Sunday at Leisure

26^th March we arrived back in Kampong Cham to resume our language training classes.

In the evenings before it goes dark there are many street vendors selling tasty snacks and one of our favourites is the pineapple on a stick. One of these costs 500 Riels, approx. 8p.

Another very filling snack can be bought typically at a market stall where they are cooked over charcoal burners.

The food is packaged and cooked in Banana leaves and inside is sticky rice covering a piece of cooked banana, really tasty and very filling maybe costing the equivalent of  20p,

It would certainly be sufficient for lunch.

The following Sunday was our day off from classes so we decided our group would go on a bike ride over the Bamboo Bridge to explore the island. Sunday morning 8.30am it seemed everybody had the same idea and it was very busy on the bridge.

Where's Angela?

We had a long ride across the island and were amazed at how big the island was with hundreds of families permanently living there and making a living by farming and growing manly tobacco. We saw many crops being gathered and put onto racks to dry.

We cycled for nearly 2 hours and didn’t get to the far end of the island.

In the afternoon we went again as our group of 7, on an organised boat trip to an island to visit a typical village and have a look around.

It was nice to relax on the boat and observe many families living on their boats and fishing in various ways.

On the island we walked into the village and were made very welcome, shown the tobacco being put onto sticks to be racked up to dry.

 and offered a slurp of tea by the village elders.

We wondered through the fields looking at the various crops they grow-tobbacco, corn, morning glory and millet.

We were given a demonstration of how the dried tobacco is shaved down into small strips.

Back onto the boat for the return cruise in the cool of the evening.

This picture shows one of the piers holding up the bridge on the river adjacent to our hotel.

If you look closely you can see the water mark on the circular column which shows how far the river rises in the wet season it is difficult to imagine the volume of water when the river is so high.