We woke up early again - about 6am, I got up, packed a little bit and got a call from Sophie - she wrote an Economics mid-term and she had been worrying about it but called to say she thinks it went well - she's hoping she gets between 70-80% on it. She also said that next week she should get her Business course mid-term back but someone said the average on the short answer was only 35%!
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When we went to breakfast one of the other guests looked at my plate and said "You can get a regular plate." "A regular plate?" "Yeah, a big plate". "Oh, I haven't seen those" proceeds to look at my plate "It's probably better I don’t". I know I've said before I don't eat breakfast at home - here there are no snacks. None, you eat at breakfast, lunch and dinner and that's it so get while the gettin's good.
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| Today I finally asked to have a Decaf Latte..still super strong but drinkable. |
We had about 3 hours to kill after breakfast before we have to get on the bus for a LONG transfer day today. We ended up just finishing packing, putting our bags out for the luggage cart for 8:45am and then reading in the room. I went down to the front desk to settle our account with the hotel - we had 3 meals and the laundry so owed them $227 USD which wasn't bad considering there were 2 of us and the laundry was $59.
We got in the bus and Conrad had to go in and settle his bill, but he was at the counter and had paid so he needed to figure that out. He came back on the bus turned out he paid someone elses bill because he wasn't wearing his glasses (and he has a long last name with lots of consonants so there was no way the reception confirmed his name with him). So we all figured we'd just steal his glasses going forward and add stuff to their room!
Nin didn't talk the ENTIRE drive but he did give us a bunch of info - so here goes:
Tomorrow we visit a village. During French colonization most homes were built on stilts and painted blue, pink and green along the banks of the Mekong River.
In 2024 the Cambodian scarf was recognized by UNESCO under the Intangible Heritage for Humanity category for its historical and current use by the Cambodian people.
Nin explained the Cambodian scarves are very common and they have multiple throughout the day, unlimited uses. They would be used as clothing, baby diapers, baby hammocks, slings for broken arms, a towel, a pillow, a backpack or a bag to wrap food.
Cambodia is rich in Agriculture - he says it's known as a country of agriculture. Rice plays the most important role for the economy of Cambodia, it produces between 10-12M tonnes of rice kept in the country for consumption and exports between 6-8m tonnes generating approx $78-90M USD. All harvested by hand, some use modern technology like tractors for preparing the land but 98% use the same original methods - cow, water buffalo and horses.
Rice grows all year long. In dry season they grow short grain rice and in the rainy season long grain or jasmine rice or brown rice. They are one of the top 10 rice producers in the world. Behind India, China and 7 others, lol.
1 hectare produces approx 3.5 tonnes of rice
77% of the land is cultivated land.
65-75% of Cambodian people are farmers.
They farm mangos, cassava, rubber plantations, durian, papaya, pineapple, jack fruit, pineapple, coconuts..
Textile #2 - clothing, travel goods, exported to mostly US.
Rubber - latex is exported mostly to China. They earn approx $8-9M US selling rubber/latex to China. Selling rubber wood as well up to $2.5m. Trees produce rubber skin from 8-25 yrs and farmers remove the outer rubber to be processed. 1921 rubber trees were introduced by the French. Now, approx 400,000 hectares of rubber plantations are planted and there are 126 rubber processing plants. 1 tonne is $1600USD depending on the open commodities market pricing.
After 25 years the tree is cut down, because it is no longer producing rubber, and they export the wood. Replant and wait 8 years for rubber production.
Fish - fresh water fish. White fish from the Mekong River and Tonle Sap Lake. The Mekong flows from Mianmar to Laos to Cambodia to Vietnam, 4800 km, but you can't navigate from Loas to Cambodia because of the mountains it's not suitable for boats. Mountain snows in Tibet is the source. The lake and river connect in Pnom Penh where the water flows back and forth between the river and lake, this current flow phenomenon is unique to here. Today 500 species of fish are found between the Mekong and the lake, approx 500 species have become extinct.
There are 112 fresh water dolphins in the river and lake. There used to be thousands but they were killed for their flesh and fat to use to lubricate machinery to run pumping machines for rice during the Khmer Rouge Rule in the mid-1970's.
China has built 100s of dams for hydro and Cambodians believe they will stop their water supply to the Mekong River which would be devastating to agriculture. 5M people living in Cambodia and rely on the water supply.
It seems like Cambodians don’t like China in general. Lots of comments about Chinese - right after this he said how Cambodia has 443 km of long coastal beach with pristine white sand beaches but it's like "New Chinatown. Lots of Chinese".
Here we stopped at a local restaurant on the side of the highway for lunch. Yesterday they warned us that it would be 'rustic but safe to eat'. It was lovely - reminds me of Costa Rica.
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| Little Red Wallet on the Bus. |
Lunch was good - family style with a mix of western (chicken tenders and fries) and Cambodian food (vegetables, beef lok lak, rice, pepper sauce). Somehow it's hotter today again - this screenshot was taken much later in the day, around 5:30pm.
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After lunch we drove about another hour and a bit before another rest stop and then hit the road again (they stop every hour because of how old everyone is, lol).
Then we drove through a rubber plantation area and it was really quite impressive. The trees are tall and exactly spaced, sometimes between them were cassava plants whos powder, from the root, is sold to China and Singapore.
Nin lived in this town Kampong Cham when the Khmer Rouge Rule started. His family walked 3 days in bare feet with his parents when they were relocated to the Plantation area (approx 80km). He was 7 years old. (The Killing Fields is what we are familiar with but from 1975-1979 an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people died - roughly one-quarter of Cambodia's population) through mass executions, forced labor, starvation, and disease. Went they went back to their hometown someone else was living on their house and their family was gone (dead). The Khmer Rouge advised everyone they had to register what their occupation and education was and so people went to register and anyone who was educated or skilled labour was killed. Nin's parents were both killed and he went to an orphanage started by Vietnamese until he was 17 and then became a monk for 2.5 yrs, after that he tried driving a taxi for 5 years then applied to be a bellboy for 2 years. In 2003 he applied to be a tour guide. He applied twice because the first time he failed because he didn’t pay the bribe of $250 to pass the exam because he was confident he would pass the exam..he didn't because he didn't pay. In 2004 he tried again and paid the bribe and passed.
We arrived to the ship just after 5pm and were escorted to our room, which is lovely. We just dropped our bags and did a little explore before everyone came out into the ship. I asked someone where the laundry is and they said "I don't think you have to worry it's open 24 hours" "Yeah, but I'm not up 24 hours!".
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| Ship was tied to the side of the river and we boarded on a gangway on reed carpets. |
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| Open Bar Restaurant |
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| Upper Deck with Pool |
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| Spa |
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| Our Route on the Ship |
We had a briefing at 6:15pm about safety and about tomorrows excursions and general info about the boat - for example the bar is open from 10am until the last guest goes to bed! Also, tomorrow in the village we will see lots of children who will follow the tour around and they said DO NOT GIVE THE CHILDREN ANYTHING, no food, no gifts, no money. It teaches them to beg and then they won't go to school because getting a few dollars from generous tourists is easier to help their families. If we want to do anything there are opportunities set up by Uniworld, for example the school that we will visit in the afternoon you can bring them supplies or donate directly to the school for supplies for them to use to teach the students english.
Then went up to the dining room for dinner - we sat with Kevin and Gretchen (Kevin is who I sat with on the plane to Cambodia), they're from AZ but originally from Buffalo. We had a nice dinner. I had scallops as an appetizer and then cream of chicken soup (which was on the 'local' menu) and then I had stewed chicken thigh with rice (also on the local) while the 3 of them all had lamb chops with veggies and mashed potatoes. All courses were small but the perfect amount of food for me. We also got vanilla ice cream with dark cherries for dessert.
It's 9:22pm here, time for bed - 2 excursions tomorrow!
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