Today we’re going to board a boat that will take us down the Mekong river, all the way to where it empties into the South China Sea. To get to the boat, though, we’ll have to take a four-hour bus ride down Cambodia’s National Route 6. Maybe, after climbing up and down temples all day yesterday, sitting for most of the day today isn’t such a bad idea.
It’s mid-March. The dry season in Cambodia runs from December to April. Despite its lush forest areas, much of Cambodia is dry as a bone right now. The water level in Cambodia’s big lake, Tonlé Sap, is too low for our boat to come to us, so we’re going to the boat.
Cambodian National Route 6
To get there, we’ll take a ride from Siem Reap, down National Route 6 to a place where our boat is moored on the Tonlé Sap river. Most of the land along Route 6 is farmland. Well, right at the moment, it’s more like desert. The main crop grown here is rice, but there’s no rice growing this late in the dry season.
Most of Highway 6, at least the stretch that we were on, is sporadically lined with houses set back from the road. They’re rice farmers’ houses. There aren’t any farmers around now, though, and their houses are shuttered up for the remainder of the dry season. There are no jobs to be had here, so most men have gone to neighboring Thailand to work until it’s time to plant rice.
The houses we passed aren’t what we think of when we think of a “house.” For one thing, they’re on posts, up about ten feet off the ground, so they’ll be above water when the rains come. Many of these houses have a stairway leading up to the front door, which opens into the room. Not the “living” room. The only room. There’s a roof, four walls, a floor, and that’s about it. I assume that personal activities are performed elsewhere.
Cruising past hundreds of these temporarily deserted homes in our air-conditioned bus is sobering. These are family residences we’re driving by. I would imagine seeing living conditions like this in a third-world country, but I didn’t expect to see it so much here.
What Happened to Cambodia?
I mean, this is Southeast Asia. To me, that calls to mind beautiful Thailand, hustling and bustling Vietnam, and Malaysia, with one of the tallest buildings in the world. What happened to Cambodia? Here’s the highly-condensed version, as I understand it….
For hundreds of years after the fall of Angkor, Cambodia kept a low profile. It gradually ceded Champa lands back to Vietnam. Its stronger neighbors didn’t cause the Cambodians much trouble, (for a change). In the 19th century, Thailand had Burma and the English to contend with. Vietnam had the French.
Eventually, as the French embedded themselves in Southeast Asia, they moved into Cambodia, too. But Cambodia seems to have been too far off the French radar to warrant much interest.
Cambodia in the 20th Century
Even during the first half of the 20th century, Cambodia remained relatively unaffected by world events. The Japanese occupied Cambodia during World War II. After the war, in 1953, Norodom Sihanouk, the king of Cambodia, orchestrated Cambodia’s independence from France. (Years earlier, the French had made the then-18-year-old Sihanouk king because they thought they could manipulate him. Oops!).
One year later, in 1954, the powers at the Geneva Conference officially divided Vietnam into the Communist North and the pro-Western South. We all know what happened next — in Vietnam, at least.
Eventually, the war in Vietnam spilled over into Cambodia. The Vietnamese crossed the border, and the United States carpet-bombed eastern Cambodia to neutralize them. It was bad. Really bad.
Even though Cambodia wasn’t “in the war,” per se, it got creamed. Cambodia was in a bad way. King Sihanouk walked a fine, noncommittal line between backing the West or the Communists. Cambodia’s own communists, the Khmer Rouge, were making gains against government forces. Then, in 1970, while Sihanouk was out of the country, a coup was staged and he was thrown out of office.
Cambodia’s Civil War
The new Cambodian government threw in with the United States. Now Cambodia’s own internal war was for real. But U.S. support for the government and the new Cambodian leadership both proved to be ineffective on all fronts. In 1975, the Cambodian communists, the Khmer Rouges, won the war in Cambodia and gained control of the country.
At the time, many Cambodians were glad that the war was over, and hopeful that better times lay ahead. Unfortunately, the Khmer Rouges takeover led to five years of almost unbelievable misery for the Cambodian people.
Bus Stop at Spidertown
Meanwhile, back on the bus, we’ve stopped at a big rest area along the highway. Lots of cars and busses have stopped. There’s something like a farmers’ market going on. Vendors are selling all kinds of things. The “specialty” at this place seems to be tarantulas. Apparently there are millions of ‘em around here.
Vendors walk around with trays of fried tarantulas, trying to entice those who thought they were hungry when they got off the bus. Little boys and girls come up to you and ask if you want to pet a live one, see one up close, or whatever. The next thing you know, you’ve got a big ol’ hairy tarantula crawling on you. And guess what? For a small fee, that little boy or girl, (I’m talking maybe ten years old), will take it off you. Hey, it’s tough times out here in the wilds of Cambodia. A kid’s gotta make a living!
To be continued…
