Siem Reap to Phnom Penh

We learnt from our last big journey to avoid the roads of Cambodia, so we thought we'd get around that by catching a boat to Phnom Penh. It costs $25 instead of $9 on the bus but we figured it would be worth it to glide effortlessly down the river watching the world go by from our air conditioned luxury, arriving refreshed right in the centre of down town Phnom Penh 4 hours later.
We've now learnt to avoid the rivers too.
We read somewhere that they had stopped running these boats but tickets were on sale all over the place, so obviously they must be wrong. We also read that at some times of the year a smaller boat needs to ferry us out to the bigger boat as the water level is too low for the bigger boat to get into port. That was why we were not concerned as we stepped onto a crappy little long boat with 2 bench seats running either side and enough space for a dozen people. This was just to get us out to the bigger boat, right?
Wrong.
This was to be our transport for the next 5 hours. Through the torrential rain. Water pouring down our backs, and into our shorts. I'm writing this 5 days later and our rucksacks still aren't completely dry.
To make it worse it didn't take us to Phnom Penh; there was another 2 hours of bus journey to get us there after the boat.
On a positive note, we did get to see some awesome sights on the way, whole villages floating on the side of the road, complete with floating shops and a floating petrol station. The accomodation was basic, just a raft-like barge with a straw hut on top, although a lot of them appeared to have TVs in them!
When we finally made it to town we were mobbed by tuk-tuk drivers and people from guest houses (we're used to it now, although we both still dread it!). Lianne got a little bit angry, but we made it through. Eventually one of them offered us a free ride to a guest house that looked like our budget and we found our home for the next three days (for $5/night).