first collected some rare dry wood and started a fire, then they starting chopping vegetables. In the meantime I discovered some fat, full leeches under my socks and brushed them off, which is much easier when they're full. Lunch was soon ready, which was a tasty rice dish with meat and veggies, and we got back on the trail.

We passed over the first set of hills and emerged from the forest into a banana plantation. There were signs of people and we soon came across a family sitting on their elevated wooden platform watching some horror movie on a laptop. It was three women and a bunch of kids, I assume the men were working. It was a really depressing place, covered in mud and garbage, with nasty dogs and chickens wandering around. Rat bought half a water bottle full of rice wine from the ladies and we continued on.

We eventually reached the camp, which had a little covered cooking area and a covered elevated platform made of bamboo for sleeping. The sleeping area was perched on a spot that overlooks the river. Rat set up the hammocks and Mao started collecting firewood. It started raining really hard and I just relaxed in the hammock and watched the rain. I decided to throw on the rain coat and go check out the small waterfall, but I ended up getting pretty soaked in the process.


I got back and Rat and Mao had cooked up a snack of egg with some bamboo shoots they had found near camp. It was really tasty. I relaxed some more in the hammock, then dinner was ready and we feasted on fried noodles and more rice with meat and veggies. We also finished off the rice wine so we could, in Rat's words, keep warm.

While cleaning up, Mao found a civet in a tree nearby and Rat and I rushed over to see. At this point it was dark, so Rat gave me his headlamp but all I could see were two very bright glowing eyes staring back at me. Mao made some "civet noises" which just sound like smooching and it seemed to keep the civet interested for a bit, but then we lost interest since we could only see its eyes.

Everyone got in their hammocks at 8:30, since we only had one headlamp between the three of us. I planned to lay there and enjoy the sounds of the jungle but instead fell asleep and slept for ten hours.

Besides the civet, these are the other animal signs we came across:
porcupine tracks, wild dog tracks, turtle poo, smelled a dead wild pig killed by either tiger or wild dog (those are the animals that hunt wild pig), heard a gibbon

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7/6 Day 1 in Chi Phat

7/6/2013: In the morning I booked my trip through the Wildlife Alliance. The plan was to do a guided "trek" from Chi Phat into the forest, spend one night in the jungle in a hammock, then return to Chi Phat the next day by a different route. I was able to pay for some of it with Thai Baht, so my money reserves weren't as much of an issue.

Chi Phat village

View of the river that runs through town - I crossed it the night before on the "ferry"

I had a day to kill in town, then, so I rented a mountain bike for $5. First, though, I had to go buy some long pants since I was told there would be leeches on the trek and I hadn't packed any pants. I strolled over to the "market" and pretty quickly found some light material pants. The problem was that the longest ones were still only a little better than capri-length on me. Cambodia is one of the shortest countries in the world, although I'm not sure if that explains the limited selection of pants length in this remote, poor village. Anyhow, I still bought the pants for $3, and the girl that sold the pants to me flashed a smirk at another guy as if to imply she was stealing from me.

I started my bike ride and headed north out of town. This place apparently isn't yet accustomed to seeing white people, so I got lots of waves and smiles and "hellos", mostly from children, as I pedaled through. I got a better look at the village and was struck by the number of children, the rustic-ness of the houses (almost all simple wooden structures), and how many chickens, pigs, and cows live in the town.

My first stop was at some rapids just outside of town, which were pretty nice. I continued north through some more spread out villages and then followed a single track trail a few hundred yards to a really nice waterfall. It wasn't tall, but very wide, and had an impressive amount of water flowing over it since it is a few weeks into the rainy season.


I continued north and there were fewer houses along the road now. One stretch of road had a ravine next to it with lots of buffalo (domesticated) hanging out in the water to cool off. Further on I saw a sign on a tree that warned about landmines in the area. Apparently the Khmer Rouge had made it all the way out to Chi Phat.



I kept following the road, at one point carrying my bike across a wide shallow river. There were no longer any more signs of people living there, but I did see a number of people working at a reforestation area. I eventually stopped and turned around, afraid that I was maybe following the same path I'd be hiking the next day.

I returned to town and figured I should get a hat as well, so I found a nice Nike hat for $2.

After that I biked back to the rapids and read my book and watched a guy wash his motorbike in the river for over an hour.

One interesting thing I noticed in town was that many of the women wear matching 2 piece flannel pajamas, and not just for sleeping. I saw at least ten different women wearing "happy teddy" pajamas with cute teddy bear patterns all over. I assumed it was just a donation or a cheap option for clothing, but Bryse Gaboury later told me he's been seeing that look all over Cambodia for as long as he's been in the country.



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