What a ride!

17^th November

5am alarm call and at the ferry by 6.30 to wait the arrival of our vessel for the trip across Tonle Sap, the largest lake in SE Asia, to Battambang. The wooden boat arrives, shallow bottomed, steered by a smiling captain and his 2 trusty teenage crew. It has a covered deck you step down into with wooden benches enough for 2 western bottoms to sit side by side. The loading begins, bikes are stripped and taken up onto the roof with the rest of the cargo of bags. There are around 9 of us on the boat at the time of departure. By the time we depart around 80! We are loaded, the boat rides low in the water but it feels strangely safe and reassuring as we move out of the harbour and towards the floating villages.

We are moving at pace through lily pad fields, round trees and submerged vegetation. I imagine it being a very different landscape in the dry season. The boat has a gentle sway, there are around 20 people sitting on the roof in the full sun of the day. I am so glad we left a little bit earlier to get to the ferry. It is cramped but at least shady.

We breakfast on baguette’s with our regular fillings and canned coffee which I now have a serious liking for and then settle down to watch the world go by. It is a world unlike any other I have seen, whole communities exist in this watery way, their animals also existing alongside them on smaller floating pontoons.

some homes are more basic than others

School

tesco's - sort of

Mobile masts and temples dominate the sky line, then the vegetation closes in and we are twisting, turning and swaying down what would be best described as c roads on Dartmoor but in an articulated lorry. There are times when you wonder how they know which one of the many openings in the vegetation is the right on to take.

Storks, herons, egrets, cormorant type birds, kingfishers and many others dominant the view.

The swaying is starting to get more, some people are starting to complain every time the boat slows to pick up yet more passengers. It must be like the local bus route and is used as such. The smiling policeman joins us, space is created to allow him to sit amongst an American family. Then the wise woman of the boat gets on complete with her 25kg gas bottle – whoop! She takes a place next to the captain and policeman and seemingly brings a presence onto the boat that was not there before her arrival.

The swaying is now concerning to many, the captain calls forward the crew member in the orange top, feet are moved and the deck planks come up. The bilge pump has stopped working, water is sloshing around a couple of inches below the decking and causing the boats stability to be all over the place. Repairs are made and for the next hour we chug at half speed to a lunch stop. I stepped off into the shop/restaurant just to stretch my legs. It was around 12.30 and in 2 hours we should be in Battambang.

The journey continues at pace now, we are still collecting passengers, but there are now stools on the deck for those wishing to come off the roof and have some protection from the heat of the day. The boat is now moving into narrower channels, we are stopping more often to squeeze past other water born traffic, the twists and turns are more acute, the debris from the trees on either side of the boat is now coming in complete with its insect life.

We then emerge into more tranquillity, either side of us river banks have started to appear and motorised boats are starting to become less as paddle power takes over. Fishing nets are strung across from one bank to the other and the journey becomes slower now as the captain negotiates this and slows as we pass children playing in boats or on the rivers edge. On the Thames as with many other rivers there are laws governing speed to reduce the size of the wake and damage it can cause. Here it is out of common sense alone that these actions are being taken. We are starting to drop off passengers, the monks at a nondescript building, the wise woman at a set of steps in the river bank, the young family with twins are off loaded beneath a road bridge. There is much more life either side of the boat now, motos are starting to be heard then seen, more cattle are being tended, houses are more robust in construction.

A fishing trawler unlike I have ever seen..includes home

The ferry dock is rudimentary but with many willing hands the bikes and gear is soon up the steps and we are reassembling for the short ride into town. The 4^th hotel is the one for us. Helped to get the stuff to the second floor in our first lift! The room is clean, aircon (for me) and bathroom lacks damp, cockroaches and a comb of dubious nature which has been many of the experiences to date. I am looking forward to sleep tonight. The boat ride was great but draining of energy. A quick fried rice meal at the hotel followed by a wander through town and Mexican ice cream dessert ( a bit like an individual apple strudel) at Gheko’s and to the hotel we returned. Tomorrow I hope we see more of Battambang but have a strange feeling that whilst it is Cambodia’s second city we may have seen it all this evening.