The day will be our last full day in Cambodia as tomorrow we all commence our homeward travel to Australia.
Five of our group elected to spend much of the day on a boating trip down the Tatai River to visit a small village and then to do a kayaking excursion deep into the mangrove areas.
The Tatai River in front our resort is brackish at this time of the year and as the dry season continues, the ocean water encroaches further and further upstream. During the wet season the river flows strongly and it takes fresh water much closer to ocean at the Gulf of Thailand.
Our long boat, a 15 m wooden vessel driven by two whipper-snipper type outboards was extremely loud and the thought of us photographing bird-life on our downward river travel was soon abandoned, as the noise of the engines would scare off any sensible bird for miles.
We travelled down the river for over an hour and during that time saw very little sign of human activity apart from a few riverside shanties usually built on stilts on the river’s edge or even in the water.
At one point we passed a dilapidated and rusty old conveyer belt that had been used in the past for loading timber onto ships that were able to venture that far upstream. The river here would have been about 1 km wide. This logging of the native forest has now been stopped and a vast area of south-western Cambodia has been proclaimed as a national park.
Another sign of past pillage was the remains of a big sand-mine on the riverbank. Chinese operators were mining, loading and transporting large amounts of white river sand to Singapore to be used in reclamation of inter-tidal flatlands around Singapore Island. No doubt Cambodia received little financial benefit from this sand removal and thankfully, that mining venture has been terminated too.
We arrived at the village of Koh Kong Knong and tied up to the local jetty. We were soon met by a gaggle of the local geese acting as very effective security guards.
We visited the primary school just before classes were to be dismissed for lunch. We heard grade I recite their 2x table and we then sang ‘Waltzing Matilda” to them for generous applause! We were pleased to see that the children who go home for lunch in boats wear life-jackets.
The school lacks basic facilities but now at least has one reasonable roofed classroom although the school desperately needs more.
3 times table
Grade 1 students
Students wearing life jackets ready to go home for lunch
We then walked to the Buddhist Temple which although very meagre was decorated with dozens of fancy murals depicting scenes from Buddha’s life including some strange scenes with Buddha looking very feminine.
The village itself can best be described as sad and uninspiring. The houses were dismal and dark and the ground around the homes was littered with plastics.
There was a small store with dusty goods on display and a mechanics’ workshop where a motor was being serviced. Charcoal is produced by people in the village using a deep pit where wood is allowed to smoulder under a covering of sand. Some cashew nut trees seemed to be the only other visible form of income although one assumes that fishing provides much towards the villagers’ staple diet.
We then commenced the homeward journey but stopped at a small junction in the river for lunch. After our snack, we kayaked two kilometres or so up the narrow channel between the mangroves and palms. At the end we came to a small clearing where three families lived but we didn’t go ashore.
Once back on the boat we headed for home, arriving back at just after 15:00.
Sadly no tigers and very few birds were sighted during our travels but we did see a large water snake.
Just after dark we were taken by boat up the Tatai River just a few hundred metres to a place where a single tree high above the river bank was sparkling like a Christmas tree. The flashing lights were due to hundreds of fireflies and this nightly performance by male fireflies apparently continues until around mid-night. It was certainly an interesting and impressive sight.
Our final dinner together (until next time) was celebrated with cocktails and a bottle of French wine.
Tomorrow morning we head back to Phnom Pehn to catch our international flights for the long journey home.