Sam was outside the hotel at 8:00am. We drove a half hour away past hundreds of acres of rice fields to the Tonle Sap Lake. Here we boarded our little boat to take a peek at a community of Vietnamese Cambodians living in a completely floating village. It was fascinating.

Floating Village

Tonlé Sap, (literally large river (tonle); fresh, not salty (sap), commonly translated to 'great lake') refers to a seasonally inundated freshwater lake.
The lake's size, length and water volume varies considerably over the course of a year from an area of around 965 sq mi, a volume of 0.24 cu mi and a length of 99 mi at the end of the dry season in late-April to an area of up to 6,178 sq mi, a volume of 19 cu mi and a length of 160 mi as the peak of the southwest monsoon’s precipitation culminate in September and early-October.

Wow! Especially love that picture above of the floating chicken coop.

We stopped at the Floating Market for a while and noticed all the unusual animals they had in cages — rabbits, porcupine and crocodiles. Villagers buy the smaller crocodiles to eat.

Below on the right is Sam, our tour guide for our time in Seam Reap. His story is pretty amazing.

Stories about Sam… Bits and pieces that he’d tell us throughout the day…
Sam lived in a small village out in the jungle. As a kid he ran through the jungle in search of frogs and snakes to eat. Sometimes he would let the snakes chase him and once he was done playing with them he would just grab their tail and smack their head on a rock. Often the snakes would escape into a hole and they would stick their hands inside the hole, the snake would bite them, and then they’d pull their hand out with the snake attached and that’s how they would catch it. He’d always say, “It was my lucky day, because I got food.” Once Sam and his friend (age 8) chased a snake into a hole but the hole was too small for Sam’s hand so his friend reached in to grab the snake. It was a Cobra. His friend died a week later.
Sam’s parents left the country to work because they couldn’t earn enough money to support the family. They left Sam — age 10 — in charge of his siblings… age 8, age 6, age 4, and age 2 for THREE years coming back a few times to give him money. He says he cooked rice everyday for his siblings and hunted for frogs and snakes in the jungle. He said a few times he ran out of rice and would have to borrow some from someone in the village.
Sam and his family lived in a little hut the size of a large mattress that they all slept on together.
Sam’s parents came back to the village when he was 13 years old. When Sam was 16, his father died because they did not have enough money to buy medicine or take him to the hospital.
When Sam was in his late teens he worked in the fields all day and decided he needed to take a computer class from 5:30-6:30 in the morning and an English class from 5:30-6:30 in the evening. He also took a Thai language class from 6:30-7:30 in the evening. He took these classes from what was equivalent to a community college. He laughed that his English professor could read English but could not speak it. So he has relied on learning how to speak English from tourists by taking every opportunity to practice.
He met his wife on Facebook, like a lot of Cambodian young adults. He said, “Yes, so thank you Mark Zuckerberg” They lived 8 hours apart. Now he has a son and daughter and spends his days either working in the fields or being a tour guide.
Every time we hopped in the van with him we would ask him more questions. We were absolutely amazed by his story, his sincerity, his humility and his infectious laugh. Being with him definitely made the days extra special. It was so interesting hearing about the history of Cambodia through his personal story.

The picture above is of a Chapel of some sort. During the rainy season every year the Lake goes up 30 FEET!! and covers the trees and all of the cement colored stairs. Crazy that there is so much rain.

Cambodia Children from the Stilt Homes

On the way home from the Floating Village tour we saw a street lined with homes built up on stilts. We asked Sam about it and he had the driver pull over so we could take a picture of the street. We wandered down the street as he explained that these homes were too close to the lake and when monsoon season hits the water would rise to the level of their homes. So fascinating.

There were a few little kids playing cards in the dirt but by the time we wandered down to them, fifteen more showed up. Such adorable happy kids. We immediately noticed how they smiled as they played. Their clothes were ragged and their playing cards were torn — but it didn’t seem to matter to them at all.

One little girl held on tight to her empty cardboard box. It was definitely hers. We took a few pictures of some of the kids and then showed them the pictures on our camera. They loved it. Sam said this village is so poor that these children will never go to school. Heartbreaking.

Jared went into the marketplace and bought $20 worth of snacks. As soon as he came out the kids ran to get one.

Playing cards

Chris started playing chase with some of the kids and made them laugh. Others would grab on to his shirt and he’d look around suspiciously trying to find out who did it, which would make them laugh some more. Lots of giggles. Lots of attention.

Love the picture below of the girl with her box and the boy with his coconut-seat bike. Also the girl holding her Hello Kitty cards.

One of the cute girls (yellow Mickey shirt) came up to me pointing to herself and said, “Name… Leba” and then pointed at me and said, “Name?” It was clearly one of the few English words she knew. I pointed to myself and said “Name… Lisa” Leba giggled and then told everyone around her my name. Then they all giggled. It was so cute. I asked all of them their name but could only pronounce a few. When we walked back to our van they wanted to walk with us.

It was an unexpected opportunity to spend just a few minutes with these kids. I wish we had been more prepared to help them in some way. At home when Chris and I shared our experiences and pictures of the trip with our kids I got a little emotional talking about these children. Since then Matthew has been praying for the kids who live in the Stilt Homes at every prayer. Grateful for the things we learn and feel as we travel.

Spoons

The restaurant Spoons was recommended to us by a friend of Brian’s and was really good. Our appetizer came on a cute spoon on a wooden plate. Great food and great service.

Walking the Streets of Siem Reap

The Market

Don’t let these pictures of brightly colored vegetables fool you… the second we walked into this market place we were met with the most awful smell you could imagine. (May I remind you that it was 95 degrees and crazy humidity). At one point Doug turned back at us and said, “Well, I think we just bested the Paris Sewer Tour” and he was probably right. (Yes we really did do that together on an earlier trip to Paris). Everything in Cambodia has been more chaotic and desperate than Thailand and this Market was no exception. Everywhere I looked I was in complete shock. Sam, our tour guide, told us that we should take a walk to the Market — not because we would want to buy anything but so that we could see how real Cambodians live. It was eye opening (and nose closing) for sure. Anyone interested in crispy bugs, chicken feet or pigs anus?

One of the many interesting things about this market was that scooters were allowed to ride through. It was so insane. You could hardly walk between them. On one occasion I was pushed to the side by an oncoming scooter. The picture below is what I was pushed up against. For a minute I thought, “I don’t know. Get run over by a scooter or brush up against this pigs head? Not sure which is worse.” The green bag on a stick in the picture below was the stall worker’s futile attempt at keeping the flies away.

Right here where Chris is standing was where we spotted a living eel-like fish which had clearly jumped out of his container and was trying to cross the road. Seriously. Chris captured it on video. Chris unfortunately turned off the camera right as a scooter was going to run him over. He missed the fish owner coming out into the street to literally KICK the fish back under the table. Oh my gosh. It was seriously the funniest thing ever. Almost as funny as Chris reenacting the fish crossing the road. Oh yes he did.

There were not any other Americans at this market so we didn’t exactly blend in… AT ALL. Add to that our wide eyes and shocked expressions (which we really were trying to contain) and I’m sure we were quite the sight ourselves.

Can you believe this is how they were trying to sell shoes?

A Fish Pedicure

As soon as we finished up with the Market we took our first Tuk Tuk ride to Pub Street and immediately the boys spotted this… a Fish Pedicure. Before we knew it, Doug, Jared, Chris and eventually Brian handed over their 300 Baht per person and stuck their feet in. It cracks me up to look at these pictures so I couldn’t resist but stick them all on here. It was so funny to watch them.

The boys cracked up when Brian got in because all the fish headed his way.

The boys attracted quite the crowd. It was so funny. All kinds of tourists started taking pictures and videos of them. (Sidenote: we hardly saw any American tourists in Cambodia at all. Just one couple in our Marriott Hotel. Mostly Asian, Australian and European.)

While the boys finished off their fish pedicure, the girls and I decided to head around the corner and get leg massages. They were WONDERFUL! Then we wandered the streets and shopped in the markets — which was a little uncomfortable for me since the shop keepers were so pushy and desperate. Way more so than in Thailand. We found a great restaurant on Pub Street and ordered more fried rice and then headed BACK to the massage parlor to get our second leg massage of the night. $5 for a half hour is just too good to pass up. Such great memories and funny stories from our second day in Siem Reap.

Siem Reap - Floating Village