We've just arrived in Siem Riep, the home of Ankor Wat, trying to stave off the depression after spending 2 days at a homestay in the countryside. The dirt that came off in the shower was quite remarkable... It's certainly been an interesting few days! I'm suddenly feeling the urge to sell all my wordly belongings, give the money to poor Cambodian children and go live in a mud hut somewhere... although somehow I can't see that helping at all.
We turned up in the particularly un-touristy town of Kampong Cham in the East on Tuesday afternoon, we were picked up by a tuk tuk and dropped 20 minutes out in the sticks at the home we'd be staying in. Although we knew that we would be roughing it a little bit, I don't think that either of us were really expecting what was to come... Not that it was a bad place or anything! We just weren't expecting quite the level of poverty that was all around us!
What the family home was lacking in electricity and running water, it made up for with chickens (not the kind you eat) and bugs (not for eating either- in their household anyway). It is such a shock to be in a home where they own NO luxury items whatsoever... nothing! After the sun goes down everything is done by torch or candlelight, all cooking over a flame as there's no oven, and people have conversations as there is quite literally nothing else to do. I think the homestay programme may actually keep the American husband who lives there sane. He lives in the house with his wife Kheang and his 5 and 4 year old son and daughter (the cutest kids you've ever seen), Ra and Na. They used to live in Pnomh Penh before getting turfed out of their apartment by the government and given pittance and a sheet of tarpaulin as compensation. They were lucky enough to have a small house out in the Kheang's home village to live in and have been out there ever since.
We arrived at about 5pm, made ourselves at home, played with the kids and ate dinner before our first 'speaker' (Kheang's mum) turned up. We could ask her anything we wanted to know about the Khmer Rouge. It was pretty interesting- she had been working in the fields throughout it. I think the family was lucky though as they were living in a leniant area and were thought of as 'old' (country) rather than a 'new' (city) people, so was treated with at least some decency. Her brother-in-law and a few other relatives did 'disappear' though =/
The next day we woke up early and headed up to the far end of the village. It had been properly pissing it down with rain the night before, monsooning all over the shop! All the villagers were in their fields and rice paddies with their 'mechanical cows' (some kinda ancient looking machinery, I have no idea what it was for!) walking up and down in the mud. Kids were splashing about having a whale of a time catching crabs and snails. We bumped into a guy who was fishing with a net in one of the ponds... he had a whole big bucket full to take back to his family. 1kg of fish would make him 3000 riels, thats about 40p at the market.. thats a lot of fishing to get anything at all! We visited the village Wat (Buddhist temple) then went to see the cucumber people! It was like cucumber heaven- fields and fields full of a million and one cucumbers. Mmmm. Thats a hell of a lot of clock sandwich centrepieces! There was a family of cucumberers working away, absolutely covered with mud, picking them and adding them to their cucumber mountain. They work so hard n they sell for practically nothing. They were damn tasty though.
Next we went to see Kheang's mates who sew silk purses. They are a couple with 2 small children who live in a house on stilts down the road. As they are both somehow disabled they were given a job sewing purses by an NGO. The purses sell for about $15 a piece but they don't earn anything like that. I think they were the lucky ones though, their stilt house was cool! It had a tv, a radio and all sorts..
After lunch we headed up to Kheang's parent's farm. It is huge and all full of rice paddies, right next to the Mekong river. There were loadsa kids running around on the way there, they got so excited when they saw us coming and I thought they were gonna explode when we took our camera's out. Apparently they like to see what they look like!
Last night our second 'speaker', Kheang's sister turned up. She's a teacher at the local school. The conversation took a turn to the political- we had NO idea quite how corrupt the Cambodian government is. The 'Cambodian People's Party' as they're called haha, are terrible! Just a handful of super rich people don't give a second thought about the rest of the population- in fact they go out of their way to make life more difficult for them. Turfing Kheang's family out onto the street is just the tip of the iceberg... There is no healthcare (a few kids have died from Dengue fever in their village in the last few years) , no welfare system, the bare minimum of useless education, no jobs and hardly any freedom of speech.
Almost all Cambodians live out in the countryside, they can't afford to live in the town, but there is basically no infrastructure out there- they may as well not exist at all. The government marches in, takes their money to build shoddy roads that fall apart within months and leave the villagers to pick up the pieces. One day a mysterious building turned up in the village, no one would tell them what it was, then it was suddenly declared that a new prison had opened down the road. If people speak out about the state of the country in the media, it is very possible that they or their families will come to some harm. Possibly the worst thing about the whole situation is the Cambodians are so traumatised by the 1970s that they are too scared to speak up or protest against the government in any way or form!
The schools are absolutely useless. With at least 50 in a class, the kids learn the bare minimum of maths, Cambodian, history and later maybe a little English. In their local state school, only 1 student has finished the entire syllabus through to Year 12 since the 1990s! They all drop out early to work in the fields or move to the cities to work in 'garment factories' *ahem*. I asked if they have any computers in the school to which she laughed and said 'we have no electricity'. Argh depressing stuff!
The conditions in Cambodia are pretty much the same as when the Khmer Rouge came to power in the first place. Surely there is only so much the people will take before they find some weapons and go rich-people-hunting all over again. There's not much that the rest of the world can do as all aid gets frittered away by the government before it gets to the people. It's a lose-lose situation. Hmph.
It felt too wrong jumping on the air conditioned bus and heading off to the 'tourist bubble', as Don put it, of Siem Riep when most people there can't even afford to get out of the village. Tonight we'll go for a tasty dinner (in the restaurant Anglina Jolie used to go to, don't you know!) then to bed in a clean room with lights, satellite tv and a fan. Meh. Deffo need to go for a pint now! Angkor Wat tomorrow and a 5* hotel in Kuala Lumpur in 3 days time! Haha can't complain really! xxxxx
The Easy Riders said they could take us on a 4 days trip all round the countryside on motorbikes which would actually be the best thing ever but there is just not enough time 
