battambang and phnom penh

went to battambang by boat. the trip was supposed to take 3 hours. supposed to.

on the trip you see rural cambodia. you see that people really do live in huts and wash their dishes in the river water. they lather their hair with shampoo before diving in and kids think nothing of swimming in the browness.

something odd happened while we were sailing. during our trip we have to cross the tonle sap lake. it is a massive lake. while crossing someone spotted a pig. a full sized adult pig. it was swimming in middle of this lake, perhaps 2-3km away from land. our captain stopped our boat, turned around and headed back. one of the crew reached into the water and with a bit of effort pulled on board the squealing hog. it was the size of a big dog. it screamed and squealed and clumped it's trotters on the boards. they tied it to the toliet door and after a minute it calmed down and fell asleep. i didn't use the loo for the whole trip.

after the river and lake came the swamps. we got stuck. every so often they had to use barges to prise us out. again and again we got stuck. it also started raining so everyone put down the blinds (there was no glass in the windows) to protect us from the rain. for hours and hours we crawled in the darkness; stopping and starting and stopping and starting again. the pig stayed asleep.

at last, after pushing and pulling and tugging and chugging we made it out of the swamp. a german passenger, on the way to the toliet, patted the pig on the head. it woke up and started squealing again. the german just laughed and stepped inside for a piss.

up the river again and after 9 hours we were in battambang. everyone was happy, except the pig who was asleep again. we stepped off the boat and got a tuk tuk into town. (i never found out what happened to the pig, but when we got off the boat, a slew a drivers were vying for our business. as we ummed and ahhed one driver elbowed another in the face for trying to talk to us. perhaps the pig had the best of it after all.)

battambang was ok, a bit small and a bit rural, but very relaxed and safe. this morning we got the early bus to phnom penh where i type this now, next to the river: the might tonle sap. one more day here then off the laos. by plane.