Rollin' on the River

Lonely Planet, a Shoestring Guide to Southeast Asis has been our reference point for much of this trip, and taking the boat from Siem Reap to Battambang, our next stop, is something the authors highly recommend.  Our guesthouse host, Reinhart, is very dubious about our decision but orders the tickets anyway with a request that I email him with my impressions of the trip.

Another one of these God-awful early pickups (6:30) but the van doesn't arrive until almost 7:30!  We're the last ones to be picked up - nine of us and a bunch of luggage.  It should take about 20-30 minutes to get to the ferry terminal, but about 5 minutes after we're picked up, the whole lot of us are told to disembark at a traffic circle downtown and 'another bus will be along to pick you up'.  Huh?  Close on an hour later, a van just like the one we got off arrives and there are three open seats.  The driver tells us all to 'get in, there's room' and all but three of us flatly refuse and demand another van.

Wait another 15" or so and lo and behold our original driver turns up with another van (empty) and we all pile in.  It's now well past 7:30, the time the ferry to Battambang is due to leave but since nearly all of us in the van are going there, maybe we have some leverage.  Finally, after a detour down a dirt road full of potholes, we zoom into the ferry terminal (a curiously modern, partially-completed concrete wonder) and all pile down onto the dock and are directed to our ferry.

Talk about outdated!  This is right out of African Queen, except I think Bogie at least had flotation devices for himself and Kathryn Hepburn.  (Little did we know that was our 'lunch' hanging in the green plastic sack.)

Fortunately - very, very fortunately - we get a seat downstairs, right behind the 'captain' with a terrific view.  The seats are wooden, very hard and this is a long, long ride - 7 hours!  We'd been told there would be a 'lunch stop' but just in case we've brought a bag of snacks with us and lots of water.

Yes, this youngster's shirt said 'I Could Be Your Son'.  Mmmm . . .

Latecomers scrambling to get on what looked like a much more sea-worthy craft, probably the one headed all the way to Phnom Penh.

And we're off, headed first across the top of Tonle Sap, an enormous lake that is the source of rich soil for agriculture all around it.  When the monsoons come, there is so much water in the rivers that feed this lake that they actually flow backwards and fill the lake with super-rich delta soil from the Mekong which is one of its outlets.

We can't even see the other side of Tonle Sap . . .

View from the back of the boat.  that's our 'captain' on the left, with the baseball cap (not a flotation device in sight!).

Didn't seem to bother this sweet little girl . . .

This is our 'first mate' who yells directions to the captain and helps steer this big clunky boat through a series of very narrow canals.  He uses a big wooden pole, not unlike that of a gondolier - the big difference is our mate uses it at the front of the boat.  A most curious adaptation . . . 

And in no time we're making our way into this labyrinthine waterway . . .

Almost forgot, this is a delivery craft as well and those packages are destined for the floating villages along the way.  The first group comes up almost immediately . . .

Yes, these are floating homes, 50 gallon flotation devices and all.  They don't seem to be moored or anchored to anything but somehow they stay in place.  No running water, no electricity, no mod-cons.

But wait, here comes a floating 7-11!

Many of the floating homes we passed had a 'fast boat' tied out front, similar to the ones we saw on the Prao Choya River in Bangkok, just smaller.  

We rode for the next 5+ hours past village after village, some of which looked pretty prosperous, some of which rivaled India in poverty and despair.  Here is a sampling of the many, many photos I took . . . 

This house was built on these towering concrete pillars and it still fell apart!

One of the deliveries along the way.  The captain sounded his horn and this boat pulled alongside of us, and this woman and her baby climbed down into it and they all drove away.

And then we're back in the weeds again and a slight miscalculation on the part of the captain(?), we're headed straight for a boat!  Near miss . . .

Got everyone's attention . . .

The first mate is at the other end of that long pole, trying to push us off this mess of underbrush and flotsam.

Mamasan passenger hops up on the deck to help out.

And our seat mate across the aisle lends a hand while Mamasan manages the steering pole.  I think the first mate jumped ship!

Somehow we manage to get ourselves out of that mess - only slammed into one poor fishing boat/fisherman's home which I think did some damage to his metal corrugated siding - and are finally in the home stretch into Battambang.

Sadly, these are the most depressing 'homes' we passed . . .

We actually saw people living on the banks of the river under plastic lean-tos . . . the floating homes were just a half-step above that.

This was a very, very long day.  Our lunch 'stop' was a loaf of bad French bread handed out some time around noon.  Drinks and water were for sale.  The seats were beastly uncomfortable, the engine is noisy and stinky and safety procedures and equipment are non-existent.  All that said, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  We would not have missed this, and we both need some serious butt massages!!  We were so grateful that the weather was perfect - overcast and not too hot.  If it had rained (as predicted) or been hot and humid, it would have been quite a different matter.  It didn't and we had the trip of a lifetime.

Angkor Thom, Lara Croft,Tomb Raider, and Tolkein Trees

How often our point of reference for a historical site is based on seeing it for the first time on film!

Today's temple tour (the part we wimped out on yesterday after the sunrise excursion) includes Angkor Thom (doesn't quite have the ring of Angkor Wat) which makes AW look like a warm-up exercise in temple building.  On the map it's about six times the size of AW and in design, it knocks AW right out of its waterlily-filled moat.

The centerpiece of Angkor Thom is Bayoun Temple (aka Temple of Tomb Raider fame).  It's in far better shape than AW and it's been suggested that it was built almost entirely of sandstone, rather than the laterite (laterine?) used in many of the temples which is not not nearly as durable.

Our first view of Bayoun . . .

This temple is undergoing extensive restoration/rehabilitation; it's the first time we've seen actual cranes on site (that's the white angled arm on the outside of the wall) .

This temple is overwhelmingly Buddhist - I think I heard a guide describe it as 'the temple of a thousand Buddhas'.  An exaggeration no doubt but Buddha's smiling face is everywhere we look, sometimes on four sides of a pedestal facing all four directions.

We had to stop and take a photo with this Buddha profile.

This may be the very best set of Buddhas we saw.

This temple was full of surprises!

More photos of the incredible interior . . . 

And this one thanks to a lovely Chinese couple for whom I took a picture of them!

On to the next temple in Angkor Thom!

Definitely a change in architectural style . . . 

We take a pass on the climb and head around the side . . . and find one of many wee passageways into the inner courtyards of every temple.  It looks like every one of these doors through the perimeter walls could accommodate one elephant and rider.  Yes, the opening is that big and these walls are amazing.

And the ever-present, ever-ready to reclaim the jungle, banyan trees.

And a temple that is distinctly Mayan in structure . . . on our map it's labeled the Royal Palace (quite a climb to get to it!).

And the Terrace of the Leper King . . . recently determined to be a crematory/burial site.

Dragon statuary adorn many of the temple approaches . . . 

And Tolkien trees adorn most of the walls . . .

We emerge from our walk through the temples in the woods and find a living, active Buddhist shrine.

And our very last temple on this incredible tour, Ta Prohm.

Restoration of Ta Prohm has been jointly undertaken with the Government of India - a number of 'before' and 'after' photos show the results of their efforts.  One was of this walkway - an 'after'.  

This ruler was undoubtedly Hindu - this relief could have come right out of one of the temples we saw in India.

But the most spectacular feature of this temple isn't man-made, it's nature, reclaiming the jungle.  These banyan trees could be hundreds of years old. 

I swear once I turned my back they started growing and stopped as soon as I turned around and looked at them again.  Definitely not on my list of trees I want to hug!

Some of the root systems looked like someone had upended a giant bowl of spaghetti and then had it flash frozen.

Ta Prohm is a much, much smaller temple with a series of unfolding chambers.

We leave, looking through yet another passageway, ornamented with the work of craftsmen long gone.

I wonder if we will ever know the whole story of Angkor Wat.  It is deservedly one of the Seven Wonders of the World , , ,