Beauty in the Rice Fields

This past Saturday Paul (the only other guy on our team) and I got up early to ride our bikes out to the nearby rice fields to capture the beauty in the early morning light. We left around 6 am and began the pleasant ride in the cool morning air. We arrived at the rice fields after 15 minutes. It was beautiful. I have been told that many of the locals like to hang out at the rice fields with friends. I can easily see why; it is so quiet, and peaceful.

As we rode further in to the fields, the roads got worse. Because we are in monsoon season, it rains nearly everyday causing the once nicely packed dirt roads to turn into a muddy, rutted mess. I would be peddling my bike forward but moving sideways through the mud instead. I tried to get off and walk my bike, but my flip flops would get stuck in the mud. It was mostly a reddish brown clay which was very sticky. Eventually it became impossible to ride because of all the clay caked between our tires and fenders. We got off and tried to push our bikes, but the wheels still wouldn't turn which made it very difficult. We ended up leaving our bikes and flip flops by the side of the road and just walked barefoot through the mud. This really was the easiest and least messy option. As the sun got higher the clouds began to separate and disperse creating some beautiful scenes for us to capture. I played around a lot with taking multiple exposures of every shot so I could create HDR (high dynamic range) photos later. Some of them look a little fake to me, but I love the detail that comes out with such a wide range of light being captured. It's incredible to be able to see detail in the highlights and shadows at the same time. Anyway I will stop talking about technical details before I bore anyone.

Playing with HDR. The photo doesn't look real to me, but it is definitely interesting.

Close up of rice.

Paul cleaning his hands in a mud puddle.

By 9:00 am it was already quite hot, so we decided to head back to base. Well we attempted to go back... it was still impossible to ride our bikes, so we pushed the non-moving tires through the thick mud. It was very tiring and I was quickly sweating. I was able to clean out the fenders enough to ride for a few minutes before being forced to either get off or fall off. My flip flops and peddels were one giant clump of mud. Eventually we made it to the nearby village where we stopped to try to clean some of the mud off our bikes so they were ridable. Paul was digging some the the clay out with his finger when an elderly woman walked down the road and seeing what we were doing began yelling at us in Khmer. She pointed at Paul's finger and then to some sticks by the side of the road yelling the whole time. We figured out she didn't want us to use our fingers. So we grabbed some sticks and continued the tedious process. She observed us very closely and kept giving us instructions on how to do it, none of which we understood. She looked very upset that our bikes were so muddy. She went and got a bucket of dirty water and began splashing it on our bikes which helped a lot. Once our bikes were rideable we were going to leave, but the woman had other ideas. She continued yelling at us and pointed to our feet. She dragged us to a nearby gutter and scooped out some water and began pouring it on Paul's feet making him clean off all the mud. She then prompted for me to get down in the gutter and wash my shoes and feet.  Then a younger woman who was in the background laughing came over to me and took me into her home and began scrubbing my feet with a brush and clean water. When it became clear that they weren't going to let us leave until every speck of dirt was off, I began scrubbing my legs, arms, feet and flip flops. If I missed a spot she was quick to either point it out or just clean it herself. Then she made me wash with soap until I was completely clean. It was quite humbling but incredible at the same time. Here were complete strangers taking us into their homes and washing our feet. I asked for her name in Khmer (which I have now forgotten) and thanked her profusely, "Akun jann." As we rode off, the older woman kept speaking harshly at us while the other women grinned or laughed. I could just imagine what she was saying, "Ignorant Americans! Riding your bikes through the mud and getting them stuck." It was quite the humorous situation. I'm pretty sure my feet aren't that clean after I take a normal shower here.