A short Trip to Cambodia, Part 2

After a tiring day we had decided to move on, and had booked a trip on the "Express Boat" to Battambang. Next morning we were picked by a van to take us some 15 km to the boat. It turned out to be a somewhat primitive affair and a l-o-n-g trip. Most of the travellers were tourists but also a few local people got onto the boat who were then being dropped off at various villages along the route. At the landing stage we were exhorted by vendors to buy some baguettes, water and cheese wedges for "breakfast". Good thing I did pick some up for myself, because we did not have a chance to get something to eat for the next 5 hours.

First we followed a channel with steep high banks excavated from the marshland around Tonle Sap, the big lke in the centre of Cambodia, for several kilometres. Gradually the banks became less steep and then flat altogether and we entered the lake proper. In the middle you could barely see both shores. At the other side we entered a marshy river and followed it, passing through several villages on stilts. By noon time, having reached proper land, we had reached a fork in the river, and stopped at a restaurant on stilts for lunch. Su, at that point, decided not to eat any fish any more in Cambodia, after inspecting the "toilet", just a hole in the plank floor over the open water.

After lunch the branch of the river we had selected grew increasingly narrow with many windings. The local boats there have to long-tail type of engine. However the shaft is mounted fixed to the side of the boat, and a separate rudder is used for steering, not like in Thailand where the long-tail engine is mounted on a pin and can be swung around to effect steering. The Thai method would have been useful navigating up this narrow river, where the boat had to be taken alternately close to opposite shores to avoid the shallow areas along the inner portion of the bends. Also some tree branches had snagged at various places and shallows had developed at those locations due to the slower speed of the water there. Fairly soon we were bogged down on top of one of these shallows and no amount of speeding up or reversing the engine, or pushing with a pole would get the heavy boat moving again. It was either lessen the weight or manual pushing the boat or both. After two of the crew had jumped overboard into the luke warm muddy knee/waist deep water, and that did not help, I joined them, and later another tourist too, and with combined effort we were able to get moving again. A little while later we were caught in a violent thunderstorm and as the heavy rain lashed the boat, one of the crew, a young (13 years old) boy, fell overboard and got caught in the propeller of the engine. Luckily he only sustained superficial lacerations, and with the help of medical supplies of one of the tourists and one of Su's shirts and raincoat to keep him dry and warm in the lashing rain, he was taken care of and we got underway once more.

After many more windings of the river we finally made it into Battambang by 18:00 hours. The nearness of the city was heralded by a lot of garbage along the river banks. The town is described in the guide books as "A charming riverside retreat with a rich legacy of colonial-era architecture". It did not strike us as such at all. While some of that architecture was there alright, it appeared run-down, dirty and neglected. Lots of hotels, but all of them seemingly empty. We had wanted to do some souvenir shopping in this supposedly second largest town of Cambodia, as this was our last or second last day in the country. But after the rich offerings in this respect at Siem Riep there was nothing here at all, that we could find.Some disappointment!

Eventually we did find there was a public bus connection to the border at Poi Phet/Aranyapratet. We had planned to use the train service as far as Sisophon, but were told it was not operating any more. So next morning we embarked on the bus. At Poi Phet we were again disappointed, no duty-free stores (we had wanted to buy some cheap French brandy), nor even any stores of any kind that we could see, just a string of hotels and guest houses along a dirty un-imposing street leading to the border post. Of course, the obligatory casinos and karaokes between the Cambodian and Thai border controls. We were glad to return back to Thailand and its normal offerings. As much as we had enjoyed the North of Cambodia and Angkor, the west of Cambodia close to the Thai border was a great disappointment.