February 3, 2015
Bruce and Andrea's Big Day
Stung Treng to Preah Vihear
Bruce and Andrea’s Big Day
Stung Treng to Preah Vihear, Cambodia
We didn’t have much to go on. A couple of days before, coming from the Lao border, we’d met a lone Frenchman who had biked from Siem Reap. He said the road was good but there was something more he didn’t have the English words to explain. There was hesitation, no smiling, concern on his face.
This unknown hung in my mind for a couple of days while we got to know Stung Treng. It was worse than if I had really known nothing. If ever there is a tiny reason to worry the worry usually grows out of proportion from what it should be. But I successfully smothered all that worry with curiosity. For years I had been curious about northern Cambodia because it was such an unknown. Nothing was going to deter us, not even the weather report of 95 degrees every day for the foreseeable future.
We were up before the roosters and, apparently, all the great cooks at the main market with their tray food which we had come to love (and did not make us sick). We did however find some Vietnamese noodle soup and coffee before we left Stung Treng. We've been surprised by how may Vietnamese there still are in Cambodia.
We then rode along the massive San River which slowly adds itself to the Mekong along the west boundary of Stung Treng. As we rode the river road we realized that it was possibly the most colorful part of town. We had missed it completely, but, if we had not been exiting Stung Treng by bike we never would have seen it at all.
Along this road the poor live colorful lives in wood shacks on the high banks of the river. There are wood carvers, furniture makers, fishermen and lots of little cozy soup and coffee shops. Everyone greeted us warmly and beckoned us in to have noodle soup breakfast with them. Unfortunately we were full and needed to figure out how to get up onto the huge new Chinese-built bridge over the Mekong.
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The air was heavy with smoke so thick everything was obscured as if it was thick fog. Even way up on top of the bridge we could see little. The S.E. Asians are burn happy this time of year. It doesn’t rain all winter so they rake up dry leaves everywhere and burn them. They throw plastic bags and other trash onto the pile. [I love the smell of burning plastic in the morning!] They burn the dry rice stubble. But the worst is when they burn natural grass fields and forest floors. I guess the only good thing about it is that it may prevent forest fires since they do it every winter. But it must kill a lot of animals. Small trees don’t have a chance. And it sure makes breathing a challenge.
The Frenchman was right, the road was new with little traffic but the forest floor was blackened and smoldering on each side of the road. The jungle was also being cut down. Most trees had been cut down in a swath two or three hundred yards back from the road on each side. Beyond we could see the tall, thick untouched jungle. It was beautiful but doomed.
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We saw several teams of mine removal workers arriving to work in their various sectors. I suppose they are in high demand now as the wealthy, who have essentially stolen the valuable jungle, are antsy about “harvesting” the trees so they can become richer. Most valuable land has been stolen by corrupt government officials and their cronies from the original owners who may have lived there for generations.
The outright theft of land in Cambodia has displaced hundreds of thousands of Cambodians in the past few years. Judging by the slapped together shacks (homes) strung out along the road they have not profited from the sale of the timber. Deals have been made with the former owners whereby they are allowed to stay near the road in new wood shacks, pay rent and more or less caretake and work on the land or plantations that will be planted.
Once all the native trees have been removed rubber trees or palm oil palms will be planted. Probably some of the land will be planted with tapioca, (as if the world needs more!) which will deplete the nutrients in the soil considerably. The people living in the shacks will be expected to work harvesting and will be paid just enough so they can pay rent on their shacks. They will never own the land or their homes again but will be allowed to stay in this living situation until the new owner decides to do something different with “his” land. It’s the way of all these corrupt countries but Cambodia is one of the most corrupt in the world and with possibly the worst human rights record in the world. When the dictator is a former Khmer Rouge commander things are not so good for most people in Cambodia. Hun Sen is ruthless and holds onto power any way he can. He's been dictator for 30 years and has carried out summary executions of candidates opposing him. Elections are a farce. And there is no end in sight since one of his sons is in charge of the military. (I won’t go off on this right now.)
This same thing has happened in Myanmar for many years. All the toddy palm plantations between Bagan and Mt. Popa, for instance, are run by families who pay rent to the “owners” and are then allowed to stay on the land they used to own before it was stolen from them. The work is horribly hard making palm sugar and it sells for little. They also make a bit of money from peanut oil which they press by hand from the peanuts they grow under the palms. But the land is not theirs anymore and they barely scrape by. It would be one thing if the guy who stole their land would let them stay as long as they want but to make them pay rent and threaten eviction all the time is unbelievably cruel. These countries of S.E. Asia have many serious problems of corruption and human rights that the tourists don’t seem to have any knowledge of.
So, we rode the new flat road through smoldering fields, a land so devastated looking that one would think it was only a day after the napalm air attack circa 1974. It might be nicer to visit during the summer when everything is green but then one has to deal with debilitating heat and humidity as well as deadly mosquitoes. We enjoyed the view beyond as best as we could through the smoke and tried not to think about it all being wiped out soon. The worst thought was visualizing rows of rubber trees in place of the amazing jungle. I mean, there were vines two feet in diameter at their bases. I wonder just how old they are. The upper canopy of trees was well over a hundred feet. It was magnificent jungle with dozens of species of trees and animals. The butterflies we saw were brilliant and everywhere despite the smoky air. The life of the jungle had not begun to give up but it has no idea what is to come. It will be plantations as far as the eye can see because that is where the money is for a select few.
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Every single house we passed had at least one preschool aged child excitedly yelling hellos to us. It’s the similar population boom as in Laos. I love kids but I can’t see a boom in them is a good thing in either country. In about 20 years there’s going to be serious trouble in both Laos and Cambodia due to overpopulation, problems which they won’t be able to ignore but if the dictatorship and corruption are still solidly in place there will not be any attempt at solving the problems.
I don’t want to be such a downer of a reporter but when you are riding through such devastation it’s hard to be upbeat. I think the only thing preventing outright clear-cutting is the vast number of mines and bombs. Ironic that such awful things can actually save trees if only temporarily. Ironic, too, that the only reason the government has decided to remove mines and bombs, 40 years later, is because they now want all the money from the sale of the trees. If there was no money in the trees the bombs and mines would remain, killing and maiming people every day.
Finally we came to what could be called a little town; Chhaeb. We asked about fried rice at what looked like a restaurant but the cook didn’t have the appropriate fixings. We asked about a guest house and she indicated that there was one. As we looked for it we saw a small restaurant with silver pots of food set out. It was at least noon, against my rules of eating that food which is made in the morning and not kept hot. But for some reason I lifted lids to see what she had and suddenly my normal good food sense blew away down the dusty road. I wanted some of that food. Andrea was game so even though we were looking for a guest house we sat down to eat very questionable food at the wrong hour.
It was very tasty along with things we never dream of drinking. All she had in her cooler was one Coke and a can of apple juice. There is no electricity for refrigerators in Cambodia for the most part and every restaurant has large, orange, plastic coolers out front with huge chunks of ice inside. The meat we were eating was unidentifiable and mostly small bones which the dog loved being tossed onto her plate, the dusty wood floor. For this food we were charged way more than I ever dreamed. This happens quite often in Cambodia which indicates to me that Cambodians have little to no problem blatantly overcharging tourists. This happens a little bit in Laos, almost never in Thailand and never in Burma. It’s little money in the grand scheme of things but it tells me a lot about the character of a people and it’s not to their advantage in the end.
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We rode through Chhaeb looking and looking for that guest house but we never saw anything remotely resembling it. We rode on out of town and my stomach hurt immediately. I rode harder reasoning that if I expended a lot of energy the germs and/or bugs would not be able to stay in my system but be burned off with the food. Can you imagine such flawed reasoning? Ha! But it must have worked. Ah, the power of the mind.
We rode and rode seeing little other than more shacks along the road and devastation all around them. There were no hills we had to negotiate but in the distance we occasionally saw tall karst hills jutting up from the jungle. They were gorgeous and I thought how nice it would be if the surrounding area was made into a national park. Fat chance in Cambodia.
We hadn’t set out to ride so far but since there was no place to stay in Chhaeb and we didn’t relish the idea of pitching the tent in such an inhospitable area we set our sights on possibly getting all the way to Preah Vihear (town). We were in good shape, no stomach problems, and since we had started so early in the morning and made only one major stop we figured it was worth a try. And we did it! Just as the sun was setting we rode into what seemed like a huge town - Preah Vihear. We found a nice guest house and congratulated ourselves on an 89 mile day, a record I seriously doubt we will ever break. I just wish it had been 89 miles through a countryside that had more of a sparkling future.
Lovebruce
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