On the Tonle Sap road

Along the way, broken, exposed straw huts hug the roadsides. Entire families are perched inside single room huts of planks and straw, upon which all their possessions are also crammed. There is no privacy here - indeed the poorest literally have nothing to hide.

Annual flooding in the surrounding fields forces the people to shift their homes by hard labour, some with the aid of trucks, up onto the mud embankments, the only high land above the flat paddies.

On the river, boat people of distant Chinese origin and a mix of refugees from the American War in Vietnam, edged over time off the land find new homes in houseboats floating on the muddy water leading up to the mouth of Lake Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Further upriver some of the more organised communities come with a full compliment of floating public services and amenities - some quite ornately decorated.

Back on the road to Siem Reap, three small scruffy girls harass me as I step out to take some shots, the most boisterous one finally giving a smile for the dollars they manage to scrounge.