Special Edition: Dung...more than just a bunch of cr@p!

Most of us think that dung is the end of the line...literally and figuratively...it's something that you avoid stepping in, avoid smelling, keep out of your house, and certainly never touch with your hands. However, we could learn a thing or two from our Tibetan friends about wasting nothing (including waste), and finding uses for what's around and free...

That brings us to dung...given the number of yaks and cows around there is plenty of dung available if you could figure out a use for it...Well, in Tibet they have found a use for it...as a fuel source.

As we made our way through Tibet, we saw dried brown pieces of adobe-like substance everywhere. It was lining the top of courtyard walls, it was piled on rooftops, it filled window sills, it was stacked in fields and yards, and it was stuck to walls everywhere. We saw it in cities, towns, villages and in nomad camps. It was everywhere... We saw it shaped like patties, loaves, discs, bricks and balls.

Dung came to fascinate our travel group, so we decided to investigate further to understand this phenomenon better...

To fully appreciate this renewable energy source we need to start at the beginning...Here's the source of raw material...actually this picture captures both the source AND the raw material...

Next, we need to add a little something to give us the consistency we need for a good patty...so we mix in a little straw...

Next, we need to shape it to the dimensions of our stove or oven, then set it out to dry...sometimes it is laid out flat like this, but most often it is stuck to the vertical face of an exterior wall to dry.

This production process can be performed on a large scale or small...here's a perfect setup for the small urban home...everything you need from raw material (cow), to manufacturing and processing, to finished goods...all in the front yard of your row house!

Now, because we take our foreign studies so seriously, we consulted an expert, we'll call him Dr. Dung. We found Dr. Dung hard at work in Shigatse working two jobs...tending the gigantic prayer wheel housed in a stand-alone stone hut, and preparing a batch of his famous dung patties.

We were lucky to be able to impose on Dr. Dung to give us a brief demonstration of the age-old technique of off-the-wall dung patty manufacturing. (He spent the whole time chuckling at the crazy foreigners who were so intrigued by this basic function...!)

First you mix the dung with straw in a medium-sized pile on the sidewalk...

Next, the skilled dung artisan forms the mix into a ball and then squishes it into a pattie. Once you've got it just the right size and thickness, you walk toward the nearest dung wall and throw the pattie onto the face of the wall...

Now this is where Dr. Dung shows us his higher level of skill...he takes the time to shape the pattie on the wall so that it sticks while it dries, and arranges the patties to maximize the number he can stick to the wall...

And when he's done he signs his work...with a hand print...

When he was done with the demonstration, we thanked the good Doctor...we did not, however, shake his hand, but decided to show our appreciation by bowing instead...

So, what have we learned? That cow pie that we all thought was just so much barnyard waste is actually the basis for the all-natural Presto-log, if you're willing to get your hands dirty...So, next time you go to the petting zoo, you might want to bring home some free samples to try your hand at making dung patties. Be aware, however, that burning dung, while an efficient and frugal heating alternative, does produce a somewhat acrid smoke that stings the eyes (and leaves quite an odor in the drapes...).

We love to travel because we learn so much useful information...!

 

In Transit

June 21-22, 2012

Well, we're on our way home after an amazing three-week adventure that saw us through Tibet, Nepal and Cambodia, with brief stops in Korea, Thailand and China (yes, the Chinese consider Tibet to be China, but Tibetans do not...and we like Tibetans better...).

Tonight we are celebrating our 26th wedding anniversary by having a nice French dinner before we leave for the airport and our late night flight. Cambodia was first a colony then a protectorate of France from 1863 until 1953, so there are many vestiges of French culture left in Cambodia...one of which is French cuisine, lucky for us.

This is the low season for tourists because we are about to enter the rainy season...so we have the restaurant to ourselves...champagne, escargots, wine, etc...While we are having dinner the daylight turns to dusk, and we again see the most amazing thing...every night at this time, the trees in the park across the street from our hotel let loose thousands of bats. And these are not the small bats like we have at home that flit around like little starlings...these are big bats that fly slowly, flapping their large leathery wings, and there are so many they are a torrent of black silhouettes against the nearly black sky...hard to get a photo of, but amazing to watch.

We have an overnight flight to Seoul, Korea, so we get to the airport in Siem Reap after dark and board our flight.

We land in Seoul in the morning and have arranged for a room at the transit hotel at the airport. Seoul has a very nice area for transiting passengers...it is upstairs from the main concourse, and it features nice seating areas, places to eat, an Internet cafe, free massage lounge chairs, free showers, a massage shop, and our hotel.

Here's the massage establishment...we wondered if they would close the drapes when the massage was going on so that the massagee would not be on display to passersby...?!

Here's the front desk of the transit hotel, and our room...the room is slightly bigger than the bed, with virtually nothing other than a TV in terms of amenities, but it does have a very nice bathroom...and outlets to recharge all of our electronics...

We're fortunate to have a room with a view, some rooms don't have any window at all...but look at our view...we look out into the terminal right above passenger check-in...now that feels weird! Fortunately there are good blackout shades, so we catch a few hours sleep before lunch.

Other than having to wait an inordinately long time for a really, REALLY bad cup of drip coffee at the Dunkin Donuts in the concourse, our day was uneventful, and we walked the concourses to get a little exercise and take in the sights. One of the sights is the bathrooms...I know, we've become more interested in bathrooms since our Tibet experience...but c'mon, these are pretty fancy for ANY airport...right?! There are little child seats in the women's bathroom where you park your kid while you're busy ...

By evening we were winging our way back home!

Sorry for the lack of photos on the return flight...it was much like the first flight of this journey, and besides, we slept for a good portion of the flight anyway. We landed in the early afternoon and after three long, adventure-filled, amazing weeks (and another 10+ hour flight) we are HOME!

Now comes the catching up and preparation for our next little trip in about four days...!

Total travel distance...16,292 air miles, plus 375 miles driving across Tibet.

Highest elevation...17,125 feet above sea level at Gyatso La pass.

 

Water, water everywhere...

June 21, 2012

Today is our final day of this incredible journey and it is going to be something different from our previous days in Cambodia. This morning we are going to drive north to the edge of Tonle Sap Lake, the largest lake in Southeast Asia, to see the "floating village" of Kampong Khleang.

We did a little research online about going to the floating village, and were initially worried because most reviews say that it is an awful tourist trap...however, our guide is not taking us to the floating village that is nearest Siem Reap which gets such bad reviews, instead we are driving farther north to a floating village that is not focused on getting money out of tourists' pockets.

As we drive to the lake, we see some typical scenes...including small stands with bamboo stalks for sale. Our guide tells us that they are selling sticky rice that has been cooked inside the bamboo, and that it is sold as a snack...he claims that Cambodians don't eat sticky rice at meals, only regular rice, because sticky rice raises your body temperature...we did not know that...

Here's another interesting fact that our guide shared with us earlier in our visit...due to the decades of war followed by the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge under Paul Pot, approximately 50% of the population of Cambodia is under the age of 25. As we look around we see this is the case...young people everywhere and far fewer elderly folks...amazing, and a reminder that this country is still very much in recovery mode from a brutal recent history.

Cambodia is also a tough country to live in because of the weather and topography...Cambodia is very low and flat, and they get torrential monsoon rains for several months out of the year. Therefore, most homes are built on some sort of raised platform. As you can see, the homes also range from thatched huts to sided houses with metal roofs...

 

Tonle Sap Lake is somewhat unique in that the water flow in the lake reverses twice a year. During the rainy season, the water flowing down the Mekong River backs up and fills the lake. The lake will rise from its low point of about five feet deep to a depth of nearly 30 feet...! The water swallows up the jungle that grows in the low land and completely covers the surrounding area for miles and miles. The road we travel into Kampong Khleang is the high point and homes are clustered along it as people try to stay connected to dry land...but often the water overruns even the road, and every year some portion of it needs to be rebuilt because it has been washed away.

Here's a short video from our car showing the homes built on stilts at the roadside as we enter the village...

We see something else that we've never seen before...we see a long line of plastic sheets hanging on poles and wires along the side of the road. Our guide tells us that these are used to catch crickets...there is a light hanging above the plastic sheet which is turned on at night. Below the hanging plastic sheet is a rectangular little tub made out of plastic and filled with water. The light attracts the crickets so that they jump toward th slight, hit the plastic sheet and drop into the water. The locals collect the crickets and sell them as a delicacy...apparently they're popular in Thailand...

We board a flat-bottom boat for a tour on Tonle Sap Lake. Our drivers appear to be around 10-12 years old...From the water we can look up at the houses perched on stilts...most homes have small bamboo-slat pens in the water in front of the house, that's where they raise fish...they bring home the small ones they catch farther out on the lake and let them grow in the pens.

Kampong Khleang is situated on a long canal formed by banks that are high during the dry season...but these banks trail off as we get farther out toward the lake, so we start to see floating houses that rise and fall with the waters...

Kids will be kids, and these youngsters are enjoying a little play time in the canal...swimsuits are optional...

There are hundreds of these small floating homes lining the shore...Kampong Khleang has about 3,000 residents...and this village is not unusual really, there are approximately 1 million people who live on the shores of Tonle Sap Lake...

Even fishing looks hard here...

Here's something that always catches out attention...we're out in a completely underdeveloped part of the world and people are using cell phones...our boatman was checking his cell phone while we coasted on the open lake...and the cell phone tower is the one point that you can be sure will stay high and dry throughout the year...

We got a lot of waves and kisses blown to us as we drove by the kids in the floating village...

The lake is huge...when we get out onto the lake itself you can't see the other shore....

At several points we could feel the boat jabbing the bottom of the canal it was so shallow...the younger of our boatmen poles us off of a sand bar as we turn around to head back into the canal toward the village...

The residents of the floating village are very resourceful. They plow and cultivate the land that is above water during the dry season, and we see a farmer on the fields that are now bare in preparation for the rainy season that will be here very soon...

This is the village school...which also rises and falls with the waters every year...

We head back toward our landing and see the boats and homes on stilts that line the shore into the village.

Once back in the village, we pause briefly at another school...either this kid came directly from swimming with his friends, or clothing is optional at this school...We take a walk through the village market on our way out...and we pass the clinic...

Here are a couple of items from the "Things are different here" files...first, here's a cigarette vending machine, no electricity required...

...and this is a gas station. Yes, that's gasoline in the used Johnny Walker bottles, right next to the cigarettes...we saw these little racks with used alcohol and soda bottles filled with gasoline, and the gas sold at these little vendors is about 25 cents per liter cheaper than what you buy at a real gas station...we're not sure how that business model works..but we have seen these everywhere, along the roads and in front of homes...

On this trip, more than most we have taken, we have gotten used to having to share the road with a wide variety of vehicles and animals...Cambodia is no different...

...however, this is the first time we have had to share the road with a house...yes, house. We came upon this group of guys moving this house, and it was an interesting effort to watch. We guess that the only reason they are moving it as a whole house is so they wouldn't have to detach the metal roof...the rest of it looked pretty easy to disassemble and reassemble elsewhere. Also, these movers were using an assortment of carts underneath the structure to try to move it, and it was a challenge to get the house turned the right way...thus the standstill in the middle of the road.

Eventually we got around the house and proceeded on through the rural landscape, past the local market, and into Siem Reap for our lunch.

Once again, we are the only people in the restaurant at lunch time...Cambodians must not have time for lunch...or maybe they fill up on sticky rice from the vendors along the road on the way into town. We enjoy our lunch and pay for our drinks, and get 25 cents back in change....yes, there are no coins in Cambodian currency...so all of this paper with the big numbers on it is 25 cents...

After lunch we take a tour of the Artisans Angkor...a training program for young Cambodians to learn the skills to create some of the traditional Cambodian arts and crafts. One of the impacts of the Khmer Rouge period in the late 1970's was that the artisans were systematically wiped out, and therefore there are very few adults who can still make some of the fine carved stone and wood, and painted pieces for which Cambodia was once known...and there are few artists left to teach the skills. So this place has been created to try to revive some of these traditional arts...

We see young artists honing their stone and wood carving skills...

Some of the works produced today are extremely good...this is a small-scale reaction of the huge bas relief from Angkor Wat that depicts the gods and the demons having a tug of war with a serpent and thereby churning the sea to milk...don't ask us any more about the legend, that's about all we understood despite hearing it a dozen times...

After picking up a few trinkets at Artisans Angkor, we complete our Cambodia sightseeing and return to the hotel. It has been a great four days with Sunny our guide, and Lon our driver...they were a pleasure to spend time with and taught us a great deal about their country.

One last little story before we sign off from Cambodia...meet Supal. Supal was a regular fixture in the lobby of our hotel where he manned a small display of handmade jewelry.

We browsed through his jewelry one evening, and we noticed the signs for the organization he represents, KILT - the Khmer Independent Life Team. This organization began as a not for profit committed to supporting Cambodians disabled by landmines, but has expanded to include other individuals with disabilities. One night I Googled KILT and fond a blog posting from someone who had visited KILT, and there on my iPad was a photo and story of Supal.

You can find the blog post here...

http://www.atablefortwo.com.au/2010/01/15/postcard-from-cambodia-a-day-at-kilt-part-2/

I took my iPad down to the lobby and showed Supal the blog and his photo...you should have seen the amazement and wonder in his eyes...then came the smile and giggle...and he showed it to a young Cambodian girl who was also in the lobby and she translated a few of his comments for us. On one photo he paused, smiled, pointed and said something in Cambodian...the young girl translated..."that's my girlfriend".

Later we returned to Supal's little table and purchased some jewelry...including one item he sheepishly pulled from his pocket and said "I made..."

Late tonight we will leave for Seoul on our way home. We a ready to complete this chapter of our adventure, though we will carry with us some amazing memories of Cambodia, Nepal and Tibet.