Day 81 (19/06/08): Battambang, Cambodia
I woke up at the ridiculous time of 5 in the morning, to get ready to catch my boat to Battambang. I met Tony and the others for an early morning breakfast, they were headed off to Sihanoukville. The guesthouse owners were even kind enough to make the breakfast free! At 6am I boarded a minibus for the ride down to the pier on the river. We went through a small Cambodian village, and it was very interesting to see how a lot of the locals live. The overwhelming thing that keeps hitting me about Cambodia is the rubbish, there is a lot of it! Everywhere there are large piles of rubbish and refuse, plastic bags and bottles being the worst culprits. When the van stopped, we were confronted with the usual small army of Cambodian woman trying to sell us food and drinks, and they don't take no for answer easily.
The boat trip itself was quite interesting and enjoyable, although not particularly comfortable! The boat wound its way through the river, passing a few floating villages and boat people, before crossing the massive lake known as the
Tonle Sap. This lake was big enough that I couldn't see the far side, and it reall felt like you were out at sea, with nothing but the water and the horizon in the distance, no sign of land at all. After crossing the lake, it took about another 5 hours winding our way through small rivers to get to Battambang. At one point, while going through a particularly small and narrow river, our boat got stuck on a large pile of driftwood branches. We managed to escape after some of the crew got out to push (the water is shallow) and the driver revved the engine enough to fill the entire area with diesel fumes! The scenery was pretty impressive, as we went through the jungle and passed numerous little fishing boats and locals who live in boats. All the local children were always filled with smiles and would wave enthusiastically at us as we passed.
Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, although there isn't really much to do there. I spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around the dense concrete jungle, trying to get some life back into legs that had spent 7 hours on a cramped boat. The accomodation was cheap, and my little room even had a tv! So I spent the evening lying on bed watching crappy movies.
I woke up at the ridiculous time of 5 in the morning, to get ready to catch my boat to Battambang. I met Tony and the others for an early morning breakfast, they were headed off to Sihanoukville. The guesthouse owners were even kind enough to make the breakfast free! At 6am I boarded a minibus for the ride down to the pier on the river. We went through a small Cambodian village, and it was very interesting to see how a lot of the locals live. The overwhelming thing that keeps hitting me about Cambodia is the rubbish, there is a lot of it! Everywhere there are large piles of rubbish and refuse, plastic bags and bottles being the worst culprits. When the van stopped, we were confronted with the usual small army of Cambodian woman trying to sell us food and drinks, and they don't take no for answer easily.
The boat trip itself was quite interesting and enjoyable, although not particularly comfortable! The boat wound its way through the river, passing a few floating villages and boat people, before crossing the massive lake known as the Tonle Sap. This lake was big enough that I couldn't see the far side, and it reall felt like you were out at sea, with nothing but the water and the horizon in the distance, no sign of land at all. After crossing the lake, it took about another 5 hours winding our way through small rivers to get to Battambang. At one point, while going through a particularly small and narrow river, our boat got stuck on a large pile of driftwood branches. We managed to escape after some of the crew got out to push (the water is shallow) and the driver revved the engine enough to fill the entire area with diesel fumes! The scenery was pretty impressive, as we went through the jungle and passed numerous little fishing boats and locals who live in boats. All the local children were always filled with smiles and would wave enthusiastically at us as we passed.
Battambang is Cambodia's second largest city, although there isn't really much to do there. I spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around the dense concrete jungle, trying to get some life back into legs that had spent 7 hours on a cramped boat. The accomodation was cheap, and my little room even had a tv! So I spent the evening lying on bed watching crappy movies.
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