The day the boy became a man

Today, George conquered several fears, and with great aplomb I might add.

We decided to do another day tour, considering the stinkin' Smokin' Pot was still not open so we couldn't do the cooking class today, but at $20 per person it was starting to get a bit pricey, so our hotel host suggested a slightly cheaper alternative: get one guide to take me on the back, and rent a motorcycle for the day for George to ride. I was dubious but he was keen, so we decided to do it.

He started out with a quick tutorial in our street, which, although not manically busy, was quite busy enough for someone who hadn't ridden a motorbike for at least 10 years, and never on the right side of the road, and certainly never in a foreign country that has no road rules whatsoever. This achieved with some success, we set off, with me looking over my shoulder every five seconds to make sure he was still following and not flattened on the road.

But, all things considered, he did a very good job, despite me shitting myself on his behalf the whole way, and about an hour later we arrived at an enormous lake that is apparently 8km wide, and during the Khmer Rouge regime had been dammed, at the expense of many more lives, so that the country could produce two crops of rice per year rather than just one.

We then went on a mildly scary ride in a small rowboat that not only had a leak in it, but had very low sides so that anytime we moved, a bit of water would tip in. George was given a plate for the purpose of bailing out water as we went, and although the patch of lotus plants and flowers that we went through was beautiful, I was very keen to get back to shore asap, particularly since the kid who was rowing us was whispering to himself every now and then and sounded slightly psychotic. Turns out he wasn't, but still, when you can't swim very well and you're in the middle of a lake in a leaky boat, you don't tend to feel very confident.

Reaching the shore again with the boat and our lives still intact, we had a quick wander along the shore where there was supposed to be a row of Khmer restaurant stalls, but it didn't look like anyone was cooking anything (and with an hour's ride back on the bike with no facilities in sight, we wouldn't have risked having lunch there anyway). So we got back on the bikes for a long, bumpy and very dusty trip back to Battambang.

After long showers to get rid of the dust, George then conquered his second fear by taking me as a pillion passenger on the back of the bike to a local restaurant. After a bit of a shaky start where we almost cleaned up a few very alarmed girls, he got the hang of the extra weight pretty quickly and we had a very tasty lunch at the restaurant.

But this wasn't until he'd conquered his third fear - using the dubious dunny with no toilet paper and no time to get anywhere else. I won't go into details, but he claims he is now a new man after the experience (in fact, after two as it turns out).

After lunch we decided to explore a bit further and rode through a picturesque village along the river where there were a lot of temples and a lot of happy smiling kids waving wildly to us as we went past and screaming out 'Hello! Hello! Hello!' and then squealing with delight when we waved back. The road just kept going for ages so we followed it until we came to a bloody steep hill going downwards and George decided that his confidence wasn't quite up to this task, so we turned around, much to the amusement of a bunch of locals.

We went back to the hotel and sat out the front for a while with a couple of beers and read our books, then retired to our room for a lie down for another hour or so. We've just emerged now and are about to have dinner at aforementioned stinkin' Smokin' Pot (it re-opened today, just in time for us to piss off tomorrow). After this our hotel guy is going to teach George how to play Texas Hold'em Poker and I'll probably watch that for about half an hour before going to bed.

Tomorrow we're up bright and early to get the 7 hour boat to Siem Reap. It's supposed to be the most beautiful boat ride in Cambodia, but we're hoping it might be a bit ahead of schedule. After tonight we've only got four more nights in Cambodia before we begin our arse journey back. We're both missing home and looking forward to getting back into a normal routine, but will have to steel ourselves for the tourist nightmare that lies ahead.