Kampong Chhnang

The Mekong river and it’s tributaries like the Tonle Sap we are presently on, feed 300 000 000 people. That’s a lot of fish, but then we have sailed past kilometre upon kilometre of fish farms. Then of course, there are the individual fishermen, who I would guess catch insignificant quantities. We took the local tenders into Kampong Chhnang this morning to visit the town and its authentic market.

There are still some remnants of the French colonial era here, mind you, any buildings left from this period are in pretty bad condition.

There were lots of interesting things to see in this primitive town like these novice monks.

Here is the equivalent of your Rogers cell phone shop.

In the market, we passed more of what we have seen in previous markets, like the fresh meat sitting in the heat and the beetle nuts to make your afternoons disappear.

At the forge, they were using unexploded Russian and American bomb casings to make knives and pry bars. In the not too distant past, one such bomb, which proved to be not just a casing, blew up, killing the blacksmith.

One stall was selling KFC - Kentucky Fried Crickets. Nice!

These water buffalo had fulfilled their lab our obligations and were off to the slaughterhouse.

There was also lots of people watching.

For a snack, you could have a steamed duck egg with embryo inside - duck dinner in two bites.

Then we got back on the tender to visit the third largest floating village in Cambodia, with around 1200 families. Before that we once again passed lots of unique sites on the shore.

The little outhouse things on the back of the boats are indeed the outhouses with a direct line to the water. Water quality -????

Despite living on the water, many homes had flower gardens, dogs and satellite dishes.

Just before lunch, our last excursion was finished and we returned to the boat which then headed back to Prek K’Dam.

Now, unfortunately we had to prepare for our exit from the boat, which meant packing. But during the afternoon they did try to entertain us with towel and napkin folding demos. We got some pretty good results. Also, one of the photos below is of our lunch group.

The scenery in today’s sailing continued to be breathtaking in its uniqueness.

Tomorrow, they boot us off the boat.