At a lunch today, which cost $11.50 for two, in the Old Market of Siem Reap, we discussed how differently India and Vietnam/Cambodia presented their respective country to outsiders. In India,, we saw every fort, every palace and lunched at 5 star hotels....glitz and glamour, a lot of red and gold were the order of the day. Waiting rooms and stations were cleared for us, our attendants carried our bags. In Vietnam/Cambodia we saw temples and pagodas with lots of rich ornamentation and gold as well. But we also saw, and were informed about, the lives of ordinary people. We visited people at work,, in factories, home industries and markets, and learned about vastly different ways of life. And although I have serious reservations about descending upon a village like a cloud of locusts to observe the lives of ordinary people like animals in a zoo - it smacks of voyeurism -I am grateful for the opportunity of having seen it.
A very different way of life is that of the inhabitants of the floating villages of the Mekong.
These houses are moved every few months in accordance with the water level in the Mekong depending on the monsoon season. Children here are picked up and taken to school, groceries are delivered:
There is no electricity, everything is run by batteries...there are specialists whose job it is to recharge them.
There are floating shops, floating restaurants, floating churches:
even a floating basketball hall\:
The people who live here are fishermen...here is a fish farm being built.
The "basement" cage is under the house when finished...the fish are placed in as minnows, then fed, caught and sold live...most of the farmed fish eaten in restaurants all over the world start life here.
And of course children lean to paddle at an early age, like this babe in a dugout.
It's unbelievable how different life can be!
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