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Siem Reap, Angkor, and the birds

Wednesday, March 8th, 2006

Siem Reap

The last third of our stay in Cambodia was focused on visiting Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) bird conservation sites. Our first priority was to see some of the rarest birds in Asia; our other goal was to evaluate the sites in anticipation of working with WCS’s ecotourism project. We visited a wetland, grasslands/rice paddies and deciduous dry forests.

Angkor Thom

Before all that, we snuck a peek at the birds and the temples at Angkor. Shades of Africa – Howie looking at the oxpeckers rather than the rhino. We visited the wall at Angkor Thom, with the famous churning of the sea of milk along the gate.

sea of milk

Bayon. This has the quintessential Cambodian poster ruin. You’ll recognize it in the photos.

Bayon

nun

Ta Prom: where Tomb Raiders was filmed. Howie took the photos and wandered off without me.

Ta Prom1 Ta Prom face

Angkor Wat

AW

Tuesday, February 28th, we went to Ang Trapeang Thmor to see the sarus cranes and other birds. There were 4 lifers for Howie. A trapeang is an inland body of water, as far as I can tell. This one was a joint Cambodian/Japanese project (not man-made but man-enhanced). The dike we drove there on was Angkorian and Pol Pot attempted to expand on it but that project failed.

s crane

Lunch, fresh fish cooked over coals with a green mango dressing over rice, was had along the water, at a roadside setup. The dust from the dike blew into our food every time a vehicle went by. Luckily, not many went by. As we ate we watched the children play in the water on inner-tubes. Brought back memories of childhood. What I found interesting is that there were girls playing alongside the boys. Usually, in Cambodia, the girls work while boys play. (And speaking about playing, every town we’ve driven through has a volleyball court; some quite innovative nets, too. I have yet to see a girl/woman playing.)

Took a boat on the trapeang after lunch. It was very hot on the boat – and the boatman poled. Towards the end he jumped in, clothes and all. We all wished we could, too. Really, we’d dry completely in half an hour.

stuck pickup

March 1: off to see giant ibis in Tbeng Meanchey. Drove for 5 hours and ran into a detour. It rained lightly all morning, our first since we arrived, actually. The detour took us over rice paddies, which were rather muddy and formidable for a little Camry. Then we had to ford the stream for which a bridge was being constructed – already vehicles were piling up, waiting on a stuck pickup.

chain gang

It was a very interesting situation and showed us that the Cambodians, as a community, are very cooperative and resourceful. When it was our turn to get stuck, everyone shared their cables and ropes and the guys lined up to manually pull the car up the hill. Our driver was talented. Howie was ready to call the whole thing off: that’s how dire it seemed to us. Even after we got out we stayed behind to get the first vehicle out and others stuck around to see that everyone got across.

motorbikes

We met our guide, Hong in Tbeng at the WCS office and loaded up two little motorbikes with our gear and 4 days worth of food. H got his own bike and found the roads, paths and trails an obstacle course replete with sand traps and mud holes. Two hours of riding had his hands in spasm, but with a sense of victory upon arriving in one piece. It was enough of an ordeal that no one had the wherewithall to get any photographs.

We stayed in a village house in Tmatboey, and one of the families cooked our meals, which were all delicious: lots of fresh produce. A ranger whose job it is to protect the ibis accompanied us on our forays into the field. He drove Howie on the moto; Hong was my bikeman. The most harrowing part of this trip was driving out on the red, sandy cart tracks; I mean doing a barely controlled skid a most of the way to the forest and back. We actually went down and I hit my knee. Howie was thrown off his bike twice: not hurt.

house & folks

Each day we would travel out of the village on the tracks of ox carts, taking us across the paddy fields and into progressively more intact forest. We saw no area that didn’t suffer from some degree of degradation and the villagers continue to hack away. The community was full of young children, which would seem to indicate increasing pressure on one of the best tracts of deciduous dipterocarp forests remaining. All visitors to the area pay a user fee into a village development fund used for projects such as wells, school construction and fish ponds. This is a very poor area and all they have are the natural resources to exploit. They need to see benefits in order to change long-standing cultural behaviors.

ox cart howie & hong

The effort was well worth it, with 92 species seen and the opportunity to visit a remote village that has seen little change over the years.

blossom-headed parakeetblossom-headed parakeet

wooly-necked stork wooly-necked stork

On Saturday, March 4, we returned to Siem Reap (Home Sweet Home Guesthouse @$10/day). The next day we went to Stung to find the Bengal floricans, pratincole (see pix below) and spent half a day out in the sun and in the afternoon we took a dip in a neighboring hotel’s pool for $3. That was our first swim – the water was quite warm. Good though.

pratincole1

pool

Today, March 6, Monday we leave for Bangkok. I have found the free wireless café and have finished my taxes except for the filing (didn’t have the credit card on me). There is another one at the airport, so I will have it done today. FINALLY! (Correction: we’re at the airport and there is no wireless, so it’ll be done tomorrow, the lord willing.)

Howie went back to Angkor Thom to bird along the wall. Had to pay the temple fees anyway, just to access the birding site. I believe he plans to put a bird list on the blog for all the sites visited in Cambodia. Now that I’m done with the taxes, he’ll have access to the laptop.

Next: Chiang Mai on the 8th of March until the 13th. Bhutan on the 15th until the 29th, then Assam until…..? This is one of the volunteer opportunities for Howie when we return to Cambodia: http://www.angkorhospital.org/dentistscv.html. More on that when we know the specifics.

More Phnom Penh

Monday, February 20th, 2006

Wayne’s World, etc.

ww-balcony ww-bldg

Saturday 2/18/06 we moved into Wayne’s penthouse apartment. It’s one of 3 on the 3rd floor of a French colonial building on Street 13, across from the main post office. Very close to Wat Phnom. We’ve been exploring the neighborhood on foot and watching the world go by from the large windows that look down on St. 13.

[read on]