Heading down river in search of Battambang

A wise man once said "the road less traveled, is less travelled for a reason"

And with those words ringing in my ears myself and about 6 hardy(or foolhardy) trtavellers met on the banks of the Tonle Sap at 7am to head down river on a "fastboat" to the small town of Battambang.

Why you might ask?

Well according to the Lonely planet that we all seem to carry on us like a holy grail the trip down river is a scenic and pretty one, and Battambang has some "lovely French colonial architecture"

WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!!

Actually the trip was kinda fun, the driver was keen to show us his stylish overtaking skills on the water and the huge lake with its floating families and communities was cool to see.

The 8hrs we took wasnt so cool, and the excitement in Battambang was like being in Huntly on a Tuesday night, in winter (very weird after the hype and bustle of Siem Reap)

The river rises up to 12 metres! with the sea pushing back up the tonle sap, making this area incredibly stocked with fish (so that explains the huge fishing nets and homes built on either bamboo logs or on stilts.

There were even schools and stores that rose with the lake, a very weird sight to see.

Some of the homes were little more than plastic stretched over bamboo, while others were huge two storey structures reflecting the different levels of wealth found here just like anywhere else here in asia

We stopped off for a yummy lunch of rice and a very dark meat sausage that had been barbecued in a very nice sauce

(Im not sure what the meat was but it tasted great)

Every so often you came across whole families on their houseboat and the wake of our speedboat would make their home bounce up and down as if it would flood and sink, but the Cambodian fishermen seemed very relaxed about this highway on the water.

I met new travellers on the boat which i guess is one of the benefits of travelling slowly and with room to move, a cpl of brits and Irish pair who had been travelling for several months through Vietnam and a Dutch girl who was fresh from doing two months volunteer work at an orphanage in Thailand.

Chatting with her made me more determined to do something positive for others in Cambodia so i will search out how i can help over the coming weeks.

Oh apologies for not having updated for a week (Cambodia is not as online as Thailand i have discovered lol)