Tuesday 14th August 2012.
Having watched the ferries come and go across the Mekong from our hotel window, we decided to take a ferry ourselves, to the other side of the river and back again.
For a ridiculously small amount of money (less than a dollar) we bought two tickets and hopped on. Now we can see our hotel window from the ferry. (It’s on the top floor of the low building, to the left of centre of this picture, with the curtain open a bit – for watching the river.)
We settled ourselves in for our trip across the river, which took about 20 minutes. You could buy drinks or even your breakfast from vendors who had installed themselves on the ferry.
For a while it looked as though we were on a collision course with this other boat…..
….. but it slipped across ahead of us.
Three hotels.
Ours, the low one on the left with the three big trees in front of it, is the Imperial Garden. The big flash one in the middle is the Cambodiana, and I forget what the one on the right is. But you can see that they all have a very pleasant aspect, looking out across the river.
Buildings on the other side of the river looked much more modest than those on the city side. One of the more obvious was a Christian church.
However, as its name was written in Cambodian script, we couldn’t really tell what it was.
Some of the houses were floating on the water’s edge.
There was a collection of boats moored there.
Contrasts.
The high rise building under construction is on the point of land where the Tonle Sap river joins the Mekong. I hope they have a suitable flood plan in place.
Floating houses.
How to get ashore from a floating house.
This one has a motor.
It looks like a hard life.
On the way back, we met a tourist boat. What a difference!
Many of the people who boarded the ferry from the other side of the river had their motor bikes with them – some heavily loaded up. When we arrived back on the city side, there was a great revving of engines as they all streamed off the ferry and away.
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