Hi all. We're made it to Cambodia, having spent the last 3 days cruising, cycling and walking through the Mekong Delta. It's a beautiful area of wide muddy rivers, floating houses, lush vegetation and very friendly people. It was lovely to see children running to the banks of the river as we went past to smile and wave at us. Sadly there are a lot of kids in both Vietnam and Cambodia who are used by their parents to sell to tourists, and it was refreshing to see lots of children who just wanted to say hello and didn't have anything to sell.
The locals use the Mekong for pretty much everything - for fishing, washing their clothes, cleaning their teeth.....and going to the toilet. They obviously have a far stronger constitution than we do.
The trip went pretty well - I've even got sunburnt shoulders from a morning reading on the deck of the boat. The last leg of the journey was interesting though. We got dropped off from the boat about an hour away from Phnom Penh. There were 13 of us on the trip, and waiting to take us into the city was a mini-bus with 12 seats. This would have have been fine except we all had large rucksacks, and there was nowhere to store them other than on our laps. June and I ended up in the front seat alongside the driver, with June sat on my lap and naturally no seatbelt. There was a minor revolt as a couple of Germans refused to get on the mini-bus, but after it was explained that the alternative was a 5 hour walk, they begrudgingly gave in.
OK, we're off to explore Phnom Penh now. We're going to visit the beautiful temples and palaces today, before heading to the Killing Fields and museums remembering the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge tomorrow....
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