Month: March 2026

                        Our last full day in Cambodia was jam packed with some extraordinary experiences…. not that the other days weren’t as jam packed, maybe just because it was our last day.

                        We started out early on our way to visit a village that floats on water. This is the Dry Season, wet will soon be upon them and the difference in water levels is extreme, like another thirty feet of water in the lake!

                        This makes for these villages to be able to pull up anchor, (or rope, or rock, or tree) and move! We visited the Mechrey Village, one that is entirely floating. Some of the others employ very long stilts to deal with the rise and fall of the seasonal waters.

                        This means that every aspect of everyday life is always conducted on the water.

                        Want to go to the local store?

                        How about school?

                        Maybe you want to go out for a bite to eat?

                        Visiting friends?

                        Get in the boat!

            The lives of these villagers centers around mining and manufacturing.

                        (Ok…. how many of you said.. What???!!!)

                        That was just to see if you were paying attention!

                        Yes, of course, fishing is the predominant industry and having this lake as their benefactor works well because it is one of the most biodiverse lakes on the planet. It is obviously suffering from encroachment as of late, but it is still under control. That giant Mekong Catfish that is seen on River Monsters lives here, but it is threatened so it is illegal to catch. The largest one caught was over 600 pounds! (We did not see one ☹)

                        There are about 2000 inhabitants of the Mechrey Village some of which have roots back as far as the twelfth century when this style of living was first attempted here. Today their homes float on combination of bamboo (which has hollow sections) and more recently, large plastic barrels or even plastic bottles gathered in nets to make a type of floating “mattress” that a house may sit upon. The obvious question that seems to work its way into almost any conversation about where people live differently (like the astronauts!) is…… where do they go to the bathroom? And this answer is unfortunately another obvious one. Through the hole in the floor. Sanitation issues abound and there are some more modern treatment options that are available, but the cost is something that needs to be dealt with on a family-by-family basis. And when all of your income is derived by fishing the backwaters of Tonle Sap Lake, well… let’s just say that there are no mansions floating around out there.

                        Our trip out to the village started in a small tributary of this lake that is part of the Mekong River. The water is very low and it’s a good thing that the motors on these boats are made to tilt their propellors so that they don’t run aground. Much.

                        We visited with a family whose Grandmother was the midwife for the village, and she regaled us with her stories from those times. Since then, transportation has improved and getting to a somewhat proper medical facility is easier but not guaranteed. There are a few others that had been trained by Grandma for this reason and from time to time their skills are pressed into service.

                        We motored past some small stores, the Catholic Church, the floating regional school, and many, many homes. The people were friendly, waving at us as this kind of experience is becoming more and more popular with visitors that are staying in Siem Reap, which is only about 45 minutes away.

                        Back to Siem Repp and the hotel for lunch and free time until late afternoon when we went to visit the old temple at Ta Prohm. This is the one that has been partially let stay “natural” with some of the strangest trees growing out of any number of walls, temples and courtyards. It looked like an Indian Jones movie set on steroids!

                        After our visit there was over we went back to Angkor Wat to see the western walls of the Temple and the grounds (hopefully) glow in the late-day rays of sunshine. Oh, and we had a ‘toast’ as it was our final night in Cambodia, the next day would be the airport and back to Saigon. Ting found us the perfect spot to sit and watch the Temple. The Temple was closing and the visitors were pouring out as we sat there. Soon all that was left was the temple, the sun, and us with our shot glasses of local whiskey.

                        And….. some snacks!

                        Ting’s wife had made sure that he with him some of her favorite snacky-type things…… BUGS.

                        There were all sorts of critters involved including some beetles who could be heard singing their version of “Here Comes the Sun” as the rays broke through the clouds illuminating the Walls…

                        Actually, they were not singing because they were dead.                                                     And roasted.

                                                Or fried.

                                                Don’t know, don’t care. Sorry to deprive you of me explaining an actual insect-eating experience but even before we started out I swore that I would draw the line at bugs. Even the chocolate covered ones.

                                                Reports from my more adventurous comrades indicted that it was … OK…..the beetles seemed to get high marks and several descriptions of a flavor profile that has escaped me…. Sorry! But everyone survived and were all present and accounted for the next morning on our way to the airport.

                        If you’ve stuck with this month-long foray into the wilds of Vietnam, either being the Hills north of Hanoi or the crazy motorbike street rides in the cities, I thank you.

                        I hope that you can tell that this trip was one of the most interesting and rewarding experiences that we have ever had, on sooooo many levels! But the most lofty level was the opportunity to meet and converse with the people. Sights are cool and good photos abound, but when you come down to the ‘feelings” that you can come away with, it’s just all about the folks that me met.

                        They were the best.

                        Coming from a sales and marketing background I could not help but see a huge opportunity for the company that manufactures and distributes “Wet n’ Forget”, the house, roof, and sidewalk cleaning product. I can see the slogan now….”Use Wet n’ Forget…. Buddha approved for your little temple!”  The only problem is that they would need multiple fire trucks with their large volume hoses to do the application! This place is huge!

                        Huge enough in fact, to be the largest religious complex in the world. It is roughly twice the size of the Vatican in Rome, covering over four-hundred acres. Age-wise, it’s about a thousand years old but that’s not the cool part because wherever we go everything is a thousand years old! The cool part is that it lay dormant for about one hundred-fifty years until the Europeans “rediscovered” it back in the mid 1500’s. The place was so overgrown that no one knew exactly how large it was because remember, it’s a jungle out there (literally!) and jungles have a nasty habit of consuming anything that gets in their way including giant stone temples.

                        Age wise it is a contemporary of Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado, and if you had an airplane back then (or better yet a Transporter if you are a Star Trek fan!) and were able to fly from Cambodia to Colorado, you would witness two future World Heritage Sites in their full glory as they were developed and built at exactly the same time, 1150 AD.

                        “That’s fascinating Donny, but you neglected to tell us why something as grand as this fell into disuse, c’mon, it’s not likely that they forgot it was there!”

                        “Right you are Indiana! It’s all because of politics!”

                        “Huh?”

                        Ok, so let’s say that you are the new ruler in town and your plan was to build a new place cuz you wanted everyone to know about you, not the other guy!

                        “Huh?”

                        Plus…. It started out as a Hindu temple and when a more pacifist ruler came into power he converted it to Buddhism. But….. a little later, the next guy, who wanted to be more aggressive, said “Buddha out! Shiva in! and this went back and forth for a while, temples came and went, Buddhas and Shivas argued until the funds ran out and it was forgotten for about a hundred and fifty years…..

                        “Huh?”

                        Yup… or something like that. Anyway, the trees grew up, the vines smothered everything and more sooner than later, Poof! no one went there anymore! In trudges a few Portuguese explorers who “find” it, document that they were there and then forget about it. Compounding all of this confusion are the constant wars between the Siamese (Thailand), the Khmer (locals) and throw in some messes from China and India and you’ve got a real mishmash of a recipe. That is, until a French guy shows up a hundred-plus years later and starts the ball rolling for restoring it all……… and controlling the entire region, soon to be known as French Indochina. Now we’re back where we started.

                        Aren’t you sorry that you asked?”

                        “Huh?”

            Believe it or not, this site has not yet recovered from the dearth of ‘visitors lacking’ during Covid. So, not that we had the place to ourselves, but there were far less folks than what we had anticipated, which made our visit all the better. Getting around is strictly by foot, there are no vehicles allowed inside which makes for a guarantee that you will get your “steps” in for the day. It also guarantees that you will need to take a shower and change your clothes when you get back to the hotel because it’s about a million degrees with the humidity hovering in the Niagara Falls region of wetness.

                        But it was still a great experience. There are no words that can conjure up images in your mind that can do this place justice. From the bas relief carvings to their version of the Bayeux Tapestry carved along endless galleries, it is a place to be studied and taught about, hopefully by someone who not only knows what everyone else has memorized, but by someone who understands the intricate relationships and stories of what is depicted on the walls and in the temples of Angkor Wat.

                        We had that person in Ting. The proverbial fountain of knowledge when it comes to topics such as this, he peppered us with stories with the facts woven in so that we listened and didn’t even know that we were learning something!

                        We spent the better part of the day there, leaving to have another ‘home hosted lunch’, this time with a local family that lives in a village with the homes up on stilts. No, not for flooding, but for the aforementioned debilitating temperature range. The air is able to flow around, through, and underneath these homes and the underneath part is actually the coolest place during the day. These folks have lived in this region for a thous…. (nope! gotcha!) several hundred years but were uprooted along with the rest of the population, when the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot came into power. This is another one of those stories that defy description….. it falls under the title of “Man’s inhumanity to Man” category right along with the likes of Idi Amin, Hitler, Stalin, Sadam Hussien, and unfortunately, the list goes on, but I’m sure that you get the idea. Estimates of two million Cambodians were killed under his rule. It is fascinating to know that it was the Vietnamese Army that came into Cambodia in 1979 and in about ten days defeated the Khmer Rouge and ended Pol Pot’s reign of terror.

                        The government is now nothing short of fascinating. It is a constitutional monarchy, with elected representatives in two houses, but get this…. it is a one-party system, kind of like a communist regime, but in fact, it is not! The government is often described as a ‘soft authoritarian’ regime, having transitioned away from communist roots in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

            This is just me thinking here and don’t tell anyone in Vietnam, but I can sense a movement in this direction over there. Red Capitalism can pave the way for “freer” thinking……eventually.

That foray into the Mekong Delta was the last significant expedition of what is termed the Main Trip. If you will recall, we spent a few days up in the North, above and to the West of Hanoi, in the Hill Country with two different tribes. That was the Pre-Trip. Quite often there are three options when planning these trips with O.A.T…… Pre, Main, and Post. Put them all together and you end up with about a total of a month’s worth of travel.

                        Not everyone opted in for the Post Trip to Cambodia, but most did. Sherry and Harold had already been there, so they decided to throw another O.A.T. trip on as long as they were over here, so they are in Thailand and the Philippines. A few of the others needed to get back, so off they went when the Main Trip was concluded. But nine of us (now I know how Frodo felt when the Fellowship got broken up!) went on to Cambodia, the obvious big draw being Angkor Wat.

                        Angkor Wat is very conveniently located just outside of Siem Reap, the coolest sounding city (seem reep) we’ve been to so far and the second largest city in Cambodia after Phnom Penh. At only 250,000 residents it pales in comparison to Phnom Penh at ten times that and 2.5 million!  I’m glad we were in Siem Reap.

                        We have a new Tour Experience Leader, his name is Ting and he is an experienced O.A.T. Guide with about ten years under his belt. His personality mirrors that of Phil’s so we are all very happy!

                        They jam countries together over here the way it’s done in Europe which makes for tons of diversity when it comes to everything that makes up an ethnicity…..i.e. occupations, foods, religions, and local customs. The actual size of the old “French Indochina” is roughly one third that of the Lower Forty-Eight back here in the States. This means that to cover any ground in a decent amount of time, we needed to fly between some regions. Hence our three internal North to South flights in Vietnam, and now a flight into Cambodia will save us innumerable hours of driving, which we traded an hour of flight time for. The highways are not the same as back home so sometimes road travel does not equate to the usual miles driven vs miles flown calculation. Flying was good.

                        Except, we found ourselves on Fly One Airlines instead of Air Cambodia. I’m not sure that there’s a big difference as I’m not sure how large Air Cambodia is but Fly One has a whopping fleet of aircraft that numbers (I can’t believe that they just don’t buy one more plane….) 13! We all breathed a huge sigh of relief when we found out that Fly One is one of the aviation leaders in the Republic of ……. Moldova! (Huh?) Now we’re really feelin’ good!

            This feeling of confidence was only heightened when the Captain got on the horn to speak to us. Now Moldova is a tiny little thing nestled between Romania, Russia, Ukraine, and any other strip of land that wants to claim its independence from someone else (leaving everything in turmoil). So that means that he speaks with a Russian (?) sounding accent. Now that sure gives us folks from the West a real cozy feeling!

                        We were bused (where are you taking us?) way out on the tarmac, far away from any witnesses, and dumped off next to an old biplane that held maybe 20 or so passengers. Luckily our plane was on the other side of that one, so we trudged over, baggage in hand and climbed up the long flight of portable steps into the plane. The interior was a little reassuring as there were no produce or chicken crates to sit on, just the regular seats that one may expect. Except that I think Moldova’s aviation regulations have little concern for the comfort of their passengers because I’m pretty sure that there was more room in the back seat of my sister’s old Triumph Spitfire and that car didn’t even have a back seat!

                        Good thing the flight was only an hour! (But that 12-hour drive was now looking really good about now!)

                        Arriving in Cambodia at Siem Reap’s cute little airport stopped being cute as soon as we spied the Officials. Did you ever go through Customs or Immigration at JFK or Newark….some guy eating a Subway sandwich, sauces dripping on his shirt and the look on his face that says, “I only have 10 more hours of my 8 hour shift left.”?

                        Well, over here, where they revel in the obvious effects of an Official Guard that looks like they’re straight out of Central Casting, complete with a spotless uniform, gold braid, and odd-looking hat, and…… the Supervisor eyeing everyone up as if we were from the CIA, well then, don’t we feel like just giving them all a nice, big hug!

                        But when we get outside, just the direct opposite is true!

                        EVERONE bows slightly at the waist, hands pressed together, fingertips upward in a greeting, when saying thank you, or just as an everyday greeting, or serving anyone at a table, or anything! And it’s done with a genuine smile on their face and a warm glint in their eyes.

                        How nice is this???!!!

                        Ting picked us up from the Airport, rescuing us from the stiff-collared ‘Authorities’ in time to whisk us away in our own Toyota Minibus for the drive to town. The hotel is the best one we’ve been in so far, and they’ve all been good. Doormen and Bellhops bowing gracefully every time we enter, leave, or just pass by.

                        I could get used to this!

                        Ting wasted no time in getting us introduced to his city….. a tuk-tuk ride was in the offing which brought us around downtown and a very nice temple and the Royal Gardens.

                        A note on Temples here…. it seems that O.A.T. (the acronym) has another meaning. Tongue-in-cheek they refer to themselves as … Oh! Another Temple! Similar to Viking who will entertain you with A.B.C. Tours ….. Another (Bloody) (Bodacious) (Beautiful) you fill in the blank…. Cathedral.

                        Cambodia is Buddhist.

                        Buddhists have shrines and temples.

                        We saw all of them.

Of course, we are all waiting for the Big Kahuna (wrong religion, but you get the idea) of them all, Angkor Wat. The anticipation is building, teased along the way with its proximity to where we are, but kept under wraps by our rather full schedule of our All-Things Cambodian tour.

            The next two days were filled with a trip to their local Killing Fields, the Angkor National Museum, three more temples, including the one that has all of those incredible ancient tree roots spaghettified within it. There was another home-hosted meal, this one in a village of houses on stilts, not because of water, but because of heat!

No worries! All of these, and more will be detailed in their own photo-posts coming soon! The simple fact is that we have been so busy, and experienced so much, that I did run out of time documenting all of these ventures. Truth be told, we are leaving for the airport for our flight to Tokyo, and then Houston, in two hours. It’s 2AM and I can’t sleep so here we are talking! Wish I had a glass of milk and a few cookies! (any kind will do ‘cept yucky Fig Newtons).

            So now you know that we’ve been to Cambodia and are now back in Saigon. We arrived yesterday afternoon and are leaving this morning. By the time you read this, we will be somewhere over the rainbow winging our way back to the Western World, reluctantly leaving the Mysterious East behind us.

                        But have no fear, those Posts of what went on in Cambodia are too good to just leave in their digital files for no one to see, so I will duly foist them upon you in the next few days as if we are still there. So, suspend your internal timelines and if you’re like me, you’ll be happy that we’re “still” over “here”!