Siem Reap and Countryside Activities (Part ii)

Farming transportation (ox cart & buffalo cart)

In part I of this blog reading, we have known the lives of local people living in the countryside not only Siem Reap but also any other provinces in Cambodia. It also described about the most important job of Khmer people do for living which is agriculture or specifically, it is rice farming. In the process of doing rice farming, transportation is also important due to the fact that farmers will need to transfer farming tools, food, seeds, rice planted, or rice sheaves back and forth from their field and house, and the most popular transportation that they usually use is ox-cart or buffalo-cart.

Rice fields at Bakong village, Siem Reap

Angkor Wat temple

Ox-cart

Oxen and buffaloes are not all used based on the region and the culture of people living there. In some provinces, they tend to use oxen rather than buffaloes and some other provinces, on the other hand, buffaloes are widely used than oxen. Being back to the past once machine was not created, ox-cart or buffalo cart was used not only in the process of doing farming but also as the transportation for people to commute from one place to another since it can carry things with which they bring such as clothes, food, or goods. During the period of war, it was also used to transfer weapon and food or any other war equipment to supply for soldiers at the battle fields. The whole cart is made from wood and designed based on Khmer traditional style but now people tend to use rubber wheels instead of wood wheel because when the wheel is broken, rubber wheel is easier to fix than wood wheel.

Ox-cart with wood wheels

Ox-cart with rubber wheels

Now, even technology has been developed and most farmers have change to use machines instead of traditional way, ox-cart and buffalo-cart are still being used by most of Khmer farmers due to the culture and their family's economy. Furthermore, they have become an attractive activity in tourism sector as ox-cart and buffalo-cart ride are included in the countryside tour program. This program, the clients will spend some time to take ox-cart or buffalo ride, walk along the road in the village to explore local school or pagoda with participating blessing ceremony, involve with local farmers to do some agriculture activities available by each seasons and have lunch or dinner hosted by local family.

This article is to show that ox-cart or buffalo-cart is an important tool to use in Khmer people daily life since the ancient time until present. Not only have they facilitated goods and people from one place to another, they have also helped to earn extra profit to our people as well by taking the tourists for a ride to experience the countryside life and spectacular view in the rural area. Furthermore, the cart is also considered as the national identification based on its age and style in Khmer culture. 

Tourists riding buffaloes- cart 

Blessing ceremony

Local school

TRIP MESSAGE: The activities and spectacular view of countryside in this blog article are available in Siem Reap, kingdom of Cambodia and this interesting scenery is brought to you by TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel. 

Our company is the local tour operator based in Siem Reap, Cambodia established by Khmer local people. With the team that have experience in this tourism industry for more than 12 years, we put all our efforts and commitments to arrange and provide all our value customers an unforgettable trip. Customer services and flexibility are our top principles to work in this business. 

“Satisfaction and enjoyment of our customers are also ours, so we will serve them in the level best from our heart and passion”, President of TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel.  

Interested in our packages? Reach us @www.trailtoangkortours.com. Our team will respond to you shortly.

Stay tuned for part III, the last part of Siem Reap and Activities blog article! 

Steven Lor, Sales Manager - TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel  
  

Archaeological Find Reveals New Side to Life at Angkor

A recent discovery in a rice field in Angkor Archeological Park has enabled experts to shed new light on life in the capital of the Khmer empire a thousand years ago.

The cause of the excitement is not a new temple, but an iron smelting site.

Researcher always believed that Angkor, the vast city whose population may have reached 1 million at some point, obtained its iron for tools, weapons and construction from distant parts of the realm. The new find is making them think again.

Archeologist Im Sokrithy will explain in a conference tonight in Phnom Penh how he and his team discovered an iron smelting site with four furnaces used to melt ore and extract metal right in the middle of Angkor Park.

“What we found confirmed that it was a smelting site and the site was used to produce metal,” he said yesterday.

Which means that in addition to being home to Khmer kings and filled with scores of temples, Angkor may also have included industrial works.

Located in today’s Zone 2—the zone next to the monuments in the park in Siem Reap province—the site of about 4 hectares is now a rice field in Sala Kravan village, Mr. Sokrithy said.

“This is an important discovery to prove that in the capital city…there were some industries located right there and producing metal to supply the capital,” he said.

Preliminary dating of ceramics found as part of the excavation has led his team to believe the site is from the 11th century. Hopefully, further tests next year will prove this, he said. If so, it would mean the smelting site would have been around in an era of gigantic projects, such as the West Baray water reservoir, which spread nearly 8 km long and 2 km wide, and the Baphuon, Angkor’s biggest monument until Angkor Wat was erected in the following century.

Since very little is known about life and activity in the capital when the Khmer dominated the region, evidence of industrial activity would help draw a picture of the city during that era.

An archeologist with Apsara Authority, the government body managing Angkor Park, a World Heritage site — and a lecturer at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh — Mr. Sokrithy conducted excavations at the site in March 2016 and again in January with an Apsara archeologist team, all of them graduates of the university.

The project is supported by Apsara Authority and the Cultural Relationship Study of Mainland Southeast Asia Research Center in Thailand.

Interested in our packages? Reach us @www.trailtoangkortours.com. Our team will respond to you shortly.

TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel – Kingdom of Angkor

The Wonder Preah Vihea Temple

Preah Vihea is a great of art and architecture, a cultural jewel with a triumph of history spanning millennia, and then this wonder temple was registered as a World Heritage site by Unesco on July 7, 2008 in Quebec, Canada. Preah Vihear temple is an masterpiece of Khmer creative genius, a unique testimony to a cultural tradition or civilization, an outstanding architectural or technological ensemble, or a landscape illustrating a significant stage in human history. 

About ten ancient Kings were involved in the construction, but most work was done by only six of them. The temple was begun by King Yasovarman I (889-910 AD) who build to the foundations and the east-ern stairs which rise nearly a kilometer from the forested plains. King Suryavarman I, (1002-1050) and his son King Udayadityavarman II (1050-1068) carried on, laying out most of the monolithic features present today. King Jayavarman VI (1080-1107), King Dharanindravarman I (1107-1112), and King Suryavarman II (1113-1150) added the finishing touches. The Preah Vihear temple was dedicated to Shiva, a God of the Brahman religions, but it was not cut off from Buddhism because most of the Kings who helped to build this temple understood Buddhism. 

The temple's layout is complex. It has four levels with four courtyards, each containing five Gopuras (entrance pavilions). Since the ancient time till now, Preah Vihear became a place of pilgrimage and sacred worship for kings and commoners alike, as it is a styli shed representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods.

Interested? Please reach us @ http://trailtoangkortours.com/contact-us.html, we will respond your shortly 

See you around!

TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel - Kingdom of Angkor

Siem Reap and Countryside Activities 

Part I: Farming (Rice Growing & Its Process)

Talking about Siem Reap tour, people usually think of temples tour or any other sacred places to visit, but they might forget that there is countryside and there are many rice paddies fields located around the corner of the town. Besides providing beautiful scenery, rice fields is the main source to produce rice which is the most popular and important food for Khmer people. 80 percent of total population is farmer and some of them still prefer cultivate rice crop in traditional ways while some turn to do it by using machines. Growing rice needs to spend labor, time, and money, so it is possible to say that it is not an easy thing to do before we have rice as the final product to eat.

Based on the weather and Calendar of Cambodia, rice is mainly produced in Raining season (from May to October) since there will have enough water supply to support rice farming. However, this practice can also be done during Dry season (from November to April) if there has enough sources of water. For example, the rice fields are located near river or lake or the irrigation systems. The question is that how many steps in order to do rice farming? The brief description below are the stages of doing rice farming.

Angkor Wat temple

Rice field at Bakong Village, Siem Reap

Land Preparation

Farmers usually plow their fields when the soil is wet by using Khmer traditional plow as the tool pulling by two oxen or buffaloes as the power. The soil is plowed to a depth of 70 – 100 mm. Depending on the condition of the soil, it will need to be plowed again from 3 – 6 weeks after the first time of doing it.

Since the development of economy and technology, some of Cambodian farmers turn to use machines like plowing machine to save their time and energy and it provides a good result as well.

Khmer traditional plow pulling by oxen

Khmer traditional plow pulling by buffaloes

Plowing machine

Planting

After plowing and leaving it to get into good condition, it is time to plant the rice crops and there are two methods to do so. Farmers can choose to plant their rice crops by either transplanting them from a nursery, which usually takes up 15-20% of the farming area, or broadcasting (scattering over a wide area). They both can be practiced based on location and rice ecosystem in the region they are doing farming.

Transplanting is more common among the two methods because broadcasting can only be done in the rain-fed lowland areas of the country, and it generally gives a lower output than transplanting.

Transplanting, however, is very labor intensive, requiring between 30-40 person-days to establish 1 hectare of rice. If a family does not have enough members to do this work, they will look for exchanging labor. It is Khmer culture from the past that if one family does not have enough labor to do their rice planting, they will exchange labor with their neighbor which means this time, the members from other families come to help them and when it becomes their neighbor turn, they will take turn and revert to help them back. Or, if the family’s economy is good, they can hire labor in the area to help them as well.

Farmers are transplanting rice plant

Transplanted rice plant

Period of taking care the plants

It is the stage that farmers need to take care of their rice planting. During the period that their plants are growing, they will need to weed their fields and use some chemicals to control the weeds. Besides this, they have to use pesticide to control the pests or other insects that damage their crops.

Farmer is weeding the rice field

Farmer is spraying chemical pesticide to control pest

Fertilization is an important stage in rice farming. Besides using animal manure, most farmers use chemical fertilizers for their nurseries and their fields. All fertilizers are applied manually. Farmyard manure is transported by animal-drawn carts during the dry season and placed in strategic piles in the fields. Spreading is done by water movement and during land preparation. Inorganic fertilizers are hand-spread and, where necessary, incorporated by harrowing. 

Organic fertilizer made from animal manure

Inorganic/chemical fertilizer

Water is the most important thing that helps crop growing well. To get this, irrigation system needs to be built in order to supply water to the fields besides nearby rivers or lakes. Some rice-growing areas in Cambodia are irrigated to water supply during the dry season to enable farmers to plant rice two or three times per year. The use of irrigation systems has been increasing in these recent years. However, many farmers will still need to pay to pump water into their farm area, as there may be some distance from the main water channels.

Irrigation system (canal)

Irrigation system (pump water)

Harvesting

After the long period and having many works to do from land preparation stage until period of taking care, it is the time to collect the yields from planted rice. Crops are manually harvested and tied into sheaves. These sheaves are placed on top of the standing stubble or transported to a central threshing site where they are dried for 2-3 days. Depending on locality, threshing is done at a central site in the field or in the village.

Harvesting rice crop by using traditional way (curve knife)

Harvesting rice crop by using machine

crops tried into sheave

A small number of farmers own mechanized cutting or gathering machines, but this is rare due to the high cost of such a machine. Grain is removed from the panicle in a number of ways. For example, Sheaths are laid on the roadway so that they are run over by passing vehicles or hand-threshing is done using a board against which the stools are hit. 

After getting grain, it is time for taking them to be milled in order to get rice as the final product of rice farming. It can be done with Khmer traditional ways or machine.

Rice hand-threshing 

Rice grain after threshing

Rice milling with Khmer traditional tool

Rice milling with machine

Rice grain

Milled rice

TRIP MESSAGE: The activities and spectacular view of countryside in this blog article is available in Siem Reap, kingdom of Cambodia and this interesting scenery is brought to you by TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel. 

Our company is the local tour operator based in Siem Reap, Cambodia established by Khmer local people. With the team that have experience in this tourism industry for more than 12 years, we put all our efforts and commitments to arrange and provide all our value customers an unforgettable trip. Customer services and flexibility are our top principles to work in this business. 

“Satisfaction and enjoyment of our customers are also ours, so we will serve them in the level best from our heart and passion”, President of TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel.  

Interested in our packages? Reach us @www.trailtoangkortours.com. Our team will respond to you shortly.

Stay tuned for part II of Siem Reap and Activities blog article! 

Steven Lor, Sales Manager - TRAILTOAngkortours and Travel