The Cambodia Water Project: Feb. 6 trip to Angkor Chum

February 15

Feb. 15. Went to TB and gave them pix of boy scout and Sras trip, that I had downloaded on my thumb drive. I need to have Steve do a picture of Nak and me and bring it to her.. Initiated Rattana to set up visit to Sras on March 9-10, as March 8 is Women’s Independence Holiday. It seems that the number of three day weekends rivals that of the USA. Nuong, my unsuccessful house broker who also touts herself as a fixer and nature tour guide, broke her lunch meeting with me and rescheduled for later in the day at 5:30 pm. So I did some errands. I needed to extend my visa as I was not able to get a business visa at the airport and ended up with a 20 day visa which expired on February 17th. Guess that means I have been in Cambodia for a month without Lauren, as I re-entered the day Lauren left for home on the 17th of January. I will be fined $5 a day upon leaving the Country if I do not extend. The strange part of it is to get an extension, other than paying the fee of $45, I needed to surrender my passport so it could be sent to Phnom Penh for processing which takes a week when the 3 day holiday for the Chinese New Year is accounted for. I am trusting this process !!! I have a copy of it so that when I travel to Battambang I can use the copy when checking into the hotel, which always wants to copy it. You go to a travel agent to do the extension, so while I was there I bought all of the tickets that Lyman and I need to return to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh after a week of filming there and the tickets for all three of us to leave on March 19th, with Lyman catching his flight home from Phnom Penh and us from Bangkok. I met Nuong for a beer and to hire her as a fixer to arrange for us to be able to film a traditional dance ( Aspara dance)., a shadow puppet performance and a trip to Phnom Kulan ( Mount Kulan) where there is a waterfall and a pagoda to arrange for a blessing by Monks to be filmed at the waterfall. We shall go the waterfall on Saturday and I need to figure out if we should try and film it now with Steve and save a day from our shooting schedule with L and L. I had dinner at home and ate a home made dish of pasta and Bolognese sauce that I had cooked earlier in the day. This is the first real dinner I had made for myself and I froze most of it for another night.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Feb. 6 trip to Angkor Chum

I was told by Mieko Morgan who runs a water testing lab that this district was in dire need of wells so my guide friend Sam agreed to a scouting trip there. He picked me up with his well drilling foreman, another friend and me in a 4 wheel drive Ford pickup and we were off for an adventure; which of course did not start without breakfast.
At breakfast I had an omelet but my Khmer friends had beef and rice, a full meal. I was told by one of them that he was building a business to make swallow nests. It was explained to me that the spit of swallows that is in the nest is thought to be a tonic for energy per Chinese medicine for older people like me. This guy was now going into the business of harvesting swallow bird nests and wanted me to try the drink. I did that as can be seen by photo and when I looked at all the ingredients I noticed that another ingredient was a " white jew's ear"???
Then went to this district where we did find many wells and water sources of every conceivable nature, pit wells, concrete pit wells, rope wells, pull pump wells, drilled pump wells and I am sure puddles and ponds. Also visited another Temple and this one was unusual as it is made of pink sandstone and only Bantas Rea is like it. We got lost driving around in cross country mode in spots where there was hardly a road and many washouts of bridges due to the fall flood. Just me and three Khmers on a frolic with occasionally your head hitting the ceiling of the trusty truck.
I needed to get back to do a summary of all my work and ranking of characters to be in the film and these guys kept driving around. I had a conference call with Lyman and Lauren in the morning and needed to get this promised summary to them. Alas they headed in a new direction to look for wells down by the Lake ( Tonle Sap ) and it was now getting late and they stopped at a friends house and wanted me to hang with them while they caught some of the ducks running around and netted some fish out of the fish pond to make a barbecue and drink. I awkwardly and apologetically told Sam that I did need to get back by 7pm to write my report. So we left this shangri la but not after checking out a floating village on the Lake.
Got home got the report done and I think I made my first tuna salad.