Almost every house is elevated on pilings to protect from flooding, provide a shaded space below and better air circulation in the quarters above, and to provide a sheltered outdoor living space during the monsoon season.
To supplement their income in the dry season, farmers prepare a roadside treat by baking sticky rice and mung beans in bamboo. Actually, it tastes quite good.
We Arrive at the Mekong
Our tour through Cambodia and Vietnam includes making our way down the Mekong River (known by the Vietnamese as the Nine Dragons River) from north of Phnom Penh until we disembark in the delta on our way to Ho Chi Minh City. The height of the river varies markedly by season and, traveling towards the end of the dry season, our ship docked well below street level, providing an odd perspective. Jim wasn’t crazy about the catwalk.
Phnom Srey & Phnom Pros
Not far from Kampong Cham, Cambodia, are two hills topped with temples facing each other from half a kilometer away. In between lies a garden of Buddhas. Legend has it that in times past the women and the men of Cambodia had a contest to determine who must ask for the other’s hand in marriage. The men would build one hill and the women another and whoever could build the tallest hill by the time the sirius star should appear in the night sky would have the honor of being asked by the other to join in marriage. It was the women who played a trick by hanging a lantern so high the men mistook it for the star and laid down their tools so that the women’s hill would stand taller.
It was the garden of Buddhas that enchanted us. We later learned online that the temples were destroyed in the terror of the Khmer Rouge and rebuilt and that this had been one of the many “killing fields” of that not-so-distant time.
Silk Island
On an island in the Mekong River just north of Phnom Penh there’s a village which has for generations devoted its energies to cultivating the silk worm and weaving that silk into luxurious fabrics. The fabrics are, in fact, quite beautiful and come in various grades, including those woven also with cotton.