Kh 4 - Tonle Sap and the Floating Village

A boat soaring through Tonle Sap - means "large fresh water river or the great lake"

When my friend - Dara said that better we go and have a visit to floating village; first that I think - "what; another visit to water village? I've enough of Kampung Air in Sabah" But different country might have different culture.

I'm riding the boat!

The ride took us 45 minutes from the city center. Tonle Sap homes to several thousands of mainly Vietnamese fisherman that already have been in this area since the day Vietnam helps to liberate Cambodia from the Pol Pot regime; even before that.

Tonle Sap is interesting due to 2 facts - 1) its flow changes twice a year and 2) the portion of the lake expands and shrinks dramatically with seasons. Its sized 2,700 km² normally and can go up to 16,000 km² during monsoon season with depth of 9 m. Its the most productive inland fisheries in the world, supporting over 3 million people and providing over 75% of Cambodia's annual inland fish catch and 60% of the Cambodians' protein intake.

These families stays in their boats (different from the water village in the Borneo island where they built it on the stilt) where everything else i.e. market, school and even church also built on the pontoons. Their boat well equipped with basic amnesties such as water, electricity and even T.V (I'm sure they even have satellite TV).

Here, they also faced a similar problem related to the water village as in Malaysia - particularly Sabah : guess what? Immigrants. Some of these Vietnamese are non local and the government had difficulties riding them off. But the good part for the inhabitant of floating village, they do not need to pay any land taxes - jimat duit brother!

From left : primary school on the boat, the floating village

From left : Catholic Church of the floating village, me and my friend - Dara Rann

Kh 3 - Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport

In front the International Airport -
noted at the background the 'Balaha',
a horse that was one of the incarnation Lokesvara when
he rescued merchants from the ogresses on an island off Sri Lanka

Swah-ghOOm or welcome in the Khmer language.
I've arrived at the Siem Reap International Airport around 1230 hrs local time.

Gosh, what a ride - nothing happen actually.
Since I'm to full before boarding the plane, I didn't take my lunch on the flight. Lucky MAS provide the lunch box - and you have your own choice whether to eat it on board or bring it back with you.

From left : Malaysia Airlines, Siem Reap International Airport main terminal building

At the immigration checkup I feel lucky being Malaysian as we no need to queue applying on-arrival visa. Just a quick immigration bypass and straight away I went to the luggage claim area.

From left : Arrival bay, one of the Buddha image at the airport

Outside my friend - Dara Rann waiting for me with his white Toyota Camry. Straightaway we go to my hotel - the Angkor Voyage Villa which situated a few minutes from the city itself. So convenient that location nearby to all restaurants, Old Market and the famous Pub Street.

So after some discussion regarding my Siem Reap's programe; we decided to go to the floating village at the Tonle Sap lake and Phnom Bakheng - to see sunset.

Kh 2 - The Kingdom of Cambodia

Cambodia situated in the Southeast Asia region, borders with Thailand to its west and northwest, Laos to its northeast, and Vietnam to its east and southeast. It's been dominated with Tonle Sap (the largest freshwater lake in SEA) and the Mekong river that runs from Tibetan Plateau to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

From up : One of the Apsara wall's sculpture, at the Tonle Sap

It's home to dominated Khmer people with several minorities including Chinese, Vietnamese, Chams and Khmer Loeu. Majority of them are Theravada Buddhism (95%) while the remaining are Muslim (3%) especially among the Chams and Christians (2%)

Being one of the poorest country in the world, Cambodia depends more on their textile and tourism industry. Not much natural resources they've produced except recently in 2005; oil and natural gas deposits were found beneath Cambodia's territorial water and will extract commercially in 2011, thus profoundly affect Cambodia's economy.

From up : A Khmer lady weaving silk, sunset views from Phnom Bakheng.

This is a Constitutional Monarchy country where the current King - HM Norodom Sihamoni acted as the head of state while Prime Minister Hun Sen elected as the head of government.

It has a long history and one of the successor of the most powerful Hindu kingdom at his time. This Kingdom has been suffered from a lot of battles particularly from the clashed of Siam and Vietnam, French rules, Khmer rouge and the civil war.

Kh 1 - KLIA to Siem Reap International Airport 031108

SELAMAT JALAN - 'BON VOYAGE'

That's the words that I've noted in my way to KLIA.
This is the day I've waited for, after months of planning and finally to execute the plan. I've started the journey from the KLIA with a STYLE! As I am a 'loyal' MAS traveler, I've used my ENRICH points to redeem my Golden Lounge (International) voucher that caused me > 8,000 points. It's like the Malay idioms - 'macam rusa masuk kampung'; I've entered the lounge at 0800 hrs.

Golden Lounge @ Satellite Terminal, KLIA with one of my ala carte order - Vanilla Shake!

OMG, what a nice lounge! I'm so lucky that I've got chance to be here. With buffet of foods, bathrooms with shower, massage chair, ala carte menu, PC's with internet, flat screen TV plasma etc - te list goes on.

I'm sure that other people that seen me will wondering where on earth this chap coming since I've taking pictures on every things that this lounge provided. Even their bathrooms - minus XXX picture of coarse! Nobody want to see me take bath. Nothing erotic about it!

After a fine 3 hours in the lounge, I departed with MH 764 to Siem Reap. The journey was comfortable. When arrived, my friend - Rann Dara waited me with my name on his card - what a pleasant welcome. BTW, we Malaysian no need visa to visit Cambodia, so our imigration process much more easier that others. And another tips - always smile as at the imigration countet they will take your picture.

From left ; Tonle Sap aerial view - largest freshwater lake in SEA, Siem Reap International Airport

Upcoming chapter soon.

Prologue - Journey to Kampuchea and Siam

Salam.

It's been a while since my last entry, even though I promised that I'll try my best to post new blog frequently. Well I do make a plan but still God's plan a far more greater than mine.

Hmm; after 2 weeks of induction coarse in Kota Kinabalu from 17th till 30th October, I've continue my journey to Siem Reap and Bangkok. Why I choose this journey - well it's a lot of reason. One of the reason is I felt most of Muslims find out that travel to majority non-Muslim countries will be troublesome especially when comes to Halal foods and Solat time. At least my family find it difficult. Another reason is - I would like to visit all these marvelous place during my lifetime. My interest especially in world history. So I felt that Cambodia and Thailand will provide much interest to me. Cambodia as famous with Angkor Wat and Thailand with their long history of the Kingdom.

So, feel free to comment and I try my best to put all my stories during the journey.