The ferry of three green wooden plank canoes, supplemented by blue oil drums, supporting a flimsy lashed wooden deck slowly approached the muddy access road. We stood in driving rain under an ominously dark sky waiting our turn to cross the wide brown river. Behind us a group of travellers looked disconsolately at their vehicle sunk wheel deep at a precarious angle into the red mud soup of the track from the new road to the ferry. A year ago the hilly 150km long jungle fringed road from Sihanoukville to Koh Kong in far eastern Cambodia was deeply rutted and potholed. This has now been upgraded to a new road but the four small rustic ferries are still the only way across the rivers.  As our truck drove onto the slick wooden ferry ramp the wheels spun and it slewed sidewards toward the swirling water. As we jumped clear we thought our trip to Koh Kong would end at this point.

This was part of our trip to visit the Fisheries Information Centres in Kampot, near the Vientamese border, Sihanoukville and Koh Kong. We were instrumental is setting up the Information Centres and training the staff. There are twelve Information Centres planned across the country to give the fishing community advice on handling fish better, processing more hygienically and producing better food which will be clean, safe to eat, will last longer and have a higher value. The Centres also provide advice on national and international legislation and standards and information on grants, loans and microfinance. We reckon that over the course of a year this initiative will improve the lives of a million of the poorest people in Cambodia.

Serla, who runs the Information Centre in Kampot arranged for us to meet the chief of a large fishing village. He introduced us to a fish processor and his family who boil fish and send them in baskets to the markets in Phnom Penh in the boot of shared taxis. These cars not only carry people but also cargo.  Sheltering from the steady rain which kept the fishing boats in the village we watched three lovely girls painstakingly picking crab meat from boiled crabs.

From Kampot we headed east by local bus to the coastal town of Sihanoukville where we had visited the landing fish sites and the fish processing plants many times. Then on to Koh Kong.  The tropical storm which had kept all the fishing boats tied up next to the stilted wooden houses in Kampot and Sihanoukville and poured water from the heavens was still active as we drove to Koh Kong in a local minibus. We were actually pleased to use the picturesque but precarious ferries across the rivers because there are new bridges being built which will consign the old ferries to history. By 2008 the new road will connect Phnom Penh to Bangkok providing a fast direct route and bring financial opportunities to this frontier district.

With Thearith from the Koh Kong Information Centre we surged across the turbulent brown waters of the estuary, in a bow high open fast boat, bouncing and slapping across the wake of larger fishing boats preparing to head out to the open sea.  The heavy rain stung our faces as breaks in the clouds promised an end to the storm. Clambering up the wet and slippery jetties of the wholesale fish traders we were welcomed with smiling faces into their houses. Here we looked at baskets full of crawling, scratching black mangrove crabs which frothed at the mouth. At another we chatted to a man repairing his shrimp nets while he explained how he used conical sea shells to capture squid which took refuge in the shells.

The Muslim fishermen specialise in mackerel fishing and we described to them and Thearith how we had arranged contacts between Muslim Aid UK and the Department of Fisheries, at national level, to provide microfinance to this community.  The mackerel caught here are sold to Thailand where they are tinned and exported worldwide.  So the next time you open a tin of Thai mackerel at home you may be helping the poor Muslim fishermen of Cambodia.   

The whole trip was very worthwhile and extremely rewarding. It was good to see how the Fisheries Information Centres we had helped to set up were working.
       
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On advice from the villagers living around Battambang we travelled to the mountain of Phnom Banan to see the ancient Angkorian temple on the summit.  Our approach along a dusty red latterite road opened up to a spectacular view of the vegetation clad mountain with clearly visible stone monuments crowning the summit. The climb up a huge staircase ascending the side of a mountain was relieved by a small boy keeping Margaret cool with a hand fan. On the way we stopped at Wat Bai Dom Ram to see the flying foxes. We recognised these one metre wing span bats as the fruit bats we knew and loved from the Gambia. From Phnom Banan our journey took us to the gleaming golden spires of the pagodas on Phnom Sampeou, or Boat Mountain. These Wats perched high on the cliff top of this imposing mountain shone against the deep blue sky. Spreading out before us as we looked down from summit the flooded plains below gleamed and sparkled in the afternoon sun. It was horrific that this sacred mountain had been desecrated by Khmer Rouge atrocities only thirty five years earlier. To this day glass fronted memorial tombs contained the skulls and bones of the victims who were dropped through holes in the mountain to die in the cavernous caves below.

As evening gathered we stared in wonder at a huge image of the Buddha being hewn from the solid rock at Phnom Sampeou. When this ten year project is completed it will be a magnificent sight. As we waited for dusk the locals went about their tasks of washing the kids and preparing their evening meals over smoking fires. Then quite suddenly streams of bats issued from the caves. They stayed in tight formation like gigantic coils of rope twisting, looping and extending over the countryside, like smoke from a ships funnel. Of course only we were enthralled and excited by the sight. To the villagers this was a completely natural and routine nightly event.

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We were in Battambang to look at the lives and livelihoods of the rural folk in the area. It was a privilege to visit and chat with people engaged in a wide range of cottage industries, like the men in a rice mill cleaning and grading rice. That rice was further ground down into rice flour and used to make noodles and wrappers for spring rolls. The rice husks were sold to the villagers and used as the fuel for boiling water for noodles and distilling rice wine to make a fortified liqueur.  The rice itself was of course a staple food source but was also cooked to make a delicious sweet morsel called sticky rice.  There was something fundamental and idyllic about sitting in the shade of a tamarind tree watching women in the yard of their stilted wooded house extruding rice paste through a perforated tin to make noodles. As we chatted they told us that their neighbours arrived on bicycles to buy noodles for their families. The extra of course were sold in market.  During this time in Battambang we also spent a day talking with the Prahoc makers that we told you about previously.

Everyone was so friendly and welcomed us with twinkling eyes and broad smiles. They encouraged us to visit some of the interesting sights in the area and told us about the roosts of the big bats, called flying foxes, and of the caves where millions of small insect eating bats streamed out every evening.

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