Kampuchea Crossings

Bump to baby on the beaten expat track

Travels

Spirit houses in Asia

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Spirits– can’t live with them, can’t live without appeasing them. In Asia, nature or ‘supernatural’ forces are very much a part of one’s being and not disconnected as it is in the modern west.

When people move into a new home they create a disturbance in the natural world. In a gesture of deference and to re-balance the natural surroundings, it is tradition to appease the displaced spirits. Bribes of various sorts ranging from incense, fruits, vegetables, water and rice etc are regularly placed in these houses, sort of like an eviction compensation. It isn’t that the spirits will actually eat them, and in fact some of these houses can be left in such a state as to seem that the spirits are expected to clean their little abodes. They will not. These are symbolic acts of respect towards the earth and to divine beings who live alongside us.

See the bananas and bottles of water in the first photo? On the road down to Koh Kong there are a few spirit houses placed along the sides of the road. Sometimes people will stop, leave a lagniappe and ask the spirits in that area to look over them in their travels and keep mischief and danger away. If many accidents have occurred on a specific road a spirit house will be placed there, to allow travelers to pacify the tormented spirits.

It’s interesting to note that I have never seen birds nesting in these houses, nor eating the plentiful fruits left at them. I hadn’t had a drop of clue or curiosity yet to ask my Khmer colleagues and friends why this is so. I guess it satisfies my sensibilities that it really does have to do with an otherwordly presence.
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Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong

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Only four (five?) groups of freshwater dolphins are left in the world, mainly due to habitat loss and hunting– two in S. America and three in Asia. Here in Kratie, Cambodia, there are between 20 to less than 100 of the Irrawaddy dolphins. With such low numbers they are functionally extinct. They come to the Kratie area of the Mekong during the dry season (practically the only attraction there) and head up to Myanmar for the rest of the year.
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Banana leaf books

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Since deciding to leave ‘civilisation’ I hardly much missed the comforts I was luckily blessed with. Lord knows my parents are confuzzled why I chose to go to a country worse off than the one they took me out of! I guess that choice is a luxury they passed on to us, but that’s where we see things differently… So instead there’s a daily onslaught of novel situations– sights, smells, tastes– not all good! But more often than not it’s a memory to put in that bottle.

Here we saw an old man who lives at the temple on Phnom Chisour (2hrs’ motorbike ride from Phnom Penh). He writes Buddhist teachings on dried banana leaves cut into uniform ‘pages’, which are then tied together into a ‘book’. The implement is a branch with a sharpened end, and he fills in the strokes by rubbing a crushed leaf across the page. One book takes him a week to complete, and this he sells to tourists for $2. The skeptic in me wonders in which part of the pagoda do they mass-produce copies of these little books, and then age them over a fire or something. But as K and my photographer friend traipsed off to shoot all manner of inanimate curiosities, I stayed behind and watched him at length (like for 2hrs) painstakingly scrawl his messages. I even helped him pick leaves for ink (only the young leaves will do).

Yes, I bought one book from him. I have no idea what to do with it, so it sits with other dust-collecting ethnic baubles I purchase for the sake of stimulating the local economy.

Dyed chicks in Jakarta

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Can you believe this?? I think my shock was a little disabling. We rounded the corner on a tuk tuk and came upon this scene only enough to capture a single shot before the traffic converged to block the view and we were whisked off. Inside the cage on the different levels are chicks dipped in various colored dye. I mean, as a child in Manila I think I found this sort of atrocity cute since I myself was party to the doom of several baby animals I made my mom purchase for me at the market. I guess it is a luxury to have this mentality of animal harassment (cruelty?)…

Day Trip from Phnom Penh to Phnom Oudong

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This trip was a 50minute motorbike ride to the outskirts of Phnom Penh on a very hot Sunday. This is a typical panoramic view of Cambodia in the North-South region Siem Reap – Sihanoukville: flat as a pancake dry and dotted with palm and coconut trees, etc. Elevations are revered spots and wats (pagodas) are usually constructed on top of them.

These images of Buddha in various interpretations are not for idolising, such as Christians worship the images of the God. These images aim to inspire the appropriate mode of behaviour towards the personal achievement of enlightenment. It is an admired philosophy, especially during these modern fast-paced times, but its lack of appreciation for personal gains contributes to the detriment of Asian society (values?) in an age of materialism and the pursuit of wealth.

I have no idea what kind of turtles these are, but a lot of them are classified ‘threatened’ in Cambodia. We were taken once to a restaurant in Kampot Province, where the walls were lined with WWF and conservancy posters. Obviously it’s illegal to hunt those animals on the posters, but enforcement capacity is low. They were the menu offerings, but only hush hush. If officials came through the door the establishment is upholding the law.
No shortage of cutesy shots in the third world. Sadly this is exploited and children are sometimes harmed in order to garner more sympathy and thus more money from foreigners.

At wats around the country there are soothsayers who will read palms, feet, sticks, and tea leaves. Philosophies about fate and destiny are major factors why the region has not lived to its full capacity in the past several centuries compared to the West.
This woman makes 3 baskets in one day. Then sells each basket for 1000 Riel (25 cents) for a small one, or 3000 Riel (75 cents) for a big one the size of a cantaloupe. I can never look at the handicrafts in a Pier1 store ever again, since coming out to Asia.
The prize part of a crab is the fat inside the shell. Here they are sold by a vendor at the market. These are river crabs, small enough to fit nicely in a child’s hand. The shell / fat is sold for 600 Riel (~24 cents) and the whole crab for 1000 Riel (25 cents).


There were probably five mosques on the way to Oudong from Phnom Penh, which surprised us. Muslims make up 10% of Cambodia’s population, the largest group after Buddhists, but they’re largely concentrated in Kampot and Kampong Cham (Cham is the Khmer word for Muslim). Saudi Arabia finances the building of mosques here. Their presence has been slowly increasing, since the finding of oil off Cambodia’s coasts.

All photos from Keith A Kelly‘s photostream.

Market scene at Phnom Oudong

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Notice the eggs to this seller’s right? These are newly hatched Khmer delicacies (post-Khmer Rouge) sold only on the streets by a man pushing a barbecue cart, blasting a recording: “Eggs, they’re good for you and yummy too”. A small hole is cut into the shell and the egg is sucked out, mixed with lots of spices, stuffed back in, skewered and barbecued. I’ve seen it done, it actually works. I don’t personally like the taste of these things, though I am a big fan of eggs.
This couple has a barbecue stand, along with all the other barbecue stands selling all manner of meat. She is wrapping up my lunch purchase (chicken) in a lotus leaf. The ones roasting nearest is a stuffed frog– ground pork or beef mixed with onions and serious spices.
This family sells palm fruit at the market at Phnom Oudong. They’re the transluscent square or oval shaped pieces of fruit in the glass fruit cocktail jars at Asian markets in the US. Filipinos love these in their fruit salads. I’ll get a close-up next time.

More photos in a later post (I will steal my husband’s pro shots and post them here hehehe). I’m getting sleepy.
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