Monastery and temples - Cambodia

 

 







 

Kampot village and market - Cambodia

KAMPOT MARKET

This market had a huge number of different types of fish



Rice - it is almost all white rice as brown rice doesn't keep as well in the hot and humid climate

Fish sauce, grains and garlic



Woman selling bananas - she also has the flesh of Durian fruit in her takeaway container

Feeding sugar cane through a machine

Outside Kampot market

Durian fruit - large, sculptural with a thorn covered husk. they grow to 12"long to 6" in diameter.  They are very smelly but apparently taste good.

Kampot - outside the market



Close up of a chicken's tail, put head first into a basket on the handlebars

 

Eating in the market

 

 

 

 

KAMPOT - shops and houses, French Colonial architecture.

I particularly liked the sign 'Empowering your liveliness' (sounds like a good idea!).   Also the amusing 'Broken  English spoken perfectly'!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cambodia - Kampot Province

Our guide yesterday showed us Durian trees with huge fruits which are harvested, brought to market and sold for relatively high prices.  The 'meat' is scraped out of the centre.  It smells dreadful but apparently tastes very good.  I didn't have the chance to try it but the was an amazing shape, very sculptural and arranged in rows.

80% of Cambodians are farmers - rice, fish and forestry are their most important activities.  The markets are packed with fruit and fish.  Some of the others are teachers and our guide told us that they are very poorly paid. It's not therefore popular, as a job.  They try to augment their income in various ways, including by selling cakes and other produce to their pupils!   In the past they have had a large number of Vietnamese teachers too.
 

Our guide's family, like so many others, had suffered under Pol Pot's regime. (1975-79  approx. three million people were killed by the Khymer Rouge in what has become known as the Killing Fields).

He gave details about what happened to his mother, father and siblings, when he was 9 years old.  With no family alive, he was taken in by a family who gave him accommodation but nothing else, so he had to go out and find food and jobs that he could do.  Some years later he told us that he was very happy to discover that one of his brothers was still alive and found him again.
 

Many houses are built on stilts. The guide told us that this is to protect the family from snakes, insects etc and children can die from dengi fever.  It's a high risk malaria area too.

It's a very difficult life and very basic conditions for most people.

Small fishing village, Ropan Ropov,  in Kampot Province

 

 

 

This is where we are going.

Travels with my father...

At the beginning of 2013 my father, Gerry, booked himself onto a cruise to visit the Far East, visiting Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I haven't seen this part of the world, apart from staying in Bangkok and Singapore for a couple of nights at each place in 1974 on my way back from Australia. I began to think that I too would find this trip interesting.  However, the trip was planned to take place in December 2013 when I would be working, so that was the end of that idea.

Until...

I was engaged in an art project about Finding my Balance (work/life) that led to an exhibition of original prints in Wolverhampton Art Gallery in April 20th 2013. (see my other blog http://gardinistaartandthegarden-linda.blogspot.co.uk). Also, a number of other things came together at this time, including the opportunity to apply for voluntary redundancy, which I did.

Anyway, the short version of this explanation is that, as I was now free to travel in December, I too booked onto the same cruise.

It's only a few days until we leave!