AsiaLIFE

“What? You want to come? On the boat?” The fisherman is confused and not without reason. I have indeed just asked him if I can go fishing with him. “Can you swim?” he eventually wonders, before agreeing to take me with him – at 6am on a Sunday morning! Unsurprisingly, I’m not exactly fresh-as-a-daisy as I head across to Chroy Changvar for my first go at fishing Khmer style. Karim, 32, and his nephew Saleh, 15, wait for me at the boat. Karim’s wife and four daughters – as well as what seems like the whole Cham community on this stretch of the river – have turned out to giggle and poke fun at me.

Meagre Catch

I step onto the small, rickety thing we will be spending the day on. It neither flips over nor disintegrates underneath my feet, which I think must be a good sign. Confidently we set off as the sun rises and I am certain the mighty Tonle Sap is full of big, beautiful fish just waiting to get onto my plate. Or perhaps not. Karim and Saleh have already thrown out the 12m wide net a few times, with very meagre results. When I finally have a go at pulling up the net we come up with absolutely nothing. Saleh however seems impressed I was able to pull it up at all.  

Over the next few hours, as we throw and pull up the net over-and-over again. We catch a rather abysmal amount of not very impressive fish, most of which I really think we should thrown back in for some further fattening up. We also catch a full, un-opened water bottle that makes Karim very happy, a right-foot shoe (sadly we failed to find the left), a CPP cap (also a trophy in Karim’s eyes) and an empty tin of corn (which was immediately chucked back in), as well as used plastic bags in various sizes (also thrown straight back in).

What we haven’t caught, to my deep relief, are any dead bodies or girls trying to commit suicide. Karim tells me it was only yesterday that he saved someone who jumped off the Japanese Bridge. He also relates the story of how he found the body of a drowned Chinese tourist – four days after the drowning. To most of my fellow fishermen, as well as crew of passing cargo ships, the most exciting catch of the day is however a glimpse of me. I doubt Karim’s little dinghy has ever been this popular with passers-by, though the man himself seems unperturbed and simply continues the business at hand – chain-smoking and chucking the net into the water.

Going Down For Air

People think fishing is easy. You put in your net, laze about, drag it up, and voilá, there’s dinner. Karim and Saleh’s net however keeps getting stuck on something or other at the bottom of the Tonle Sap, and as ripping the net loose is out of the question there is only one solution – go down and get it loose. To free the net, Karim and Saleh go diving Khmer style. The boat is equipped with an air tube, which they wrap around themselves, then they grab a rock for weight, and plop down into the dirty river without further thought. It is impossible to see anything down there so they simply use their sense of touch to free the net. Saleh tells me fishermen can spend up to an hour under the water this way. It’s absolutely incredible. My sense of self-preservation keeps me from giving it a go, especially as I’m told the air is pumped through the tube at such speed that it ends up coming out through the fisherman’s eyes too.

The boat is steered by a motor as well as oars. Having failed to pull up any fish I decide to prove my usefulness, by having a go with the front oar. Even though I’m pushing with all my might, we end up going nowhere. In fact, we’re going backwards.  Hot and smelling of fish, we approach the riverbank after some five hours on the prowl. Most fishermen spend at least eight hours each day on the river, but as a novice I’m given a break. Still hoping to catch my Moby Dick I ask to have a go with the smaller cast net. Karim painstakingly shows me how to throw it, and wraps the net around me in a particular fashion. I give it a go, but the net refuses to spread out beautifully. Instead, it plops into the water as a heap and the onlookers laugh. Nevertheless, I end up catching a small squid, as well as some mango peel, which in addition to the shoe, cap and bottled water, will make for an excellent dinner.