You had to give our tour planner top marks for thinking up as many things as possible for us to do. When we were on the way to cruise Lake Tonle Sap and see a floating village there, we stopped at a farming village where we were all loaded two by two into an assortment of ox carts, which trundled us along a muddy path in entertaining discomfort for a few hundred metres until we extricated ourselves and hopped back onto our bus again, with renewed appreciation of its comfortable seats and suspension.
We also had a deeper understanding as to why these water buffalo and cattle looked so thin – no easy life for them.
Here we are riding on ox carts:
Getting ready.
Some were cattle (white) and most were water buffalo (brown) like this one.
Up close and personal to a water buffalo.
This cart was pulled by cattle, but the ones you can see behind are water buffalo.
Along the way.
Some of the cattle had bells around their necks, which jingled comfortingly as we bumped along.
The track was bumpy and muddy, but the cattle plodded on resignedly.
We must have looked a funny sight. A consoling thought was that we were contributing in some small way to the economy of these people.
Some of the water buffalo had very impressive horns.
The end of the ride. The mat is rolled up, ready for the next tourists, and off they go. And even out in the country there are motor bikes, loaded up with more than one person.
They really made a magnificent sight, reminding me of Bydlo, from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
Some young boys from the village were waiting to take the carts away.
Sometimes they took the whole family, who gave us a cheery wave as we drove off.
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