Kampong Phluk, Cambodia

Kampong Phluk is a cluster of stilted houses built within the floodplain of the Tonle Sap lake. Flooded mangrove forest surrounds the area and is home to about 3000 people.  The houses of Kampong Phluk are built on top of stilts 20 - 25 feet high.  During the dry season when the lake is low, the buildings in the village seem to soar atop their stilts exposed by the lack of water. At this time of year many of the villagers move out onto the lake and build temporary houses, but there were still lots of villagers around.  In the wet season when water level rises, the villagers move back to their permanent houses on the floodplain, the stilts now hidden under the water.  

Tonle Sap Lake, upon which the village of Kampong Phluk floats, exhibits a unique hydrologic phenomenon during the wet season - the river reverses direction, filling the lake instead of draining it. The cause of this phenomenon is the Mekong River, which becomes saturated with snow melt and runoff from the monsoon rains in the wet season. The swollen Mekong backs up into the Tonle Sap River expanding the surface area of lake more than five-fold.

Yet someone else carrying one of the boys.

 While the boys were enamoured with the bunny, the locals were enamoured with the boys.

Even the pigs have their own stilt pen.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Before I begin, I have to say that I fell in love with Cambodia.  It is such a beautiful country and the people are so welcoming even though most are living well below the poverty line.   I had over 400 pictures from our 4 days in the country, so I'm going to split this into 4 posts. (about the city, the floating village, the temples, and the Green Gecko Project).

We arrived late in the day on the last day of 2012.  The hotel was small (39 rooms), but stunning.

If, by chance, you're planning a vacation to Cambodia I highly recommend Shinta Mani.

The first evening we were there, the owner of the hotel had a arranged a cocktail party on the rooftop bar with complimentary hors d'oeuvres and champagne.  The first part of the party was a demonstration of Bokator (Khmer martial arts) by kids from a local school (Green Gecko Project).

 After the demonstration was over, while the adults chatted, the boys took over the mats.  The staff even pulled bean bag chairs up onto the mats for the boys to play.  The spent over 30 minutes just running and jumping into the staff.  At least 5 staff members stood "guard" around the mats to make sure the boys didn't hurt themselves.

This was just a taste of what was to come for the rest of our stay in Siem Reap.  This was a very "child-friendly" place and everyone (and I mean everyone) loved the boys and wanted to touch them hug them, play with them.  The boys were good sports about it, but it got fairly overwhelming sometimes.

 Michelle enjoying some fresh coconut juice.  The very tiny bartender had it open in four whacks of the cleaver.

Siem Reap Shopping Mall

Inside the market

Local butcher

Some local wine (Snake wine)

Spice Aisle

Night Markets

Jamie, Braden and I riding around in our tuk tuk.

Singapore

A few days after Christmas we embarked on the trip of a lifetime: Singapore, Cambodia and Thailand. We were fortunate that our former nanny, Michelle, was willing and able to fly over and meet us in Singapore.  It took us a full day to get to Singapore, but the boys did great.  They were very excited to be in an airplane, so that helped.

Our airplane:

Our hotel in Singapore had this amazing Christmas tree and it was REAL!  You could smell the pine as soon as you entered the lobby.  I haven't smelled a real Christmas tree in 3 years.  I wanted to just sit in the lobby and sniff.  Oh, and it was really pretty, too.

While there we visited the Singapore Zoo and had breakfast with the orangutans.  Breakfast was a rushed, frantic affair and it was hot and humid, so not sure I'd want to do that again.  The zoo, though, was beautiful.  We only got to visit a few attractions/animals, but we got to see everything the boys wanted to see:  otters, white tigers, fish, elephants and some monkeys.

We stopped to see a Sea Lion show and at the end they offered to splash us.  I let Jamie take them up on the offer and he loved it.

In addition the shopping (OMG the shopping!), we took some time to explore a bit of the city.  We had dinner in an Indian restaurant on the Boat Quay.

Dinner options along the Quay were on display, but I passed.

The morning of the day we were leaving Ian and Michelle took the boys to a museum to see a LEGO exhibit.  It was a bit more advanced

Off to Cambodia next...