siem reap | chong khneas
September 14, 2011 § 5 Comments
I did it – I wrote the GRE. It was a lot harder than I was anticipating, but I got through it and boy am I glad it’s over with (for now anyway!).
Not only has it been three months since I started studying, but just over three months to the day since Riley + I returned from out amazing trip in Southeast Asia. It’s just so hard to believe, mainly because it feels like so much longer ago. A conversation with a friend from New Zealand the other night who we met on our trip stirred up memories of Cambodia, mainly because that’s where we met him (which is a pretty funny story that probably won’t seem funny at all so I’m keeping that to myself!).
Travelling to Cambodia was incredibly special to me because it followed Bali, which marked the middle of our trip, so in knowing this, my appreciation for the opportunity I had been given to travel to this part of the world reached a new level. From the very beginning in Bangkok, Thailand I made a conscious effort to take in + appreciate everything because the trip was going to be over before I knew it. This feeling was reasserted in me the moment the plane hit the tarmac in Siem Reap.
We spent three fantastic days in this city of which I will detail over the course of the next few days – there’s simply too much to divulge in one post! Upon getting picked up from the airport by who we’d later find out would be our personal tuk tuk driver + settling into our quaint guesthouse, we were off to Chong Khneas – the floating village + fishing settlement at the edge of Tonle Sap Lake, which is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia not too far south of Siem Reap. We hopped on our own boat with a tour guide who accompanied us down the river while providing us with both informative + personal insight into life in Chong Khneas. His name escapes me, but he was a little older than us, and the oldest of eight in a family that had lived there their entire life. His English was impressive so we learned a lot about the history, lifestyle, economy + hardships of the area. It was nothing short of an eye-opening start to our time in Cambodia.
{Our driver – he didn’t look back once or even utter a word on the entire journey – not to mention it was sweltering outside and he was covered head to toe!}
{We passed a lot of smaller boats like this one as we travelled down the river – our tour guide told us that these families make their living by selling food + drinks to tourist boats. The children aren’t sent to school so they can help their families earn an income. In the community of Chong Khneas this is heavily frowned upon because, as we later found out, they value the importance of education + therefore didn’t want to support families who were preventing their children from having one.}
{What the larger tourist boats look like that cater to those staying in hotels that book their own tours. Our guide told us that the locals do not respect these tours because all the money that these tours accumulated went into their pocket, whereas on ours a fair share of it went towards community development.}
{The beginning of the village}
{An indoor basketball court}
{The elementary school}
{According to the teacher, the majority of these children are orphans}
{The kitchen where their meals are prepared}
{The most terrifying part of the day – visiting the crocodile farm}
{Our boat!}
{Come to think of it, moments earlier this was a pretty terrifying moment. This adorable child paddled right up to our boat, picked up a very large snake and waved it in my face…endearing, but terrifying}
{Another reason why the community of Chong Khneas frowns upon families who try to sell goods to tourists: the adults will make their children jump from their boat onto tourist boats while travelling down the river. It’s extremely dangerous and many children die doing it. This boy, while holding a basket of soda pop jumped what seemed like a longer distance than his stature onto our boat – thank goodness he was ok. I felt so badly saying no when he came right up to me trying to sell me a can of pop.}
Love Chong Kneas…
really nice pictures!!
http://rodposse.com/
Thank you I’m glad you like them!
Lauren, You’re such a beautiful photographer…. Keep sharing!
Ahh you’re the cutest thank you :)