7am meet up, some delicious Pastry’s from the infamous Blue Pumpkin and we were on the road heading past the ‘hammock place’ where we had sunset dinner and drinks a few nights ago. Just as I was wondering how the bamboo platforms held any weight I noticed one of them had collapsed! I don’t think it was the one we were on the other night?
We went a few more K up the road to hit the port, for today we are travelling by boat. All around the port are a mix of the usual houses (or shacks) on stilts and the floating versions.
Here they are moving the school:
We board our long boat and the diesel fires up. I think the boat has been built locally and adapted to use a car engine. It’s comfortable with padded seats and makes us all smile. When its cranked up she moves quite fast as well! We were over taking all the other loaded tourist boats. Their were only 7 of us on this ‘speed boat’ including the driver.
I have always fancied a boat ride through the everglades in Florida, but this might be even better than that. Its all flooded forests for a few miles, you can just see the tops of the trees (or mangroves) we pass local fisherman on boats and some are even hunting for rats apparently.
Then we hit the great lake, the biggest in South Asia. We vaguely follow the north shore and just about see that, but can not see any other edge, its like being on a calm sea! Massive.
The lake is so big as the mekong river flows all the way down from China with various tributaries joining it but it can’t drain into the ocean fast enough on the Vietnamese coast, so backs up and creates this lake plus a lot of flooding in Cambodia. Its been like this for a long time so very normal.
We soon cross the lake and are back into a river system. We pass though various floating villages complete with schools, shops and police stations! All also floating.
After a couple of hours we actually stop off at one of the floating village shops. Very interesting. I purchased a beer for 6000R. That’s the most expensive of the trip so far at about $1.5. But on a floating shop in the middle of now where that's an acceptable price. Its still not expensive by normal home standards.
I also thought I might go to the toilet as Bouna said they had one if we wanted. Not sure what I Was expecting but it wasn’t a corrugated shack with a shelf you had to perch on that just dropped straight into the river!!! Nice! I wasn’t brave enough to use it. When back on the boat I asked Bouna if the boat’s ‘five star toilet’ as he put it, was just a hole, he laughed a lot and said yes.
About an hour later of just generally chilling out and chatting on the boat we start to see some birds which is really great. We haven’t seen many live birds here so far, most have been plucked and barbequed already. There are some very elegant looking herons, and we think some blue parrot type birds.
Then the channel through the treetops narrow down to about a boat and a half width, we hit a bendy bit and slow down to a crawl. WE are on the front and the driver is located at the back, I thought I could here another boat coming but as we are going so slow I didn’t see a problem, This family boat comes around the corner fast, we go left, they go the same way, we go the other way, so do they!!! We hit reverse and not that much happens, Me and Anna are on the front and are bracing for impact, the driver of the other boats lets out a yelp and goes full throttle and ditches his boat into the mangroves! I do not know how we didn’t hit each other! Both drivers think this is really funny and they share a few native words and laughs with each other and we drive on leaving him and his family wedged up on the mangroves!!!! We have all laughed about this a lot since.
After a another couple of hours and various other sights, stilt houses and fisherman the river changes for the worse. We start to see more litter and solid ground on the banks. We are now arriving at Battambang, the second largest city in Cambodia.
We get off the boat and board the bus which takes us to a WGO funded project building for a delicious lunch.
After lunch we get a tour by the founder. They take in kids and some families off the streets who have had a rough ride with being trafficked etc for a year to rehabilitate them. We see the school and meet some of the children how are enjoying practicing English with us, and we see them making fabric and bamboo furniture. We find out some of the money we paid for our tour goes as a donation to the cause which we are impressed with.
The hotel is nice after we changed rooms. Our first room was on the ground floor and the only window was one which opened onto the indoors reception area!!!
We are all up for the optional motorbike tour, despite it not being covered by our insurance.
This was a real highlight of the whole trip so far. We are all given helmets and our own moped with driver and get on the back. It’s slightly scary at first but you soon learn to relax and the pot holes are much easier to deal with when your not tense! The fact I was twice the size of my driver was quite good as I could see directly over his head for a good view!!! Must have looked funny though.
We first visited a charity school to see them learning traditional Khmer dancing and to see them doing gymnastics.
Then we get back on our rides to go deeper into the countryside occasionally waving at the children who would often shout ‘HELLOOO’ as we drive past! There are lots of dogs and puppies around the track either sleeping, playing or scavenging.
On the tour we see a family who make rice paper that looked like really hard work. A family who make a local snack, which is like a roasted bamboo filled with sticky rice and coconut. It was really nice. Then a short ride later a fish pasta factory! This was smelly.
My view over the top!:
The best bit was at the end though and is on the list of ten things you must do when in Cambodia, the Bamboo train……
