Siem Reap: Day 8

Heat makes me want to eat my vegetables. Usually a salad sounds boring, but after being outside in the sun all day, a salad is bliss. Guess I need water wherever I can get it. So, it was with this in mind that we chose Vibe Vegan Restaurant for dinner. It’s a very small, cafe-style eatery, and I got the impression they were mostly a lunch spot. We ordered the cauliflower “wings” and a “not-tuna” sandwich. Both tasted nothing like the non-vegan foods they were supposed to be imitating, but they were superb as dishes on their own merits. I’ve never understood why vegan restaurants try so hard to imitate meat; no one who says he “needs meat” in a meal has ever eaten a vegan imitation and deemed it a worthy replacement. Pander to the vegetable-lovers! And show the carnivores what they’re missing out on. Vibe’s food could certainly do that. 

We went to bed early again, because we had one more early rise ahead of us. 

Thorn, our perennial tuk-tuk driver, showed up at 6:30. We asked him to drive us to Chong Kneas, a touristy floating village just south of Siem Reap on Tonle Sap lake. But this wasn’t our final destination. We were going there because that’s where the dock is, with boats that will take you across the lake to Prek Toal Wildlife Sanctuary. When we told Thorn that this was our intention, he insisted on coming with us, to help us talk to the boat driver and navigate to the correct place. Thorn was a very good driver, and a very kind man. He rode in the boat with us, and we chatted as best we could over the sound of the motor. 

Shortly after reaching the Sangker River, which feeds into Tonle Sap, we began to see signs of the less-touristed Prek Toal. In addition to being a bird sanctuary, Prek Toal is also (and was originally) the name of the floating village nearby. This village is further from Siem Reap, and thus sees less tourists than Chong Kneas. Floating shops, houses, and shophouses lined either side of the river. People went about their daily lives, waving to us and smiling as we passed. Children were paddling a rowboat to go next door. A woman was hanging her clothes to dry in her floating kitchen. A man was smoking on his floating porch. It was a fascinating scene. Humans are so adaptable. 

In the middle of this town afloat, we found the bird sanctuary’s main office. From here, we hired a guide and a small, long-tail boat; our ferry would not be allowed in the refuge. Thorn helped us hire our guide, then left us to our own devices. Our guide ended up being an integrally delightful part of the whole experience. We could tell he was genuinely in child-like awe of these birds, smiling every time we spotted one. He does this almost every day, and he still loves his job. He spoke zero English, but we managed to get by using a series of gestures and a very helpful, laminated, illustrated, one-page guide to the birds of Prek Toal. And oh, were there birds.

At first, we saw nothing but terns. Aaron and I kept pointing at silhouettes in the sky, only to learn it was another whiskered tern through the binoculars we brought with us. Then, we came upon a man-made dam with an opening exactly the size of our boat. This is how they keep the ferries out. This was the threshold of Prek Toal Bird Sanctuary. On the other side, one of the most fantastical experiences I’ve ever had awaited us. But first, we had to get through this gap in the dam, which involved some finicky maneuvering on our guide/boat driver’s part, and a turbulent, if small, drop. Safe on the other side, tern sightings became more common. Then, we started seeing Indian cormorants. At first, just one or two, then whole flocks of them. Great egrets waded in the reeds. Chinese pond herons landed in a nearby tree. Oriental darters demonstrated how they got their name overhead. The largest brief of pelicans I’ve ever seen bobbed lazily in the distance. In addition to these species, we saw, in ascending order of how freakin’ cool it was to spot them: Oriental magpie-robins, blue-tailed bee-eaters, Asian open-bills, lesser adjutants, greater adjutants, grey-headed fish eagles, a stork-billed kingfisher, a greater coucal, a brahminy kite, a few purple herons, a couple of black-headed ibis, and a painted stork. I saw so many great egrets that I actually got bored with them–that’s how amazing this place was. And what’s more, we saw these birds in action. I think that was the most interesting part for me–watching them dive or root around for food, hearing their calls, admiring their graceful flights. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience. And it wasn’t over. 

Our guide drove into a thick patch of reeds and onto the shore. He signalled for us to disembark, and we clumsily complied. Then, we tramped forward, through a trail almost entirely grown over with thicket and reeds. I was wearing sandals; it wasn’t easy. A few hundred yards in, we reached our terminus: a three-level, bamboo treehouse that served as a lookout. Up we climbed its steep ladders until we reached the vertiginous top. A Belgian couple with another tour followed shortly thereafter. Our guides set up telescopes and aimed them at some adjutants and pelicans nesting in the distance. It was hard to get excited, because we’d gotten much closer views of the birds on the river, but the treehouse itself was worth the arduous hike. When we returned to the boat, our driver put the canopy up to shield us from the now-high sun, and we made our way back to our ferry. 

After another boat-ride, in which we got to learn more about Thorn and his beautiful family, and a short drive, we were in Siem Reap. We exchanged warm thanks and well-wishes with Thorn, and he dropped us at Pou Kitchen for lunch. We were starving. We were also the only patrons of this high-ceilinged, minimalist space, because it was almost three in the afternoon. We shared vegetable cakes in a beet sauce and a smoked salmon salad with kampot pepper vinaigrette. Both were delicious–though, like many of the dishes we had in Siem Reap, the vegetable cakes were a bit sweet for my palate. We spent the afternoon introverting a bit, then ordered in and watched cartoons.

When I closed my eyes to sleep that night, I saw the dark, expansive silhouette of wings circling in an azure sky.