Hey
The Boat, The Bushes, The Bugs, The Bloody Bag
The boat to Battambang, we heard, is one of the most scenic boat trips in Cambodia. It is also known to break down frequently and even sink on occasion, "but there are have been no fatalities," we were told. We were warned that if we were lucky, it would take 3 hours, but if things ran per the norm, it could take up to 12. Oh yes, and we might be required to jump into the river and push the boat if it got stuck in the mud.
We woke at the crack of dawn to catch the boat. A bus was to pick us up from our guesthouse at 5:30 a.m. and take us to the launching point, some 15 km from Siem Reap. Our bus turned out to be a pickup truck and after 16 travelers and their backpacks had been stuffed into and onto the vehicle, we set off for the river along bumpy, pitted dirt roads.
Our boat was not the shiny white hydrofoil bobbing on the brown water... that one goes to Phnom Penh. Ours was the beat up jalopy with bench-style seats and tattered lines. But it was floating, not sinking, so we boarded the wooden antique and found covered seats (many people sit on the roof).
Not 5 minutes after departure, the boat broke down. The engine was roaring and shuddering and spitting plumes of black smoke from under its cover. There are 3 men required to operate the boat: the captain plus 2 mechanics. All of them got to work on the engine as our boat drifted in circles on the still waters of the river. Banging, clanking, cursing: the boat was running again, but not for long. It broke down twice more within then next hour and I began to wonder if we might be required to all pitch in and row the boat to Battambang, but I could not locate any oars.
Floating villages, flooded forests, blue-rimmed horizons: it was scenic. The boat was up and running for good, it seemed, and the passengers on board relaxed. Not that people were anxious or upset by the frequency of the breakdowns. Only one Spanish man looked nervous, twitching about the boat, looking to see what was going on, watching the boatmen fix the engine as if he were a foreman overseeing the disposal of nuclear waste. Several times, we pulled right up to a home built on stilts to pick up a passenger or drop one off. It was after our last drop-off that the boat again broke down after a good few hours of smooth sailing, so to speak. This time, it took the better part of an hour to fix the engine as we drifted on the water.
After a brief stop at a river-bound convenience store in one of the floating villages, we set off into what can only be described as a tunnel of bushes. The river branches off into many small channels and as we drove into one of these, one that looked a few feet short of the width of the boat, I felt a nervous vibe rise amongst the relaxed passengers.
Cracking, whipping, snapping: thick and thin branches from trees and bushes on either side of the channel smacked the sides of the boat, invading the safe interior through the open 'windows' -- the covered area of the boat was open, with an occasional vertical support beam which gave the 'feeling' of windows. Thwack, thwack, thwack: a single branch could make a horrible noise as it hit each vertical beam. A delayed duck, and you feel as if you'd been whipped.
As the boat pushed its way through the tunnel of bushes, on what seemed an impossible path, the trees and brush continued to batter the boat, leaving twigs and sticks and leaves behind. It didn't take long for the interior of the boat to resemble the aftermath of a long, hard day with a weed wacker and tree clippers. That's how the boat became invaded with huge, tropical bugs. Collosal red ants, gigantic spiders, hairy caterpillars: all of it crawling on our skin, on our bags, on our seats. It's not only the presence and the size of the displaced bugs that disturbed me. It's that the bugs, themselves, were disturbed... running around frantically in the aftermath of destruction. For the bugs, it must have seemed like the apocalypse. The frenzied spiders, in particular, were the most fearful for me. I saw fangs on some of them and I didn't want any of them running up my pant leg. Moving so fast, they'd be impossible to catch, maim, kill.
It's not only trees and brush that we collided with, though. The channel was too narrow for our boat, let alone another coming the opposite direction. But it didn't stop us from moving forward. We simply slowed down a bit so that the crash was just a bit softer. Most people saw us coming, but when we turned a blind curve at high speeds, and collided with a small fishing boat, the women on board let our boat driver have it. We nearly knocked an entire family of 8 off of that boat.
Somehow, in all the mayhem, a barefoot woman cut her toe. I didn't see it happen. I only saw her sitting on the floor with a plastic bag under her foot to catch the blood, and it bled a LOT. One of the passengers had a first aid kit and bound her toe, and once that was done, one of the boat mechanics flung the bloody bag overboard. Aside from environmental issues, the problem was that we were still ensconced in a wall of brush. The bag had nowhere to go, so it bounced along the bushes for a bit before catching on a plastic line hanging down from the boat's roof. It hung on that line, flapping in the wind and against the brush, threatening to loose hold at any minute and come fluttering back inside the boat. A bloody bag, airborne, into the group of passengers huddled together in the center of the boat... of which, I was one.
"Oh, no! no! no!" I heard myself yelling over the din of the engine and snapping tree branches. I was surprised to hear my voice because I normally don't make verbal outbursts. I could picture that bag full of blood loosing hold and smacking me right in the face, splattering all over the place. Besides the disgust of the whole matter, there are mosquitoes everywhere. There is an AIDs epidemic. I had on a clean shirt! Luckily the bloody bag was retrieved by the boatman in time and discarded safely -- still into the waters of the river, but thankfully, not upon my head.
Things were pretty quiet -- uneventful actually -- after the bloody bag. We soon emerged from the tunnel of bushes, no further injuries were had, and no break downs continued to plague our trip. Even the bugs settled down: they were safely hidden somewhere among the piles of leaves in the boat, probably setting up new homes. We arrived in Battambang in 7 hours, four hours late according to the schedule, but 5 hours earlier than the really unlucky.
We woke at the crack of dawn to catch the boat. A bus was to pick us up from our guesthouse at 5:30 a.m. and take us to the launching point, some 15 km from Siem Reap. Our bus turned out to be a pickup truck and after 16 travelers and their backpacks had been stuffed into and onto the vehicle, we set off for the river along bumpy, pitted dirt roads.
Our boat was not the shiny white hydrofoil bobbing on the brown water... that one goes to Phnom Penh. Ours was the beat up jalopy with bench-style seats and tattered lines. But it was floating, not sinking, so we boarded the wooden antique and found covered seats (many people sit on the roof).
Not 5 minutes after departure, the boat broke down. The engine was roaring and shuddering and spitting plumes of black smoke from under its cover. There are 3 men required to operate the boat: the captain plus 2 mechanics. All of them got to work on the engine as our boat drifted in circles on the still waters of the river. Banging, clanking, cursing: the boat was running again, but not for long. It broke down twice more within then next hour and I began to wonder if we might be required to all pitch in and row the boat to Battambang, but I could not locate any oars.
Floating villages, flooded forests, blue-rimmed horizons: it was scenic. The boat was up and running for good, it seemed, and the passengers on board relaxed. Not that people were anxious or upset by the frequency of the breakdowns. Only one Spanish man looked nervous, twitching about the boat, looking to see what was going on, watching the boatmen fix the engine as if he were a foreman overseeing the disposal of nuclear waste. Several times, we pulled right up to a home built on stilts to pick up a passenger or drop one off. It was after our last drop-off that the boat again broke down after a good few hours of smooth sailing, so to speak. This time, it took the better part of an hour to fix the engine as we drifted on the water.
After a brief stop at a river-bound convenience store in one of the floating villages, we set off into what can only be described as a tunnel of bushes. The river branches off into many small channels and as we drove into one of these, one that looked a few feet short of the width of the boat, I felt a nervous vibe rise amongst the relaxed passengers.
Cracking, whipping, snapping: thick and thin branches from trees and bushes on either side of the channel smacked the sides of the boat, invading the safe interior through the open 'windows' -- the covered area of the boat was open, with an occasional vertical support beam which gave the 'feeling' of windows. Thwack, thwack, thwack: a single branch could make a horrible noise as it hit each vertical beam. A delayed duck, and you feel as if you'd been whipped.
As the boat pushed its way through the tunnel of bushes, on what seemed an impossible path, the trees and brush continued to batter the boat, leaving twigs and sticks and leaves behind. It didn't take long for the interior of the boat to resemble the aftermath of a long, hard day with a weed wacker and tree clippers. That's how the boat became invaded with huge, tropical bugs. Collosal red ants, gigantic spiders, hairy caterpillars: all of it crawling on our skin, on our bags, on our seats. It's not only the presence and the size of the displaced bugs that disturbed me. It's that the bugs, themselves, were disturbed... running around frantically in the aftermath of destruction. For the bugs, it must have seemed like the apocalypse. The frenzied spiders, in particular, were the most fearful for me. I saw fangs on some of them and I didn't want any of them running up my pant leg. Moving so fast, they'd be impossible to catch, maim, kill.
It's not only trees and brush that we collided with, though. The channel was too narrow for our boat, let alone another coming the opposite direction. But it didn't stop us from moving forward. We simply slowed down a bit so that the crash was just a bit softer. Most people saw us coming, but when we turned a blind curve at high speeds, and collided with a small fishing boat, the women on board let our boat driver have it. We nearly knocked an entire family of 8 off of that boat.
Somehow, in all the mayhem, a barefoot woman cut her toe. I didn't see it happen. I only saw her sitting on the floor with a plastic bag under her foot to catch the blood, and it bled a LOT. One of the passengers had a first aid kit and bound her toe, and once that was done, one of the boat mechanics flung the bloody bag overboard. Aside from environmental issues, the problem was that we were still ensconced in a wall of brush. The bag had nowhere to go, so it bounced along the bushes for a bit before catching on a plastic line hanging down from the boat's roof. It hung on that line, flapping in the wind and against the brush, threatening to loose hold at any minute and come fluttering back inside the boat. A bloody bag, airborne, into the group of passengers huddled together in the center of the boat... of which, I was one.
"Oh, no! no! no!" I heard myself yelling over the din of the engine and snapping tree branches. I was surprised to hear my voice because I normally don't make verbal outbursts. I could picture that bag full of blood loosing hold and smacking me right in the face, splattering all over the place. Besides the disgust of the whole matter, there are mosquitoes everywhere. There is an AIDs epidemic. I had on a clean shirt! Luckily the bloody bag was retrieved by the boatman in time and discarded safely -- still into the waters of the river, but thankfully, not upon my head.
Things were pretty quiet -- uneventful actually -- after the bloody bag. We soon emerged from the tunnel of bushes, no further injuries were had, and no break downs continued to plague our trip. Even the bugs settled down: they were safely hidden somewhere among the piles of leaves in the boat, probably setting up new homes. We arrived in Battambang in 7 hours, four hours late according to the schedule, but 5 hours earlier than the really unlucky.
posted by Cheryn at 5:07 PM
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