Show n' Tellin' It: The Floating Village

While I'm very VERY into taking photos, and Angkor Wat (Siem Reap, Cambodia) was in my top THREE on the "life list", the thing with travelling with the husband is that he's very very VERY VERY VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYY into taking photos. So into taking photos that in Africa, he took over 3000. Admittedly *I* took about 1500 of my own, but yeesh boy!? 3000?!

So travelling with the husband, while it's fabulous in many MANY ways, can also be a little draining. Cuz he's not just into photos, he's into temples, and when I say he's INto temples, I mean he bought books to learn about the best LIGHT at the best TIME of day at each temple. I mean he sat around over drinks showing me the map, drawing out our itinerary of which temple we'd visit at WHICH time cuz "this famous photographer once, he got like THE most amazing photo of the tree at Ta Prohm at 3:48pm"...

And while he gets ALL the credit for some of my best shots, as his research really DID pay off, I however needed a freaking BREAK from carrying our camera packs around in the 40+ degree heat. I needed a break from walking in outlying jungleish areas that really AREN'T so jungleish as they provide absolutely NO reprieve from the heat. And I needed a break from temples, cuz while I'm into temples, after awhile, a temple's a temple's a temple.

So on "break" day, we went to the floating village - the place I was totally skeptical would be just a bunch of houses lining a river, but the place I absolutely fell in LOVE with Cambodia. Cuz this village, it's not just houses on the edge of a river, it's houses on wooden raft contraptions FLOATING on the river. It's grocery stores FLOATING on the river. It's pharmacies and basketball courts and restaurants FLOATING on the river.

It's also kids bathing and cleaning themselves in the river, kids pooing in that very same river just a few houses down, people boating over to the market to pick up their groceries, and families floating out to the more open end to do some fishing.

I'm not going to say much about WHY these are some of my favorites, although I could if you're curious, but for me, there's details in these shots (that may not show online?) that really reflect what I connected to in Cambodia.

PS. I have a tip for managing your backpack craziness here.