Saturday, July 19, 2008

Driving!

Yesterday I screwed up my courage and embarked on a new adventure: driving in Bangkok!

We didn't bring either of our cars with us to Thailand, figuring that we would see how things went, and pick one up if we needed one. It turns out that one of our friends had two cars and was only using one-- so we are now the proud owners of a comfy Toyota Corolla. Hondas and Toyotas and the like are great cars to drive around here, because the parts are readily available and service is cheap. American auto makers such as Ford *do* have a presence here (something I wasn't expecting!) but service is a little harder to come by. Essentially, it's the reverse situation from back in the States.

Thursday and Friday were holidays here, and the traffic was light, so Josh persuaded me that it would be a good time to try getting out on the road. So, I drove over to meet him for lunch. Below is a handy Google Map of my route (from C to B and back):


View Larger Map

Fortunately, no bodily or property damage ensued! I was also able to pick up frozen groceries without having to lug them home by hand, which was nice!

The car is a US car, so the steering wheel is on the left...but here in Thailand, you drive on the left, so that has been the first thing to get used to! Fortunately, traffic tends to be very fluid, so as long as we keep an eye out and "go with the flow", it is really not all that crazy. The hardest thing to get used to are the ubiquitous mopeds and motorbikes that weave in and out of traffic, so "no sudden moves" is a safe strategy when driving a car!

Yesterday we also picked up a new Garmin car navigation system, to make our travels easier. Garmin has a huge presence here in Thailand, and they produce some really excellent and detailed maps for the whole country, in both English and Thai. We ended up buying a nuvi 200 GPS in English (they also have them in Thai), which is identical to one we'd get in the USA, except that the Thailand maps are pre-loaded on the unit. When we travel back to the US we'll get a card with the latest US maps and pop it in. Easy!

We intend to use the car mostly for trips out of town, rather than daily commuting. We are thinking of going to the beach (probably Koh Samet) in a few weeks, and we also want to make some day trips to places like Ayutthaya, the Kao Yai National Park, and similar. Watch this space for details!

Monday, July 14, 2008

Cambodia -- Tonle Sap Lake Village

Greetings-- it's Ellen again (finally!)

By the end of our second day in Siem Reap, we were pretty much "templed out"...something that must be pretty common! Our guide, Mr. Vith, suggested that on the third morning we take a boat trip down the river onto the Tonle Sap to visit one of the Lake Villages, Chong Khneas.

The Tonle Sap is a huge freshwater lake/river system. Most of the time it's pretty big, but in the rainy season, the Mekong River actually reverses its course and flows *into* the lake, causing it to grow to over twice its dry season size. At the time we were there, the rains were just beginning, and the floods were a few months away.

The road south out of town started out in good condition, but gradually deteriorated into a rutted dirt track.

20080519 015

The road is elevated a few meters above the surrounding marshlands, and the houses are built on stilts to be at road level. Many of the houses were built by squatters.

20080519 012

We had stopped back in town to pay for our boat tickets (it is organized by a central company). Once we got to the end of the road, our guide located a boat, and we set out on the river.


We passed numerous other boats along the way, and a couple of floating barges holding the local primary school. The water level will rise by several meters in the rainy season, putting all the marsh grasses, etc. underwater-- so having everything float is a smart idea!

20080519 020
20080519 111
20080519 045

There is even a floating "rec center", with an enclosed basketball court:

20080519 112

The river then opened up onto the Tonle Sap itself, and we could see the floating village:

20080519 055

There are several of these floating villages on the lake, but this is one of the most frequented by tourists, thanks to its proximity to Siem Reap. Most of the folks on the lake are actually ethnic Vietnamese rather than Cambodian, but our guide told us that there are pretty well divided "neighborhoods" within the village. (Here, at least it's relatively easy to move house if you don't like your neighbors...)

20080519 099

Life is hard here, and most people are engaged in subsistence fishing, etc. There is a great deal of innovation, with folks creating floating chicken coops, "fields", etc...

20080519 060
20080519 079

We stopped at a floating tourist center, with a great display on the lake's fish and waterbirds (as well as traditional fishing methods), a small shop and a chance to view some local residents:

20080519 078

There is even a church, which attracts many people to services by promising them a free meal afterwards. Not entirely sure how I feel about that, honestly...

20080519 069

All in all, it was a really eye-opening experience to see how differently people lived. The same was true for the entire Siem Reap trip, for me: I felt like an obscenely rich person casting an imperious eye at the "quaint native customs", and that assessment isn't really far off the mark for any Westerner that comes here.

It really is true: how you live is, in great part, a fluke of where you were born. But no matter where you are, people are always finding creative ways of meeting their needs.

20080519 102