House on the River

House on the River
Originally uploaded by Asia Trip2007.

After a day of relaxing and riding my bike around Siem Reap carefully (my butt was still a little tender from the day before), I bought a boat ticket for the following day to Battambang.
In the morning I sat on the porch of my guesthouse with my bags awaiting the bus that would be taking me to the lakes edge(45 inutes away). It was here that I met Katy. Katy is a girl from London(England) and was going on the same journey as I, to Battambang, so we linked up and chatted until the bus arrived.

We squished into a small bus and motored off through Siem Reap, picking up people along the way, until the bus was bursting at the seams. Then we made the bumpy journey to the small wharf amongst a floating village and mud track.

Everyone piled off and went to varying boats to different destinations. The boat to Battambang was by far the fullest though. Luckily we scored some seats in the shaded area of the back of the boat and waited for departure.

The journey started off tugging through the villages then into open water of the Tonle Sap Lake. We headed Westward towards the bird sanctuary and down an open estuary riddled with makeshift stick/reed nets corralling the fish for market.

As we went along, the river got narrower and narrower, we meandered through floating village after floating village, strung together by the sauntering river. Along the eges, naked little ones ran along side the shores waving, while their dedicated parents looked on, smiling but not stopping from the daily survival chores that this, basic way of life, demands.

After was about 7 hours on the water, with two major snags in the mud, the boat stopped and it was obvious that the river was now too low to continue the journey by boat (although this was never mentioned to anyone on board). All 42 passengers, piled off the boat and climbed over an embankment to find the drivers loading our bags onto the back of two small pick up trucks. We were not at all surprised when they let us know that this was our transport for the rest of the journey to Battambang, but we were surprised when we somehow all got squished on board. My tailbone is still bruised and missing a flap of skin from the 2 hours of farm track we bounced along on with 20 people per truck bed. It was so nice to get to the small city, get the room and have a nap on my front side.