The day started out beautiful with an exceptional sunrise over the water.  I decided to get a little exercise in and started walking about 40 minutes ahead of our minivan to take some shots of Kep in the early morning--those are the first shots in the slide show.

A very busy and productive day found us finishing the brick work early, then hauled sand a rocks into the latrine area.  After spreading the sand and distributing the rocks around, we made little ones out of big ones in order to make the concrete floor (first step) in the latrine.

We went to lunch before starting to stucco on our latrine, but Team 2 was well ahead of us and they did a good job breaking rocks and also getting started on their stucco.

Lunch was again at the Vines restaurant and  the food was excellent.  The cadets (except for Hansena) fell asleep immediately after eating.  A group of high school kids from Kent Denver showed up and they ate on the balcony while we were on the ground level below in the shade.  The kids were just obnoxious brats and it hurt our ears to hear them.  They were their as part of a school trip and planned to work one day doing some digging, but then they had a two day "home stay" with some families.  If felt so bad for the team leader who was from Tennessee and didn't even know these kids before taking them on the trip as the leader.

We woke the cadets up just before 1300 and headed back for a full and satisfying afternoon of stuccoing outhouses.  It really doesn't get any better.  I liked stuccoing even more than laying brick.  Annie was a great help, while Dan and Winston were the mixologists for the stucco (just concrete made  thin) and Jay gave me hints and cleaned up behind me.  We again worked well together and got a lot done.  We finished two walls, while the other team did three.

We were back to the hotel at about 1630 and four of us decided to go on hike into the Kep Montain Forest National Park just above us.  Luke and Hansena went for a 45 minute run, while Dylan, Dan, and Winston joined me for some serious climbing.  We repeated what Dylan and I had done two days ago and then went to the Summit (286 meters!) as well as to Sunset Rock.  The trails were well marked and maintained and we loved the exploring and the additional workout in the steamy air.  We were back by 1800 a cleaned up quickly quickly for dinner.

At dinner, we went back to the crab market area and visited La Baraka--a place with both Western and Cambodian food.  Three of the ordered pizza and we had some good conversation just along the beach with the Sun going down.  I don't have time to pull out individual photos, so here's the link and the slideshow again.  

Hopefully, we'll finish the outhouses tomorrow, but we were very happy with our progress today.  Here's a link to all of the photos, plus the slide show below...

I wrote these notes on Sunday trying not to watch as we drove to Kep from Phnom Penh.  They're just my personal observations to date:

Money:  The Cambodian currency is the Riel ($1 = KR4000), but the standard currency here in practice is the US dollar.  It was explained to us that so many NGOs work here  that the dollar has become fault because most of the NGO employees (from whatever nation) are paid in dollars.  All UN activities are in dollars, too.  There are no US coins here, though.  Instead, the 1000KR and 2000KR bills take the place of quarters and half-dollars, while there are a few 10,000KR bills floating around, too, worth about $2.50 each. 

Tuk-tuk rides to all about $2 or $3 from hotels and they tend to be a little more coming back.  The price is the same whether there is one passenger or six, and we’ve seen as many as 12 in and on a tuk-tuk in something that looked like a family challenge. The tuk-tuks are just two-wheeled carts with front- and rear-facing seats and a roof, open-aired, that attaches to the back of the motorcycle.  Most of the drivers where helmets, but there are no seatbelts on the tuk-tuks.  I think top tuk-tuk speed is about 25 mph, maybe 30 but that’s pushing it.  On most tuk-tuks, we could fit three across with our relatively narrow hips (for Americans), with some tuk-tuks being more comfortable and wide than others.

There are a few full-fledged taxis around, but most of the transpo—including 10 km out to the airport is by tuk-tuk.  Individuals can catch rides on the back of motorbikes for a cheap price and there are some pedal-powered tuk-tuks as well, but again, not many.

Motobikes pull everything here—from the pig going to market photo I posted to a flat-bed cart with a family of 15 on it, charcoal bags, water jugs, mattresses.  You name it ana motorbike pulls it around here.  And EVERYONE’s on a motorbike.  Families of four routinely were seen on them with mom of dad steering, the other parent in the back, one kid in between them and one standing (for scooters) in front or sitting on the driver’s lap.  Many drivers had helmets, but most passengers did not.  We saw some kids on motorbikes that could not have been 18 months old and the largest number that we’ve seen (several times) is five.

We noticed another thing along the sides of the roads in little shops.  Lots of Coke-style beverage bottles (glass, one liter, and two liter) in racks, filled with a strange looking yellow liquid. I was afraid to ask what it was, but when I did, Sing told us that they were all filled with gasoline for motobikes.  We see plenty of gas stations around, but he said that the people don't always trust the metering on the pumps and that it's a pain to pay at them, so when they want to be sure they're getting what they want in the amount that they want, they just guy it liter by liter on the side of the road.

Driving here is just crazy.  Signals mean nothing except at the largest intersections and the only governing rule is that the vehicle with the highest overall momentum has the right of way. Minibus and automobile drivers honk constantly to warn motorbikes that they are coming from behind and the motorbike needs to get over to the shoulder or at least make room.  Left turns are made at any point in time and are shaved off and shallow so much so that form sometimes 50 or 100 meters, the driving turning left is driving on the wrong side of the road.  No one fully stops at uncontrolled intersections—they just slow down and find a gap to merge or cross, no matter how small.  When traffic is snarled in one direction, most drivers think nothing of just moving over to the left and commandeering one of the oncoming lanes that may appear to be unoccupied a the time.  Once occupied, though, and a face off is set, gridlock ensues.

Driving in the countryside is free form.  The only rule is:  don’t hit something.  All else goes.  It doesn’t matter what side of the road you’re on at any point, so long as you’re not about to impact someone else in the next microsecond or two.

Driving through villages is very much like what we experienced in Rwanda about seven years ago.  The driver barrels through (as traffic allows), with dogs, children and bicyclists performing a calm but effective Darwinian Dance to avoid and evade.  In Cambodia, you’re either aware, or you’re dead.  The idea of distracted driving here (cell phones) is terrifying.  We’ve seen very little cell phone use by drivers.

Population

According to our Intrepid Travel guide, Kean, Cambodia has about 15 million citizens with 58% of them being 18 years old or younger.  Kids are just everywhere here.

We arrived at about the same time this morning and found our latrines still standing and the walls well set.  The locals had done little or no additional work after we left the day before, but that was okay with us.

I started the day by pulling out a couple of foam rubber baseballs that we got from the Academy's Admissions Office as souvenirs and gave them to a few of the kids that had been hanging around us and watching.  Needless to say, they were pretty pleased by their new toys.  Dan was nice enough to take a few photos before we got started.

The morning consisted of Winston doing more digging--but first he had to bail the pit out because we arrived to find his pit completely filled with water (well, to about 12 inches of the edge) and since it didn't rain that much, it confirmed what I deduced the day before.  The water table in most of Cambodia is only about 12 inches below the ground!

Anyway, he and another local bailed it all out while Dan, Annie, and our Cambodia expert, Jay (sp?), mixed a fresh batch of mortar on the ground with five, five gallon buckets of sand and one 50 kg bag of Portland Cement.  After that, we got to it with the bricks and made good time until we got near the top of the door frame.  At this point, day installed the concrete-poured vent window pieces.  Things were getting a bit sporty with the height, too, and you can see in the photos that I was standing on the equivalent of two parallel 2x4s that were on top of the one meter circular cylinders (in full rolling formation) because they hadn't been installed yet.  I managed to make it through the whole day without a fall, which is a very good thing considering my potential impact points. The other group, despite being in much better ground, was only slightly behind us ;-) and progressing well, too.

the morning was generally uneventful except for the fact that they constantly asked Winston to widen his pit to fit the concrete cylinders.  We measured the pit an few times and thought that the cylinders would fit, but we had a few Lost in Translation moments getting that point across, so Winston continued to dig and scrape and bail.  

We left for lunch at about 1130 and again arrived at the Vine ravenous with hunger.  Everyone looked like they were going to fall asleep on the deck, but the food brought them back to life.  We had about a 30 minute siesta next, though, which I used to walk around the gardens with my camera and to explore the peppercorn fields.

When we returned, the work got very busy.  We worked hard to complete the walls of the latrine and we had a few more translation issues dealing with how high the walls would ultimately be.  Finally, after a few replaced, then disassembled bricks, we settled on a height over the door frame that included a slope to the back for drainage from the corrugated steel roof that would be installed later.

We finally got clearance on the pit for Winston after a couple of locals helped us pull out some big rocks and also dislodge an unside down five gallon bucket that Winston had been using as a stable island in his inland sea of muck.

Note:  the pig was gone from his/her sty this morning.  In the trash, we saw a pig's tail.  You can do the math on that one.  The family looked happy and well-fed.

The installation of the pipes/cylinders that followed was tough work.  Each of the cylinders easily weighed 100 kg and probably more--reinforced concrete one meter in diameter.  They were slid into the pit on poles and then set by a combination of methods that included digging out a little more around them for balance, Winston and I jumping on the them to set them, and, when was slid in wrong, looping a rope through the side drainage hole and hoisting it up with the help of three people.  It was funny that the barefoot kids watched our every step, each of them only inches away from falling into the muck.

Finally, though, the first two cylinders were set side-by-side, to the great relief of Winston.  We spent the rest of the afternoon completing the brick laying and got to the last few bricks just before quitting time.  We let Jay and Mr Senh do the last few bricks so that they would get it right and meet their expectations.  We'd realized early in this process that helping is good, but there are times when we just need to step back and let them do their thing the right way without our good intentions or interference.  Vy was very helpful throughout this process as she interpreted for us.

The other team was at about the same point as we were by about 1600 and twenty minutes later we decided to call it a day.  The roof is left, as is setting the pieces and running the drain lines from the latrine to the septic cylinders.

Good news about today was that we had very little rain and the ground was a little drier.  We had probably our sunniest day of the trip, but the cadets were pretty diligent about their sunscreen even if I had to play "Dad" and remind them a few times.

We left just before 1630 and made our way back to the hotel, arriving just before 1700.  Winston, Hansena, Annie, and Luke made a beeline for the beach and I loaded photos on the laptop for later processing.  I joined them a few minutes later and enjoyed cooling off in the water, wading through the shallows, and taking a few more photos.  The water certainly wasn't clear, but it was a little cooler than I expected, too.  I used the opportunity to do a little more washing of my DWC shirt, but still came back and did shower laundry with my shorts.

During the break before dinner, I post-processed all of my RAW photos and got them backed up.  We left for dinner at 1830 and went to a very nice restaurant (The Veranda) which had a stunning overlook of Kep Bay.  We could see thunderstorms over the water while we enjoyed a very good dinner.  The cadets went "western" and ordered pizza, steak, and pasta, while Dan and I had one of the national dishes of Cambodia, Cha Kreung.  Winston was kind enough to treat the over 21ers to fruity happy hour cocktails, too.  Luke saved half of his pizza for later and took it back to the hotel room to refrigerate until the US-Belgium World Cup game starts at 0300 local time.  We'll see how productive the cadets are tomorrow as we (hopefully) finish our first two latrines--what a big day! 

Here are today's shots:  

We all met for breakfast at 0700 at the hotel and were on the road to the village of Oudong before 0800.  IT was about a 20 minute drive through some very pretty countryside.  Along the way, we stopped for a big jug of water with a spigot on it so that we could fill our water bottles throughout the day.  We turned off the main road down a red dirt trail and into the village, arriving at about 0810 to meet Mr Senh (Sing) who is the local leader of the project.  The village itself is very poor with very few improvements.  There's a pump for ground water (non-potable) and several homes along the dirt road main street.  Dogs were every where as well as cattle and preschool age children.  Dan and Vy told us that we would divide up into two teams of four to do the work, so I picked a number between 1 and 100 and the losers were Dan, Annie, and Winston.  Vy led the others across the narrow road to their project and we surveyed the two big piles of raw materials that were deposited by where the van stopped:  small granite boulders (about a foot or so in size), a stack of bricks, a pile of sand, and four half-meter length concrete cylinders about a meter in diameter each (maybe a little less).  

Mr Seng led us to the back yard area behind one home and we met a Cambodian guy that was leading this construction.  He had staked out wand strung the outline of the latrine--it was to be about two meters square.  Just inside the lines/wire, he was using a hoe to rip up the ground and dig a ditch about one foot deep and the width of the hoe (about 8").  Our first job was to haul all of the boulders back to the muddy yard, then haul the bricks and restack then, then carry buckets of sand and 50 kg bags of Portland cement.  We then carried buckets of water back and mixed the sand and cement in an open pit next to our project.

The leader (actually a skilled worker) had, by this time, completed the foundation trench and was lining it with the large granite boulders.  As the concrete was mixed, buckets full went into the trench on top of the rocks and he and Mr Senh used tampers to level the foundation.  

Once that was done, the first bricks were laid and we joined in doing the same.  About this time, Dan also started digging a big pit next to the latrine that would house the concrete cylinders (turned vertically).The original goal was to dig a two meter deep pit and then stack the cylinders on top of each other to make a two meter deep septic tank system.

Dan got to work as Annie and started laying brick and Winston helped with hauling and mixing more concrete.  That was the division of labor for most of the day, though I did dig some in the pit--enough to realize that a flat front edge shovel wasn't going to the the job when we started hitting dense whitish-colored clay as well as some buried clothes and other trash.  Did I say the ground was REALLY muddy, too?

We took short breaks for fresh coconut milk (a good benefit of the job, since they came directly from the trees around us and were cut by the neighbors) and some regular water as well as taking photos--Dan with his Nikon and me with my Canon and 16-35 f/2.8L II lens.  Kids watched us and we learned a few words of Khmer  There also short breaks as we were hit with intermittent rain showers much like the "pineapple rain" one sees in Hawaii. 

The work went quickly, though, and Dan dug quite a bit. Winston was a machine in the hole, too, but we started running into water issues.  The water table is just so high here that even at one meter depth in the rainy season we had water seeping in.  Mr Senh and Vy quickly decided that we would be changing plans for the pits and decided to dig one meter deep, but put the cylinders stacked two high next two each other.  The adjustments were made, we found a pointy-ended shovel and Winston went to work.  Meanwhile, Annie and I were laying bricks and actually having a good time doing it.

Did I say it was muddy?  We were all covered in mud from the knees down pretty quickly.  We also noticed that our work was being carried out only 10 feet from the family's covered pig sty, so that added a little "atmosphere" to our work.  (It was a healthy looking pig, too)  It was clear that the "lawn/work area" was well fertilized, too, as the grass was growing quite well.

We worked until about 1130, doing much more than we or the project leaders thought we'd accomplish, then took a lunch break.  We drove about 10 minutes away to a place call "The Vine," a combination bed and breakfast, restaurant, and peppercorn farm.  Dan told us that it was owned by the head of Equitable Cambodia and they would provide our lunches in each of the weekdays that we worked.  We took off our shoes at the door and climbed to a second floor deck that overlooked a pool below, the peppercorn fields, and the Cambodia countryside--it was beautiful and the breeze felt wonderful.  We also took advantage of the facilities to do a little personal clean-up.

Lunch consisted of and excellent sour fish soup, rice, and something that was the Cambodian equivalent of Egg Foo Yung.  All of it was good, accentuated by the hunger brought on by a very tiring morning.  We lingered a little while, but we were back to the work site by about 1330 to get more done on the latrines.

Progress picked up in the afternoon and the walls of our latrine were getting high enough that we could work standing up.  Also, our work leaders had earlier installed framed doors into each latrine and we were now bricking around those.  The other team's latrine was going well, too, with Hansena doing much of the digging in the morning, followed later by Dylan and Luke, plus a few of the locals.

Back at our latrine, Winston was singing (and inventing) work songs to laugh about all of the muck he and Dan were digging out of the hole as they continued to make progress and get muddier and muddier.  Our walls continued to get taller and we enjoyed the work.  I found it very calming, structured, objective, and logical--like laying tile.

We had a few more rain showers, but not too much in the afternoon.  WE continually recharged the concrete/mortar pit by hauling more sand and water, but ultimately decided to call it quits for the day at about 1630.  I took a set of "after" photos to document where we were for each project.  The cylinders were set for Team 2, while we were close to doing so.  The doors looked solid and both latrines had about the same total number of bricks laid.  WE wondered if by us leaving the real experts might actually get it done quicker than if were there and they had to take the time to fix our mistakes.

On the way back, we stopped at a small convenience store and the cadets bought soap for doing sink laundry and a few other sundries. Back the hotel, Luke, Winston, Annie, and Hansena immediately ran to the beach and umped into the water wearing their Equitable Cambodia shirts.  They were having fun and they waved to Dylan an me as we watched from the balcony of the Beach House.  

We weren't going to dinner until 1830, so Dylan and I decided to try out the trail behind the hotel that led into the national forest.  It was called the Stairway to Heaven and it had small yellow signs telling us the distance in meters to landmarks along the trail.  We started at 1714 and decided to hike until 1725 and then turn around and return to clean up for dinner.  

The trail started with about 100 stairs and then transitioned to a single track dirt trail that had about a dozen switchbacks through the jungle before arriving at a small Buddhist Temple on the side of the hill that overlooks Kep Beach and the water.  It took us almost exactly 10 minutes to get to this point and we were encouraged by signs pointing out reasonable distances to the summit of the mountain and other landmarks.  We'd climbed 129 meters in altitude (0ver 400 feet) and were again covered in  sweat.

The hike down was quick and uneventful and we were both back in our rooms before 1740.  I used the time to do sink/shower laundry, download files, and process some of them.  

We departed the hotel with Vy and Dan at 1830 and went to out for seafood to a local place that had great grilled fish, shrimp, and squid, plus cheap beer, but horrible service.  We enjoyed dinner, though, especially the fact that you could get about 12 BIG grilled shrimp for $5.  We were back in the hotel by 2030.

I'd like to pick out a few photos to show here, but it's getting late and the easiest way to do this is to just link to the zenfolio gallery and slideshow, so here it is!  

For lunch, we went to Khmer Kitchen near Pub Street on Kean’s recommendation.  We had some of the best food we’ve had all trip at this little hole-in-the-wall place.  Cheap beer and really freshly prepared food.  I tried the Fish Lab which was a nice white fish prepared in a green peppercorn and sauce with lime juice and fresh basil.  Winston asked for the hottest Thai curry from the special Thai page of the menu and was again disappointed.

We returned to the hotel and packed out bags for the return to Phnom Penh, meeting Kean in the lobby at 1515.  We’d checked out by 1300, so I stayed in the lobby and watched the bags while the cadets got yet another round of shopping in.

As Kean left us at the airport, we thanked him profusely, gave him a tip equal to $10 apiece and dragged out bags to the counter.  The flight went off without a hitch—and the landing was a lot smoother this time, too.  As we exited the airplane, a young man was holding an Intrepid sign with my name on it and we were shuttled back to the Plantation Hotel through very heavy rush hour traffic.  Intrepid travel had once again done a great job on a cadet trip and I’ll definitely use them again as soon as possible.

We checked into the hotel and were once again presented with their intoxicatingly good fresh passion fruit and orange juice in a champagne flute along with the iced cotton towelettes.  We love the Plantation!

We’d made plans to meet our guides, Dan from Developing World Connections, and Vy from Equitable Cambodia at the hotel at 1900 and then all go out for dinner.  They were on-time and we hailed two tuk-tuks for the eight of us to go to Sovanna Khmer BBQ on Vy’s suggestion.  We made a small mistake, though, when Dan and Vy got into on tuk-tuk with Winston and me, while the other four cadets got into another one.  We had our first tuk-tuk race of sorts and were enjoying the ride through the evening air around the Independence Monument until we arrived at the corner near Sovanna to be dropped off.  Suddenly, the cadets and their tuk-tuk were nowhere to be seen.  We waited a few minutes, but they didn’t show.  Vy and I left Dan and Winston at the corner to wait for them (the restaurant was about 50 meters down a narrow road), to see if their driver had deposited them in front of the place.  They had not.  Then, Vy pointed out to me that there was another location for Sovanna on the same street about 200 meters down the road.  The driver must’ve left them there. She walked there, while I stayed in front.  Luckily, she found them at the other location and we finally all met up for some grilled food Khmer-style.

The restaurant was bustling with people, completely open in the front, with ceiling fans going full speed and a decent breeze.  Grills were in front of the building and the kitchen was raging I nthe back.  Vy made suggestions and we ordered things like Grilled Bull’s Heart, Grilled Kidneys, Grilled Tongue, Whole Grilled Fish, and some other dishes.  Luke ordered what the menu said was a beef steak, but it bore very little resemblance to what we would call a steak and I don’t think he liked it very much. The beer was again cheap and we were surprised at the end to have a bill of only $65 for all eight of us.  We took tuk-tuks back to the hotel—with Vy in one and Dan in the other this time—and made plans to meet the next day at 1130 for checkout from the hotel, loading our bags onto the vans to take us to Kep, getting lunch on the way.

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We returned to the hotel via tuk-tuk and still had time to shower, finish all of my photo tasks, and pack for our 1130 checkout.  Dan and Vy were there on time and the checkout was painless and quick.  Again, for $39 per person per night, including breakfast, the Plantation is a steal in any country.

We loaded up our larger bags in one of the vans, but our driver had to go back to get another driver and van for the trip.  We used the free minutes to run across the street to an ATM to get a little more cash since we were told that there would be no ATMs in Kep—the nearest being in Kampot where we might visit next weekend.  The ATM was funny because (and it said this as you went through the menus) ifyou asked for $100, it gave you a single $100 bill.  If, however, you asked for less than $100, it gave you smaller denominations.  I asked for $90 and got ten $10 bills.  Luke and Annie got $100 bills—tough to break in most places in Cambodia where almost nothing we’d encountered so far in terms of a daily expense costs more than $10.  I suggested that they ask the hotel lobby for help and each of them were able to break one large bill into $20s and $10s.

We went to lunch at the Magnolia Vietnamese Restaurant which looked very good.  The Pho was only $3.25 per bowl and there were some other good looking options as well.  Angkor beer was only $2.20 for a large 640ml bottle, too—the best price we’d seen so far.  I have to admit, though, that I was a liitle disappointed in the Pho Tai.  The beef was good, as was the broth, but the noodles were flat and larger that I’d prefer.  They didn’t provide bean sprouts, but we did get a plate with fresh basil, fresh green cumin stalks, some other unidentified green, and some diced red chiles.  The fish sauce was good and they also had Hoisin and a local Sriracha equivalent that was passable.  The bowl was the size of a small at Pho 75 in Northern Virginia or Pho-Nomenal in Colorado Springs.  Winston was finally pleased to find some very small, hot, pickled green peppers on the table that he could add to his stir-fried pho noodles.  They also served unsweetened ice tea which was good—for free—to everyone.  All in all a good meal.  I’m hoping to try more Pho in the Kep area since we’ll only be about 20 km from the border with Vietnam.

Before leaving, we visited “happy room” and were surprised to find an alternative to the American tradition of putting a chemical “mint” in the urinal—the restaurant had put the equivalent of about two sliced limes in there to freshen the air.  (Insert Margarita joke punchline here—citing Cuervo Gold, of course)

The drive to Kep was the usual Death Race 2000 in a rickety van devoid of seatbelts along marginal roads lined with pedestrians, bicycles, motorbikes, cars, large freight-hauling trucks, farm vehicles, tuk-tuks, and ox carts.  The number of near-death experiences for us and those around us was somewhere in the low double digits.  I tried to take a calm, meditative approach to the whole thing, accepting my fate in the finest Buddhist traditions, seeking enlightenment at some point before impact with an oncoming vehicle or multiple rolls into a flooded rice field. It is just an exercise in inner peace and tranquility.  Additionally, I used the opportunity to type this missive as we barreled along at about 110 kph (70 mph) on roads designed for 80 kph, unlined, unregulated, with neither guard rail nor stable shoulder.  Yes, I’m at peace now…

We arrived in Kep and checked into the hotel that overlooks the beach.  The rooms are simple, but comfortable with a/c and wifi,plus breakfast is included, so we're good to go.  We start at 0700 tomorrow morning and will be building/digging latrines!  More on that later!

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Between us, Annie wanted one more shot at the Russian Market to buy souvenirs for her family, so Dylan and I said that we would meet her I the lobby at 0800 to take a tuk-tuk there.  The others were undecided, but I’ve learned that “undecided” or “we’ll see in the morning” to most cadets is as good as a “no.”

I woke up at 0500 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I grabbed my laptop, camera, and other equipment and headed outside to the pool to catch up on blog posts and processing and backing up photos.  It was still dark when I made it to the breakfast area, and the staff was preparing things for breakfast and straightening around the pool area.  It was peaceful and very quiet and I was able to get quite a bit done, including loading almost all of my photos onto Zenfolio and completing all of but a few post-processing tasks.

I enjoyed my last Plantation breakfast of fruit, yogurt shots, and their incredibly good coffee and hit a good stopping point just as Annie was arriving for breakfast—Dylan had joined me a few minutes before. 

At 0800, we grabbed a tuk-tuk and went to the market.  I decided to just take my 50mm f/1.8 lens (Canon’s “Nifty-Fifty”) to challenge myself with taking photos only equipped with a prime lens.  I tried to get my settings right on the way over and got a few good shots, then went into the labyrinth that is the market, agreeing with Annie and Dylan that, if separated we would meet at the same entrance (by the KFC!) where we’d arrived.

We started off together and were looking in the same area—me for kids’ t-shirts and Annie for both t-shirts and some small Buddhas and jade.  I bought my two t-shirts quickly, making the lucky first deal of the day with one young lady.  I spent the rest of my time in and out of the stalls, passing through the “food court” and then into the produce and VERY fresh meat and seafood sections of the market, getting some keeper photos.  It was a lot of fun.

The cadets were waiting on cue at 0900 and we walked through the market a little more so that I could get a cotton “boony” hat with a Cambodia emblem on it—another good wide-brimmed hat for working in Kep.

After the monastery and temples, we boarded our tuk-tuks again and left for the Tonle Sap Lake (and river) and a chance to see the floating villages that line the channel to the lake.  The Tonle Sap is the largest body of water in Cambodia and is essentially a VERY wide area in the Tonle Sap River that joins the Mekong near Phnom Penh.  It’s richness in food, varying water levels, and the way it spreads nutrients across the countryside when it floods makes it a remarkably important resource for the nation.  The land is so flat in this area that the river actually changes flow direction based upon the amounts of  and location of rainfall.  Flooding from the lake every year provides fresh soil to the rice fields that are cultivated mostly during the dry season—110 days from seed to mature rice according to Kean.

When we arrived after the very dusty ride, we saw dozens of boats along the banks of a channel that, during the dry season connected villages to the lake itself.  Kean told us that the water was just beginning to rise since we were early in the rainy season, but that all but the tops of the dikes and roadways would be covered by September.  Dozens of long, narrow Mekong-style passenger boats lined the shoreline and Kean bought tickets for us at the main counter. We all went down the steps from the high-water berm to the current lake level and boarded the sturdy boat 5786 with its intrepid captain working to get the engine started.  Kean helped push us from the shore once the motor was running—and also away from the other boats so that we could navigate our way into the main channel.  We were told that the water was only about chest deep, but the propeller shafts that stuck out almost horizontal from the backs of the boats had bottom guards to keep them from choking in the muddy bottom.

We were soon off for our two hour cruise along the channel that became increasingly congest with boats, houses, and plant growth until we reached the current effective terminus with the lake aobut 25 minutes later.  Along the banks we saw children swimming, men and women throwing fishing nets, families on small houseboats watching TV powered by car batteries, repair shops, mini-marts on barges, pigs in floating stalls, dogs, cats, and more than I could imagine.  There were floating schools sponsored by Vietnam and a safe drinking water station funded by USAID.

The channel effectively ended at an area choked by plant growth, but home to a floating village that included a crocodile farm, restaurants, markets, and observation platforms,  From that point to what appeared to be the open water of the lake, it looked a half kilometer of water lilies and other growth was choking the route.  Some boats charged through, but Kean told us that there really wasn’t anything exciting about being on the main lake itself—just a flat expanse of brown, muddy water—so we stayed at the terminus and watched the other boats from the platform.

The return on the boat was largely uneventful once we got the motor started again—this time requiring one of the village mechanics to give us a jump start.  Oh, and I forgot to mention… as we were departing in the first place, our captain suddenly just let go of the wheel and ran to the back of the boat.  It seems that he’d forgotten to attach the ropes that connect the rudder to the steering.  We approved of his actions!

Once back to our tuk-tuks, it took us about 40 minutes to return to the hotel.  We were caked in dust, but we had time for a shower and clean-up before checking out of the hotel and getting some lunch.