Cambodia - Siem Reap - Water Village

(9/12/10)

We went for another day trip from Siem Reap to see a big water village. On the way there we saw all these short bamboo sticks for sale. Our tuk-tuk driver pulled over so we could get one:

Turns out they're filled with really yummy rice and beans! They're slow cooked over coals for an hour, rotated every few mins and some leaves are stuffed in to the end to keep the rice in there:

Passing one of the many "shops" on they way, those yellow bottles in the pic are filled with petrol for bikes:

On the boat out to the water village and tucking in to the rice:

Our boat with our guide, tuk-tuk driver and general hotel go-to dude sitting by Bridget:

Taking in the view as we head towards the water village:

It went on for MILES like this:

All the houses are up on stilts because when it's the rainy season, the river goes right up to just below the floors. In the dry season, there's no water, it turns in to a road where we were cruising in the boat!

Some kids having fun on they way back from fishing with Dad, waving at the white foreigner:

Our high-tech boat navigation and steering system:

We stopped off at one of the water markets for a while, while our guide (in white shirt) brought some fish for his dinner (we saw him and his mates tucking in to them later that night when we left the hotel):

Bridge chilling out watching them gut some of the fish:

The water market was all tied up to a tree in the middle of nowhere like this one:

Heading in to the floating water village, the red nets were set up to catch the small fish as they flew off the nets that were being beaten by people to get them off:

To the left of this pic you can see a "spirit-house":

One of the many fine floating houses:

This dude was moving house, literally his house, very slowly:

Back to the non-floating water village:

Panorama, showing a tiny fraction of the miles of houses:

We stopped off at one stage to check out more of the village on land, where I took this panorama of the river:

Off to do womanly duties, like getting basic food to survive on:

Saw some monks hanging out in this place:

This was a school, pretty flash building compared to everything around it:

This was the flash town hall:

The main street:

Someone's pet...?!

Mmm, watermelons!

We tucked in to one:

Playing some hack-sack with the kids, using their version of one which had feathers on the end:

Kids go to school early when it's cool, go home for a few hours during the middle of the day to sleep and come back to school again for the afternoon, here they are heading back to school:

Another panorama I took when our boat conked out again:

Then it was back to Siem Reap in our Tuk-tuk, where Bridget and I heard the weirdest sound go past us, something we had never heard before... turns out that upside down pigs on a back of a motorbike whizzing past tuk-tuks make this strangled, desperate screaming noise. I don't think it was happy to be in this position:

As we got in to Siem Reap, we could see that Wayne Rooney had been there before us drinking beers:

And tucking in to another fantastic meal at the end of the day:

Siem Reap, it's not just temples, you gotta check out the water village if you go there!

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By Tony Baker: email