Battambang beer snacks

Disgusting aren't they! We found these – together with stacks of deep fried toads and similar delicacies - at a road side stall in Battambang, a provincial capital on the other side of the great lake from Siem Reap. We didn't eat any...
We had traveled up on Tuesday by river boat, a seven hour trip through pretty floating villages, after finally leaving Siem Reap. We'd been there for a month and both felt sad to leave.
The night before, Catherine had left her last lesson at Chey with a huge pile of gifts and cards from the kids (see separate blog entry). After wiping away the tears, she and I had a farewell dinner with Lori and packed our bags.
The van came at 6.30am and took us to the edge of Tonle Sap, the big fresh-water lake that links the middle of Cambodia with the Mekong river. The journey takes 6-9 hours depending on the water level. The first hour was across open water, flat and glassy to the horizon. The next six took us along a narrow bendy river clogged with hyacinth plants and edged with bamboo houses on stilts. We passed through villages with floating shops and schools, and past the open front doors of countless tiny house boats. We were a dozen tourists, all clutching the Lonely Planet and swapping tips on cheap hostels, and a handful of Khmer passengers with bags of rice and children.
Along the whole the river there were kids everywhere, normally naked, swimming and jumping in, waving hello to the tourists. In one place a group were sliding down a mud chute on the river bank. In another they had made a human pyramid which collapsed in screams of laughter as we passed by, all very cute (apart from the one that threw stones at us, the little xxxx...)
As we approached town the houses became more permanent and surrounded by rubbish. It wasn't far off a slum by the end, though still built on twenty-feet high stilts.
Once in Battambang, a driver whisked us from the throng of touts to our hotel, which billed itself as the finest western-run boutique guesthouse in Battambang but turned out to be a horrible grimy dump (ah the joys of internet booking!)
We toured the town and its piles of fried cockroaches by bicycle, returning after dinner to find the hotel owner's infant son and Cambodian mother in law asleep on the floor of the bar, while the owner sat in silence at the bar with two drunk ex-pats and a third slumped over a card table, snoring atmospherically.
We decided the best thing to do was head asap to the beach, which is where we are now, in a nice place with pink walls. Next post from Sihanoukville...