The Real Cambodia Is Green and Brown

November 3 - 6, 2008
Battambang, Cambodia

A wise friend recently wrote to me and told me the real Cambodia is green and brown. I thought I understood what he meant, but I am learning the difference between understanding and knowing. Leaving Siem Reap for Battambang, our rickshaw boat sputtered along for 8 hours through flooded lands, floating villages, and along a slow and winding river where people fished, bathed, swam, and worked. Intrigued by the life I saw along the river, I wanted to see more.

The next day, I turned my back on the tourist destinations and unimaginative touts and pointed my weathered rental scooter in no particular direction, just following the roads until they withered away into paths of gravel and then mud. Tourists don't go here. I dropped the bike into the lowest gear and crawled along the muddy roads lined with banana trees and rickety wood houses on stilts. As I passed, smiles erupted on the faces of children, sheepish smirks blossomed on the young women bathing in the rivers as their eyes met mine, and parents and grandparents rushed to call their kids to my attention if they weren't already following me with barefeet or bicycles. Everyone waved. I was followed by echoes of "Hello" or "Bye Bye" and not necessarily in the proper contexts! This is the real Cambodia... living along the brown life-giving rivers, the shady green trees, the luscious rice fields, and the muddy brown roads with not much else but a smile to their name.

Nearing the end of the path and the end of my day, I encountered a group of men sitting on a bamboo platform under a large sprawling tree next to a wet rice paddy. They were playing some sort of traditional violin and drum while singing into a microphone and speaker system. An old man held out an offer of a grimy glass of what I guessed was Cambodian moonshine. More for the opportunity than the moonshine, I hit the brakes. For the next hour or so I completely left my comfort zone, and somehow completely entered it at the same time. After some laughs, some shots of alcohol, offers of vegetables and fish heads and mysterious large bug-things, they put me on the microphone and expected me to perform. I searched in my memory for some prophetic Jim Morrison or Leonard Cohen lyrics, but nothing came... not even my well-memorized Beastie Boys lyrics. It didn't matter since. Not a word of English was understood except for 'hello'. I was alone in the moment. I sung and rapped and chanted anything that the rhythm of the drum pulled out of me. They joined in with my impromptu chorus lines and I joined in with their dancing as a few old women and children gathered to watch.

On an ancient scooter my insurance company would laugh at, in the darkness on slippery brown unlit roads, without a DOT-approved helmet, and with a couple smiles worth of Cambodian liquid in my system, I am free.



River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Young girl trying to survive the swells thrown off by our boat as we pass by. For all you overprotective people... notice no life-preserver!


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. The girls are always paddling, it seems.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Presumably a brother and sister out casting fishing nets.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. A bicyclist following the river at about the same pace as our river boat.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. After the daughter cooled herself off by pouring a bucket of water over her head, the father decides to do the same thing!


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Another young girl out fishing in her boat.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Young boy fishing in his boat.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Boys and their fishing nets along the banks of the river.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. School children from the floating villages returning to class. No life jackets in sight.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Same schoolchildren and their cacophony of paddles.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Sadly, there is just no good way to deal with the packaging waste of the modern world. In the western world, we tend to hide our dumps better, but this is the future we are leaving for all our children.


River boat - Siem Reap to Battambang. Everyone is friendly along the river. Several girls along the way take their time to showcase a little and blow kisses at our boat!


Scooter Day, near Battambang. Kids playing in something or other...


Scooter Day, near Battambang. A naked family sings and chatters away as they float along the river.


Scooter Day, near Battambang. Boy transporting his load along the roads.


Scooter Day, near Battambang. My music group. The old guy on the right wearing the dress seemed to be the leader, and is the one who offered me the moonshine as I putted by on my scooter.


Scooter Day, near Battambang. This is the tree under which the guys were playing music and chilling out.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. A youngster returns home to his house in the rice fields.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. A friendly couple of kids that joined me for a few hundred metres while smiling and laughing along the way.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. An old woman tried to set me up (or marry me off) with this girl who owns and runs this roadside store. I ordered a Coke, and it took me a little bit to communicate that I would like some ice too. Finally she went to the cooler, and attacked the block of ice with a more than slightly rusty hacksaw, and then finished it off with an equally old hatchet...


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. There were a few of these guys transporting pots and pans throughout the countryside. Excuse the pun, but a few feet behind him was a one-legged amputee also on a bicycle.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. Shy and cautious girl and her bicycle.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. Girls walking through the muddy paths, caring for their siblings.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. A suspension bridge surrounded by browns, greens, and blues.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. This brave little kid didn't even hesitate... he stripped down to his underwear, climbed up onto the bridge, shimied up the cables, and threw himself off this bridge and into the brown waters below... then he continued to scrub his pants clean in the river. All part of a day's work. I don't think too many North American parents would survive the cardiac arrest if they saw their children doing this...


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. These boys just playing in the rivers.


Bicycle Day, South of Battambang. Bicycles and bridges.