We stayed in Siem Reap and our friendly Tuk-Tuk driver returned the following day to take us to see the floating villages of Tonle Sap Lake. We had a extremely bumpy ride on unmade roads to the river that feeds the lake (our Tuk-Tuk was essentially a small motorbike with a trailer attached and made for a stomach churning ride as our driver made no attempt to slow down over the pot holes!) and paid $20 each to a Government official to go on a boat to the village - a bit extortionate we thought. The floating villages are exactly that - houses, schools, shops, even gardens and basketball courts, all on boats or floating platforms. There's a Vietnamese village and a Cambodian village separated by a few hundred metres of water and apparently the two peoples do not get along.
We were told that we could visit a school for orphans and we could buy some books and pencils for the children if we wished. "Of course" we said, happy to be able to give a little bit to the community we were visiting. We were duly delivered to a floating store and presented with cellophane wrapped packets of exercise books (about 20 per pack) and bundles of 10 pencils and told that we had best buy two lots of each as there are about 40 orphans. What an absolute rip off! We were fleeced of US$40, taken back onto the boat and driven to the school where the children were obviously used to having random tourists rock up to look at them like caged animals, and they didn't take a blind bit of notice of us! It was all a bit awkward and we felt a bit used to be honest. The books and pencils were so massively over priced that someone is making a fat profit off of them and it isn't the school, and I'm sure it isn't the girl in the store either. We would have been much happier giving the money straight to the school or an orphans charity, but there you go - corruption in action.
The school canteen
Travelling to school
To top it all off the boat driver asked us if we would give him and his friend, who had accompanied him for the ride, a tip. We agreed, thinking a couple of dollars will be sufficient, when he said "you give $20 to me and $20 to him". He was either being extremely cheeky or people have been massively over tipping these guys. We politely declined and gave them $5 each, which was still more than we wanted really. What can you do though, we are rich in comparison and a soft target.
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