Elephant, rubber and sugar cane
In the north of Cambodia, I am progressing in a liquid theme: rubber trees, sugar cane juice ... and more thunderstorms!
Boat anchored near Kratie, Cambodia.
Pirogue at sunset on the Mekong.
The flood
Setting up my tent one evening under a clear sky, it seems that I will have a respite from the daily storm at the end of the day. Even without my roof covering the mosquito net, my pores are geysers in this temperature exceeding 30 degrees even at night.
Just as I fall asleep I get a few drops. I put my protective canvas back on.
The rain quickly becomes a deluge and I realize that the water is rising rapidly around my shelter. Soon my floor is swaying on the water under my tent. I go out. Standing barefoot, with only my underwear and my headlamp, I realize the entire field is flooded over my ankles. The clay soil retains water which only accumulates.
The rain gives no sign of letting down. I have to move my tent.
So I fill my waterproof bag to capacity - all my electronics, clothes and anything that can take on water - and I will carry it some fifty meters further on a small promontory of mud. I come back to unpick my tent and pull it the same distance. Back at the shelter, I wipe everything down for several minutes, wringing out my only small travel towel a dozen times.
It's still raining but at least my floor is now more stable and I have less infiltration. Take 2 for sleeping.
The calm before the storm. You can see all the little clay edges that were holding water.
Along the road
A worker updates the inscriptions on the roadside terminals. His tool: a Q-Tips!
The biggest advantage of traveling by bike is undoubtedly the low speed.
By car, bus, or even a motorbike, you can see the landscape scrolling, but without noticing the details. And in order to escape traffic and noise, the cyclist often takes detours along less traveled paths.
In Cambodia, it allowed me to see a worker repainting terminal lettering at Q-Tips! I also came face to face with an elephant, an ox and its very young master, and how many other people I had discussions with!
Definitely, low speed for me is more than an advantage, it's a way of seeing life.
Normal day on the road to Cambodia: a man walks his child on a leash.
And a child walks his Asian ox!
Rubber forests
Surprises don't just happen on the pavement. Sometimes, "the call of nature" makes me go out of the way and discover a whole rubber forest!
When you tap a maple, maple sap flows, with which you will produce (delicious) syrup. When'rubber tree is deprived of its bark, it is rather a white latex which oozes from the tree to protect it, and which will be used to produce natural rubber. Although the tree is native to the Amazon, it is now in Asia that 95% of the natural rubber in the world is produced.
The tire industry uses 70% of the world's production, and with the demand growing visibly in China, monoculture is becoming a bigger problem year by year in smaller Asians. The tropical forest, natural, is cut on a large scale to make room for this only kind of tree. This contributes to the disappearance of animals and birds and to increasing the pollution already present enough in these countries.
To say that I learned all this because I had to get away from the road at this place ...!
Hike among the rubber trees.
Sugar cane
Every day, I also stop to drink one or two (or three) glasses of my new favorite drink: sugar cane juice. Reading more on the subject, I also learned that the brown sugar is actually produced from sugar cane, either whole, or more often by mixing molasses with white sugar. By the same token, I also learned that molasses was also produced with sugar cane juice (real name: the vesou) in the same way that maple syrup is produced from maple sap.
I think I miss maple syrup ... It seems to me that I have referred to it several times!
Finally, as a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll leave you with this little video of making one of my afternoon drinks!
