The 'Road' to Battambang/The Road to Trat

Yesterday I took the boat ride from Siem Reap to Battambang. It took about 7 1/2 hours to go about 50 miles - I'm pretty sure you could row faster. But it was a beautiful ride, passing along the northern edge of the Tonle Sap lake through a bird sanctuary, wetlands, flooded fields, and canals. It is hard to tell where land begins and water ends.

We also passed through a number of floating villages. In the wet season (now), the Tonle Sap lake expands to flood a huge area, and leaves these villages miles from any dry land or road. It's pretty interesting - the daily boat from Siem Reap to Battambang must be their only contact with the outside world (except of course for satellite TV). They paddle back and forth between floating houses on small wooden canoes. There are no power lines, so there must be generators, and as far as I could tell no water or sewers either. The bathrooms were a wooden box over the river with a hole cut out of the bottom. Nearby, some kids were swimming.

Today's journey took me from Battambang, Cambodia to Trat, Thailand. The first step was a share taxi from Battambang to Poipet at the Thai border. For some reason, all the taxis in Battambang are '90s Toyota Camrys. Mom, if you are wondering what happened to your old Camry, it might be in Battambang.

Poipet stakes its claim as the ugliest place on earth. It is a few blocks of muddy roads strewn with trash, sewage and construction debris. The buildings are all basic concrete blocks, except for a couple of massive casinos, frequented by Thais. Just how poor Cambodia is becomes most clear as soon as you cross into Thailand, and the muddy, pot-holed road turns into a paved, manicured, divided multi-lane highway. I've never been so glad to see an auto-oriented piece of infrastructure.

After a tuk-tuk ride to the nearest Thai town of Aranya Prathet and a pad thai in the Aranya Prathet bus station, I caught a bus to Chantaburi, during which I had to fend off the amorous advances of the ticket woman. A quick change in Chantaburi, and now I'm in rainy Trat, a peaceful town of back alleys and traditional wooden houses, and a nice place to wind down after 10 hours on the road.