Boat to Battambang

I'm at home now but I've decided to keep writing because there's still so many places to talk about and so many good pictures to show you.
In January we were in Siem Reap in Cambodia. After a week of taking in the ruins of Ankor we were ready for a new adventure. We decided to take a boat to Battambang, a city closer to the Thai border. We were picked up by a van that had so many people crammed into it you couldn't move. It took us to Lake Tonle Sap to catch our slow boat. The trip was supposed to take about six hours but took more like ten. We were grateful to eventually get there as we had met people whose boats had run to ground as the water levels were low.
There was no assigned seating on the boat. We were really lucky to be amongst the first people there or we would have been stuck sitting on the floor on the roof in the blazing sun.
It was a facinating boat trip. The boat was packed with tourists from all corners of the globe. We traveled across the lake and then up a river. There were floating villages and as we got closer to the city there were villages on the shores. Check out the pig shed and the huge net for fishing. You can see we were greeted with a lot of curiosity and heart by the kids we passed.
There was a general feeling of poverty but the people had so much dignity and such huge smiles. You could see pride in the way they looked after their places and the way they held themselves.
We had one pit stop at a floating shop cum cafe, which consisted of two tables and a shef of goods. Oh yeah I forgot a toilet. The toilwt was a add on to the shop and your waste dropped directly into the lake where a school of wiley fish were waiting for any goodies coming their way. I held it all the way to Battambang!