But I figure that is hardly a fair impression of the country, so I decided to spend a bit longer and took a bus trip to the capital city of Phnom Penh.
And, again, the bus trip took pretty much the whole day and I got a pretty good look at the countryside along the way. The country I went through is pretty flat... Actually, its Exceedingly flat!... Its part of the flood plains/drainage system of the massive Mekong river.
Now, it is only just the start of the dry season here, but Id have to say that if "global warming" causes the sea level to rise pretty much at all, then most of this part of Cambodia looks like it is at serious risk of being flooded!
All of the country that I travelled through was one vast, cultivated swamp!... No self respecting Cambodian farmers house in this area is built without stilts of about three metres in height. The land is covered with rice fields and coconut palms are sprinkled about the place too. There are mango and papaya trees around the simple wood, thatch mat, and corrugated steel homes, and there are lots of water buffalo and Brahman cattle about the place too. There seem to be relatively few chickens but many more ducks as livestock.
One thing that I was a bit surprised at is that pretty much every household in the country (and they are very simple agrarian dwellings) has its own "fish farm"... Thats over stating it a bit, but essentially, every house has a pond or, more accurately, enlarged road-side ditch with brown muddy water in it, and its used for most water requiring activities like watering the stock and washing the kids,... and farming fish...
It seems that since the land is too wet for goats and chickens, the people have substituted fish and ducks for their dietary protein needs (which makes perfect sense of course). Just take a walk through any market and you will find an amazing variety of aquatic life being sold for food... There are many sizes and varieties of eels and catfish and Perch and other fish that are barely bigger than your little finger, but apparently thats not an issue and if they taste OK, thats enough... There are also plenty of sizeable frogs (sold by the Kg!) and the occasional tortoise too.
Virtually the only `solid land` that I saw in my journey was the dike that the road was built on... There also seemed to be a thriving trade in land... Not `lots` of land but rather earth its self.... a rare and valuable commodity around here (a whole new meaning to "real estate agent"!!).
Anyway, the vast expanses of the countryside were paddy fields... Not in that romanticised view of verdant green rice fields sculpted onto the sides of rolling hills, interspersed with idyllic little thatched cottages and happy little farm workers in the paddys planting rice;
But rather in the form of vast expanses of flat flooded land with mind numbing drudgery under the hot sun and covered from head to toe in brown mud, day in, day out,... forever... Its a simple and constant struggle to survive for the farmers !
And even that main `highway` that I was on was barely a two lane paved road ... With plenty of pot-holes and mud and dust in the mix too.
And the vehicle of choice across the land... Well its the little motorbike of course. The country is absolutely full of little 100-125cc motorbikes, and they are all of the `step-through` frame style rather than the `leg-over`type too. (A bit different to Central and South America).
And most of the took-tooks here are different from those on Thailand too... They`ve mostly adopted a `trailer` type solution to the problem here... They bolt on a bracket over the top of the back seat (which means the bike can be disconnected and used as just a bike as well) and then they can attach any old motorbike to the passenger trailer ... which comfortably seats two westerners, or squishes in four, or seats a good six to eight of the locals,... or pretty much ALL of whatever it is that you want to transport anywhere, regardless of size or weight if you are a local :))
And the city traffic is a pretty interesting experience too... Its certainly more chaotic than most Central American cities, but it also has far fewer cars (though trucks are very prevalent) and far fewer traffic lights too.. But the traffic seems well adjusted to cope with lots of motorbikes going in every direction imaginable ... Including a `counter flow`stream of traffic up the side of pretty much every òne-way`street you see :)) The dominant rules seems to be `make allowances` for others, and `dont make any too sudden changes in direction... In any event, it seems to work quite well, and I think I wouldnt have too much trouble adapting to it on a motorbike :))
