The Dry Season

After another productive day at Angkor Wat, and sending Forrest on his way back to the states, we spent our last night in Siem Reap, got up early for a bus ride to our boat for the day of travel to Battambang. We a person sets out on this type of trip you are never exactly sure what you are going to get. We got a mini bus full of 16 of our new closest friends, an incrediable boat ride, with 15 those who will become our newest closest friends. Now it is the dry season.....which means that the river into Battambang is low, so we were warned regarding the boat getting stuck in the mud etc. But the locals have come up with a new way for us to not get stuck in the the mud, but get pretty dirty none the less. We left Siem Reap at 6:00 on the bus, got to the boat dock about 6:45, the boat left at 7:00 as promised. After a short journey down river we came to Tonle Sap (the big lake in the middle of Cambodia), the entreance to the the lake was complete with a scene out of Water World, where everything: churches, school, homes, basketball courts, was out floating on the water. Then about 1/2 way across we went through a hole in the fence, this fence seemed to span the entire length of the lake. Then we were off back up another river to Battambang, about 3/4 of the distance around 13:00, we stopped at the side of the river and they motioned to us to get out of the boat. Our bags were then removed from the boat and put in the back of a Nissan pick up truck. We then climbed into the back of the Nissan pick up truck..... all 15 of us for the dusty dirty hour and a half ride into town. Travelling like the locals, but they would have been able to get 20 people easy into that truck. The road that we traveled was more a farm road with large ditched for irrigation flow during the wet season.
Today we are taking a 'bus' to Phnom Penh, should be much easier.