Day 11 - Back on the River

Nice relaxed start to the day with breakfast by the pool before being picked up in a Tuk Tuk and taken to a small village out in the countryside (bumpy dirt tracks all the way) for another practice at people posing. This time we were a lot more confident, there were much fewer people around and someone had died so everyone was a bit distracted by the impending cremation.
Am pleased to say that my portrait photos had improved since the first day and I got some decent shots. The villagers were very friendly ( read that as they laughed a lot when we showed them our photos) and we enjoyed this experience much more than the last time!
Wandering down to the other end of the village we came across a barber cutting hair in his shop and also training a couple of lads in the art of Thai Boxing. Whilst he snipped away they moved up and down punching and kicking the air and then having a bare knuckle punch at a very hard coconut wrapped in netting that was hanging from a tree - ouch doesn't come close!
Further along we came to the pagoda where the cremation was going to take place and Eric talked us through how things were done in Cambodia. In literal terms they construct a funeral pyre by placing the body on a specially raised stone platform over a fire pit. it usually takes a couple of hours then any pieces of bones that are left are taken away by the family to be placed in their stupah ( shrine) if they have one, or just taken home.
We couldn't find any monks at the pagoda so we went off to another village to have a picnic lunch that had been prepared by Eric's wife, Leda. The temperature was rapidly rising again so we fairly quickly got back in the Tuk Tuk for the drive to another floating village. I say 'drive' in its most loosest term as we were mainly bounced all the way to the river - imagine sitting in a box cart attached to a motorbike being driven across a freshly ploughed field and you might come close!
We travelled by boat along a narrow river passing fisherman throwing their nets and others just standing in the river until we came to the village on the water. After going up and down a couple of times to allow us to see life on the water we pulled up alongside a floating shop/bar and settled down to watch the world go by and down a few beers, jumping up now and again in order to take 'the photo' of someone in a boat. Again I had improved since the first time - so much so that I now have loads of shots of people paddling their boats on the river which will need brutal editing! The children rowing themselves home from school was really great to see and they clearly enjoy the 'school run'.
A fascinating day completed on the return journey by a marvellous sunset, buffalo bathing in the stream and ox carts being driven home after a day in the fields - magic!
We were taken to a Khmer barbecue for dinner which unfortunately consisted of us cooking our own food over table top gas burners which gave off so much heat in an already boiling room that it was quite uncomfortable - nice idea but westerners can't take the heat.
Joanne especially suffered with the high temperature and practically cleared the restaurant when she fainted outside the men's loo and bashed her head. Much splashing of iced water and she was still not really coming round so we called for a paramedic who arrived with a wheelchair and wheeled her off up the road to the clinic for a check up! Thankfully she was ok ( huge relief all round) and we were able to go back to the hotel with a packet of berrocca ( hospital medication!).
What a day !