The next morning we got up early and arranged for Balcony to get us some bikes for the day, they do a rental at $1.50 a day. We knew we could get them cheaper in town but couldn’t find the man who was recommended to us so opted for the guesthouse ones. To be fair they were two of the best city bikes we’ve yet had on our travels. Our destination was to head north up the river towards the Kampi Rapids and see if we could spot any of the rare Irrawaddy Dolphins along the way. It took around an hour to get to the main viewing point on this part of the Mekong, however if we wanted to sit and watch the dolphins from the land we would have to pay $6 each and if we wanted to get a boat $10 each. We decided we didn’t want to spend this kind of money and opted for a little further up the road where we could stand and watch some of the rare dolphins rise to the surface. They don’t have a lot of space in this pool and there are around 90 dolphins there at the moment so if you hang around long enough they have to come up for air eventually!! Many people opt for the boat tour option but you can only get upto 100 meters from the dolphins, if you’re a keen spotter then we’d say do it.

Moving on from this point we cycled for a further 5 minutes or so and landed at the Kampi Rapids, a local bathing spot. We had been told about this place the day before and thought it would be worth checking out. The local community have built long wooden huts built on stilts, sitting around half a meter above the river level. They appear to be sectioned off so that each family who works there has a strip to rent out for those of us wanting to relax for the afternoon. The locals use it as a popular bathing and meeting place, families gather together, splash around in the rapid-like current, eat food cooked by the hut owners, sit around and drink, sleep in hammocks and so on. It’s more of a place for them to relax and take time out from work. We paid a dollar each to have our own little space in the huts and we both had a hammock to relax and read on. The owner of our plot kept pestering us to buy some food but we decided to wait until around midday to leave and get some grub at a nearby recommended family run restaurant. Before leaving we bathed our feet in the water, read our books and Helen practised some yoga, it was starting to get a little busier as we left at midday. The restaurant is just as you walk out of the rapids area on the left hand side, we didn’t pay much and each had noodles and stir-fried vegetables, an in-offensive meal that is a little bland.

On our way back to Kratie we stopped off at a temple on the mountain…a mountain that is all of 93m high!! They do have some warped ideas as to scale over here, but it is the highest point in the area so we were a little rewarded by views and bizarre hell vs heaven like paintings in the temples. Back in Kratie we organised our transport to Laos for the next day, we booked a minivan for $14 each which would fingers crossed take us all the way to Don Det at the 4000 Islands with a few en-route transport changes.

One night left in Cambodia, we will go away with fond memories of this beautiful country having both had a wonderful and heart warming experience here.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

The bus was due to depart from Siem Reap at 6am and we were informed to be at the ticket office for 5.30am. We arrived on time and several other travellers were waiting for the bus which was a medium sized coach but enough room for everyone on board, even if the bags were all thrown on the backseats! We paid $8 each for our tickets which was the cheapest we could find to Kratie with a change of buses in Kompong Cham, Doug and Emma were heading for Ban Lung and had to pay $19 each for the VIP bus, hotel pickup and a breakfast. It started in the usual way, drive around the area for at least an hour picking up passengers and packages to transport and then finally one last stop, it was to pick up Emma and Doug from a tuk-tuk, two hours later than they should have set off on the coach. Maybe the bus at Kompong Cham will be a VIP bus we thought!?

After 5 hours we arrived in Kompong Cham for our next bus connection and to all head off in different directions. The bus never materialised, either it left before we arrived or was non-existent, so we had to hassle the “travel coordinator” from our bus about what to do as the station office was no use and the bus driver had no inclination of trying to help. He arranged for us to go with another bus company on the other side of town, so the bus dropped us there. We would have to wait for 2.5 hours until the bus arrived so most of the stranded passengers (about 8 of us) headed for some food, fried rice with beef or noodles was pretty much the only option. Helen wasn’t feeling too good so she had plain boiled rice.

Finally a bus arrived, which incidentally looked pretty swanky, and we were informed we were all on the bus as it would stop at Kratie and then proceed up to Ban Lung. However there were not enough seats or luggage space in the hold on the coach so 5 people had to sit on their bags in the isle. Luckily people disembarked fairly quickly at random stops along the way so we all got seats within the hour. After a long journey we finally arrived at Kratie with an ounce of sunlight left in the sky and we found our preferred option for accommodation, the Balcony Guest House, over looking the Mekong River. Success, they had rooms with shared bathroom for $5. The room at the front of the building with a double bed was very large and had a huge ceiling with fan, it felt very Mediterranean in style and we loved the 70′s retro concrete building. We didn’t go far that evening and opted for some food from the Balcony’s restaurant which was pretty nice (real Heinz Baked Beans we think!!), but a bit overpriced for the portion sizes we received, washed down with some homemade Ginger Ale which tasted pretty boozy!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We got up at 4.30am and would have been ready to leave by 5am if Helen hadn’t contracted a pretty bad tummy bug over-night, hmmm we weren’t sure if she’d get through the day so in went the Imodium and a re-hydration sachet and we hoped that it wouldn’t spoil things too much. Deciding to take it a little more leisurely than the night before we arrived at Angkor Wat at 5.45am and made our way into the temple site. It was already rammed with tourists all lined up along the front walls, smaller shrines and the lake at the front of the Wat. There must have been at least a thousand people there already, we hung around there for a bit and then decided to go into the temple itself and took in the warmth of the light on the buildings as the sun came up. There weren’t many people inside the grounds of the temple so it was very peaceful and away from the mass of tourists at the front. We walked around the grounds for about an hour and then went back to the front to find that most people had left and were missing the beautiful sight of the sun starting to peep over the huge pagodas in the middle, very strange!

After a croissant or two (for Dave) we rode the 13km journey back to Ta Prohm, this time we were able to get into the temple site. There were quite a few tour groups there but didn’t seem too busy when we walked around the site. This is the one you’ll see in all the photos…the one with the tree routes entangled around the old temple ruins. WOW! It really is an amazing site, they are leaving it to allow the trees and nature make their impressive marks, although there is some construction work going on. We managed to avouch the tour groups by going off in other directions. We ended up spending over an hour at this site and loved it.

Moving on from Ta Prohm we cycled along the route to Ta Keo this time climbing up the steep steps on the side of the temple up towards a tower that takes you 50 metes in height. There are wonderful views from the top and we managed to find ourselves a spot in the shade on the side of one of the towers where we people watched.

Following the route along we cycled through The Victory Gate and parked up at the north-east side of the central area of Angkor Thom taking in the Terrace of Elephants, The Terrace of the Leper King and Phimeanakas. All impressive and in the heat of the midday sun again seemingly missing the tour groups and main bulk of visitors. Following on from this we cycled only a little further to Bayon where we spent around an hour taking in the 216 enormous grinning faces built by the King of the God Kings; Jayavarman VII around the 13th century. It’s hard to imagine these enormous temples being built and the amount of effort t must have taken, each bettering the other it seems impossible that man was able to create these temples one after the other.

Our last stop on the route back to Angkor Wat was Phnom Bakheng and took less than 5 minutes from Bayon. There is a path up a small hill to this temple but as it is the highest temple on the site when we reached the top we were rewarded with fine views across the forests over other temple sites and Angkor Wat was creeping above the tree tops. This would be an ideal place to see the sunrise or set over the area as there are good views from both sides, the only downside being that nearly all tour groups will head there at around 4.30pm to get a good spot for the sunset. It’s not a huge temple either so we imagine it would be very cramped and difficult to get a good spot, so we left at just after 4pm and already the buses were starting to park up and the food stalls were waiting in anticipation.

On our way back we stopped off at Angkor Wat one last time and pestered some tourists into taking some photos of ourselves as all day either one of us was photographing the other and we had none together. We stayed for a short while and then decided to head back to Siem Reap, it had been a long day and we’d managed much more than we thought we would have been able to, Helen was also ready for some rest.

Back in Siem Reap we once again ventured to the Blue Pumpkin to stock up on breakfast, ate out with Doug and Emma and then walked around the very contrived, tourist night market before going back to get ready for the next off. We did enjoy Siem Reap with our main reason being that Angkor Wat is a very impressive and amazing site to visit, Siem Reap itself though very much felt like a Greek holiday Island resort. The market was almost too clean, the night-market appeared to be made from some kind of film set and most restaurants charge a lot for the pleasure. We were happy to be moving on.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

The bus journey from Battambang to Siem Reap took around 3.5 hours and opting for a cheap ticket, only cost us $4 each. Again packed with locals in every corner of the bus we stopped a few times along the way for food, pick-ups, toilets, smoking and so on. We figured in English time and transport this journey would probably take under 2 hours.

So we were in Siem Reap earlier than expected and were dropped off quite centrally just down from pub street and opposite the river bank. We knew which guesthouse we wanted to go to as Doug and Emma were already there and paying a good price. We asked at the tourist information who were sending us off in completely the wrong direction so instead of following their route we took a tuk-tuk to where we wanted to go. He was young and had no idea as to where the hotel was, he struggled to say the name properly and stopped a few times to ask others where it could be, it turned out the hotel was less than 2 minutes walk from where the bus originally dropped us off. We couldn’t believe it but paid him a dollar in good will all the same, he was a good laugh so it didn’t bother us too much. We managed to get a room at The Angkor Park guesthouse for $7 and that was that. Later on we explored the market and sorted out more travel arrangements for getting to Kratie our next stop after Siem Reap, we also looked for some decent bikes to get us to Angkor Wat and back.

We settled on some mountain bikes from a place a few doors up from the guesthouse, we got two bikes for $5 for a day and a half rental, this seemed fair. Once we got them we cycled to the Angkor Wat ticket office which took around 15 minutest to get to, it’s really easy heading straight out or Siem Reap towards Angkor and the ticket office is on the right. We got in the queue at around 4.30pm and picked up the tickets at 5pm when the offices opened, by this time the queues were very long so we timed this well. We’d decided to get a one day ticket to the site but if you buy it the day before you can get the sunset for that same evening, so in theory you can end up with 2 sunsets and a sunrise at Angkor Wat if you get your timings right. We didn’t quite manage this, the main reason being that we didn’t want to head straight to Angkor Wat itself and instead wanted to go to Ta Prohm which we’d read shouldn’t be too packed for sunset. The only problem was that we didn’t plan on the gates to the temples closing at 5.30pm, so when we got there after a fast bike ride at 5.31pm we were told we couldn’t go in. This was very annoying and could only be our fault for not checking on times but we had cycled around 13km to get there and couldn’t event take a peak. With sulks we plodded back to Siem Reap on our bikes and made sure that the next day was going to go our way!!

Back in Siem Reap we met up with Emma and Doug and made our way to the Blue Pumpkin bakery, perhaps the best thing going in Siem Reap! At 8pm they have a half price shelf and most croissants, pain-au-chocolat and breakfast pastries go. We took advantage of this and stocked up for the next day, we then went to a local restaurant for some decent food.

Tomorrow is Angkor Wat, up early and ready for a long day in the Cambodian sun!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Today we gave up on the idea of yet more bike riding misfortune and decided to use our legs. After an early morning run around Battambang and some breakfast we headed out to look at the french influenced buildings around the town and stop by at more temples. In the afternoon we headed out to the train tracks once more but this time to the abandoned railway tracks. Children playing in the wasteland that was once a French operated train yard, which is now home to people living on the perimeter of the town and is a dumping ground for their rubbish. We headed back towards the hotel with cameras poised. Toyota must have a huge market share in Cambodia, almost every car you see is a Toyota Camry, they love the Camry! More work time on the roof and a few drinks before heading off to the White Rose again for some cheap food, one vegetable and one fish Khmer curry.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We had a sleep in to recoup some energy from the past few days and then had some breakfast in the room and ordered some bread and jam from the restaurant downstairs. Our pickup mini bus arrived at Sweethome at 10am for our 10.45am bus journey to Battambang. The bus pulled up into the station and it looked pretty battered from the outside and the inside wasn’t much better. The vents were just open holes and the seat in front had no real back support so was almost in Dave’s lap. After a delayed start, we left 45mins late and headed off on our journey.

Upon arriving in Battambang we were hounded by the tuk-tuk drivers however as Battambang is quite small its easy to walk to where you want to go and not have to pay a few dollars for the privilege. We checked out a few hotels however they had limited rooms and were over $12 so we kept looking for something cheaper. We ended up at the Chhaya Hotel which cost $5 a night for a twin, it was a decent size with a bathroom, looking and feeling a little cell like, but it did the trick. We continued with some more blog work and headed out for some food. The White Rose restaurant is in the Lonely Planet and we stumbled across it, their cheap menu has lots of choice and for a reasonable price. The fresh spring rolls were OK, lacking in flavour a little, the curry was a large portion with plenty of vegetables and Helen’s dish we think was something different to what she ordered but it was OK; the mixed fruit shake was a good call!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

The 5th February was another day of exploration via the transport medium of bikes, we will surely have thighs of steel by the end of our trip. We headed along the river and found old villages around 2km out of Battambang itself, Wat Kor Village contains some of the oldest houses in Cambodia, some of which you can pay to have a little tour inside of, we just cycled by and took it all in. Dave’s bike suffered from a puncture after 4km which was treated by one of the many small repair shops that are on the side of the roads. They fixed the leaky valve for 500r and off we went, however within a few hundred meters the tyre was flat again so we decided to head back and get a new bike from the hotel. Frustrating to say the least. New bike selected and we started again, searching for the Bamboo Train which was tricky to find as the signs aren’t that frequent and the locals all told us or pointed us in the opposite directions to the last person we asked.

Upon searching for the train Dave’s second bike suffered from a fatal haemorrhage with the inner tube bursting through the front tyre! There was no quick fix for this and it would surely be pricey. Helen went ahead and Dave pushed his bike and finally we found the station for the “train”. $5 each on a bamboo fence panel, engine and two axles that held us onto the tracks. It was a good experience and is fun when you meet on coming traffic. If the oncoming bamboo train has more people, weight (rice delivery etc) or multiple trains are coming through you have to jump off and the driver deconstructs the train within seconds. There are no bolts or clips to be undone, it all just fits together! We had to disembark 5 times, but that’s half the fun. The tracks are in terrible state, however apart from rattled bones, no injuries were sustained.

At the end of the tracks we stopped and were greeted by some local children and market stalls. The driver would not leave his hammock until we bought something from one of the vendors so with a drink purchased he hopped onto the train and off we went. We sorted out some tuk-tuk transport back into town with the bikes rammed in and only paid the hotel for hire of one of the bikes, which they agreed was fair. Relaxation time and sunset on the roof of the hotel and then for our evening meal we headed to the The Smokin’ Pot restaurant and even though the portions appeared small, they were enough to satisfy. Lemon juice, curry and rice.

We got up just after 6, packed and made our way to the bus stop in Koh Kong, this time we were able to pick up the bus at the starting point on street 3 next to the roundabout, it then went onto the bus station to pick up more passengers. The journey back to Phnom Penh was painfully slow and took around 6-7 hours, with the bus driver stopping many times along the way. We were relieved to finally get to the city and only paid $2 for the tuk-tuk to Sweethome, that’s more like it! Plus it was TET so the drivers were happy to have some income.

Our passports and visas for Laos were ready and waiting for us when we got to the guesthouse, we ended up paying $45 each for a 3 day service, knowing that we could have got it cheaper ourselves if we’d gone to the embassy directly but during TET and over the weekends you can’t get in so it meant we could use the time to go somewhere else. On the way back though Helen read that you can now get a visa on arrival at the crossing over to the 4000 Islands area for around $36…damn-it!! Still we had them sorted, but if you’re passing through that border you can now get visas on arrival.

Later on we walked around the city and saw more families, monks and tourists gathering together outside the Royal Palace, we both agreed it was really nice to see everyone coming together, taking time out from their busy working lives and enjoy themselves as a family. We walked round to another guesthouse to meet Emma and Doug who we’d previously met at the New Years bash in Yangshou. We caught up and discussed plans for the Malaysian Grand Prix. A few nights earlier we’d bough our tickets and booked accommodation… Sepang F1 here we come!

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Up early we made our own breakfast in the room and headed out to find some half decent bikes for a good price. We tried a few places that were mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide, however the bikes were knackered and wouldn’t have got us down the road let alone into the unknown terrain ahead. We finally found some bikes that were the best we had seen, and these were nothing special, at least they had brakes and what looked to be gears on one of them. We began our journey following the LP and a photocopied map that the bike rental cafe gave us. It was straight forward enough, straight down the road for 18km.

It all started off well and level, but soon we were faced with huge big dipping roads, up hill, down hill, up hill, down hill. The midday sun was rapidly approaching and the map we had did not show as far as the river that we were heading towards. Water was also running low as well as the bikes felling very tired and the chains were very rusty! We finally passed a billboard sign with a photograph of a waterfall and not much else, we proceeded as it did not look like a path that would lead us to the waterfall, the sign looked like an advert for the area. Down a huge hill, which was fun and to the bottom, success the river was there and the waterfall must be nearby. Asking the locals they said it was a few KM up the road from where we came. This was not good news and we decided to grab water and food here and try to get a boat to the waterfall.

The people are very friendly and they cooked us up a meal with our requirements of no meat. They showed us the meat and fish that they had and you would have to be a brave person to try it, cooked and uncooked meat in torn plastic bags together in a basket and dried fish that did not look very tasty. We had rice with eggs and a bowl of vegetables which was lovely and they brought us more rice however we were stuffed to the brim. We inquired about a boat to the waterfall $20. We asked about a truck taxi back with our bikes but that was $20. Due to it been New Year they were all having fun and relaxing, we weren’t going to hold it against them for charging high rates. We decided to brave the roads once more and started our assent up the hill.

The ride back was surprisingly enjoyable and we got back to Koh Kong in no time. Chill time and showers and then out for some food, where we had a great Thai curry and decent Pad-thai. Many locals were celebrating TET so we witnessed family gatherings, massive spit roast pigs waiting to be feasted upon and firecrackers were going off all over the place. For the remainder of the evening we sat at one of the sea-view bars and got the blog up to date.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

People in this part of the world get up early, so you get up early too. We awoke at 6am and decided to watch the sunrise from our floating house looking out across the water. The sunlight colour and luminance changes so fast that its a photographers dream to be somewhere so unique and interesting. Breakfast was provided by our guests and we happily ate yet more fried eggs, bread, jams and fruit which would set us up nicely for another day of boat travel and beach time. This time we headed back on ourselves from the following day and docked at beach 6 which was again very isolated and offered the chance of some snorkeling action. The water was relatively clean, not crystal by any means, and there were a few fish around the rocks which made it interesting. After all feeling the power of the sun on our skin yesterday we had a slightly more sheltered day under the trees on the beach front when not swimming or exploring the beach.

Lunch was again provided by our guide and the boat driver which was amazing again. We think they had learnt that we eat quickly and therefore fill up quickly and they did not produce as much food as yesterdays lunch which was a relief to us all. The boat left at 1.30pm and we made our way around the island, past the homestay and onwards to the Mangrove forests which we did not arrive at until nearly 5.30pm. We walked through the forest along a raised wooden platform exploring the trees and their amazingly alien like roots. Sunset arrived swiftly and we departed for Koh Kong where a tuk-tuk was awaiting our return. We felt the tour was amazing and our guide and driver were great, so we tipped them a few dollars as it was well deserved. The tuk-tuk drove us back to the tour operators and we grabbed our bags from the Dugout hotel as we were moving to a cheaper hostel. Big thanks to the Dugout for allowing us to leave our bags, whilst we were away, however on our return arrogance and rudeness seemed uncalled for, as well as asking for a tip for the girls who apparently looked after and carried our bags, but if tipping was not our thing, don’t worry about it. Even though it is in many review books, we are not sure how long it will last with attitudes like that and at $16 a night in a tired room we did not feel a tip was warranted.

We moved up the road to were Ali and Carl were staying and we got a great room for $7 and then $10 the following night as it was Chinese New Year. We freshened up and all met for some evening food. Ice cream followed from a great place on the water front and then an early night before heading off in the morning on a bike ride into the Cardamon Mountains Conservation Corridor to find the Tatai River and Waterfall.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

We got an early bus to Koh Kong, although as per usual it took over an hour to leave the city and then we were still stopping along the way to pick up other passengers, many of whom didn’t have seats so were sat on plastic chairs in the aisles. After around 5 hours or so we landed in Koh Kong at a bus stop a little way out of the main streets, tuk-tuk drivers once again were hassling us to take pick up into town, but we knew from the scale of the map that it wouldn’t be too far to walk. We met Ali and Carl who’d been traveling mainly in India on the bus and we all decided to walk in together. We landed at The Dugout Hotel, which is quite easy to find on the main street leading towards the market. The manager is Australian and pretty helpful when it comes to advice in the area, we opted for a room that was more than we were hoping to pay but thought we’d just stay there the one night. They have a small pool there too so we were keen to go in for a dip to cool down from the afternoon heat.

Later on we met up with Ali and went to have a chat with a local eco-tour operator ran by a friendly chap called Mr T, his office is located at Dugout, and they are owned by the same guy who runs the Oasis Bungalow resort a little way out of town. We found out about tours on offer and what was possible for us to do and see on Koh Kong Island, after going back and forth and realising we couldn’t stay on the Island, Mr T made a few calls and pretty much made up a tour for us on the spot. We could take a 2 day boat trip to Koh Kong Island, visit the beautiful beaches, have barbecues on the beach, all of our food and stay at a fishing village called Alatan that is connected to the island via stilts and wooden bridges. For the 4 of us to go it would cost $55 each! This was a good price considering the tours we had paid for in Vietnam. So we agreed and decided to leave the following day. If you do go to the tourist office at The Dugout please note that this isn’t a tour they do on a regular basis so don’t expect it to be advertised. They offer other types of tours including jungle treks and mountain biking in the area, Koh Kong itself doesn’t have much going on, it’s a small town which can be used as a handy base to go off and explore.

We were picked up at 8am and taken to the harbour where we had a boat, driver and guide waiting with us along with a fridge full of food. It was a long boat that they had decked out for our comfort, Mr T came along to make sure everything was ready and set up for us and off we went. The first part of the boat trip took around 2 hours and on the way we even bought our fish from a local fisher-mans boat! We took a brief stop at beach number 1, we all jumped off the boat and went for a swim in the crystal clear waters. The beach was beautiful with no-one else around so we were excited about going to the further afield beaches.

After around half an hour we carried on towards beach number 3, here we stopped and the driver threw in the anchor. We had until around 4pm here, and so we swam, sunbathed, ate a fantastic fish barbecue meal, swam some more, the guide built us a shelter from the sun, Carl tried to catch a crab and so on. All in all it was absolutely gorgeous, we had the whole place to ourselves, the sea was beautiful and clear and it was so serene. At last we had found a paradise. We had heard that not many people come to Koh Kong Island other than on day trips because the military operate the Island so it’s not the safest place to stay, also the trips only go when there are more than 4 people so this meant we didn’t see any other tourists, only fishing boats.

After a lazy afternoon on the beach we got back into our boat and made the hour journey to Alatan fishing village. We weren’t expecting what awaited us at all. The village is build up of around 50 or so houses all built on stilts going away from the Island for around 1km. As we arrived many local children were waiting for us, all shouting hello and smiling and laughing nervously in anticipation of our arrival. We instantly felt very humble and privileged to be there and were taken into the house which would be our base for our stay. As soon as we got inside the children were posing for photographs, asked Dave to do some English spelling and took us up onto the Island where their school is based. We were quite overwhelmed by the whole experience, they were so happy for us to be sharing their home with them, showing us around their school and attempting to speak English with us. The photography opportunities here were fantastic.

After an hour or so of playing with the children we sat down for dinner and enjoyed more fish, rice, salad and fruit. We had previously seen two full size snooker tables in one of the houses a little further away from where we were and asked if we could play some snooker/pool. We have no idea how easy or hard it was for them to get those things in there, we were amazed that they had them and they clearly kept them in mint condition. It was also amazing to see how each family have some way of making money; either by fishing, selling groceries, a little cafe at one end and then the snooker hall!

So we played for an hour until going to bed at around 10pm, we had an audience watching us the entire time and Helen didn’t play well at all. We kind of just wanted to be unseen at this moment in time wishing for a game of pool on a snooker table to end!! Unfortunately for us Ali and Carl beat us 2-0, but Helen always makes a point that pub sports…just ain’t her thing! ha ha!

So to our bedroom which our hosts had vacated for us for that night, 4 of us all lined up on a thin mattress, with water underneath and noises from loud televisions, babies’ crying and the like meant we were on for a restless night. Still the experience of being there far outweighed any of this and we were very happy to have stayed in Alatan that night.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)