The muddy Mekong

At this point we are really over doing the tour thing. Our only option to get in to Cambodia via boat was a 3 day tour of the Mekong where you inch towards the border for the first 2 days,. Then on the 3rd you get heaped onto a slowboat where we dribble down the river over 7 hours, finally transferring to a minibus for the last leg.

First day

After boarding a bus at 8am we are taken 2 hours South to where the mouth of the Mekong opens and sucks you in. Our day consisted of zigzagging the harbour like river, hopping small islands. It was a pretty standard affair of visiting crafts, coconut lolly making, traditional folk music, a row boat excursion, eating fruit, and drinking banana wine (more like a whiskey - my highlight).

Shots of us on a little row boat adventuere. It was actually pretty funny, as at some stage some Americans must have tipped them and they have caught onto it. So you will be cruising through this inlet in jungle and a little head will pop out with some dollars in hand and go "hey, remember to tip at the end". We all jumped out pretending we didn't understand.


We departed on bus again to hit the next town a little further North where we would spend the night. While waiting for the bus transfer we had a taste of the monsoon season - which would become a regular afternoon event.

The monsoons are one of the weirdest, and scariest spectacles I have witnessed. You will be standing on the street baking at a still 33degrees .. Thinking that this must be what an ant feels when you focussed the magnifying glass on them all those years ago. Then you see a strange dust cloud approaching. Okay - a little out of the blue - hold onto your hat.. Hey what is that in the distance? A dark cloud.. Holy shizzles, thunder, lightning and RAIN bucketing in thick sheets at us. . All this happens in less than 5 minutes.. And just like that it is gone again. Leaving thousands of people wearing their multi coloured, poker dotted plastic ponchos dripping dry. It may be the only times in their life when they stop working for 10 minutes.. Then tarps are pulled off their precious makeshift street carts and open once again.

Arriving into our next town we check into the tour hotel - not bad really - we decide not to opt for the $2 upgrade to air-conditioning.. And instead shift our bed under the giant roof fan which at top speed makes a sound like a helicopter narrowly escaping the earth below.

A note to make here. The 3 day tour costs less than it would for us to stay 2 more nights in Ho Chi Minh..

We had made friends that day with a nice Aussie couple who we went out for dinner with. They ended up shouting us as it was our wedding anniversary.. A pleasant end to the night.

Up the next day at 6am to get to the floating markets in time for all their hustling and bustling goodness. Desh and I had considered telling the guide that we weren’t interested in the tour - and could we just sit it out. I’m glad we didn’t, because it was awesome. There were hundreds of boats littered around the river selling anything and everything. The only way to know what they were selling was by the 2 metre bamboo pole with their trade stuck on top like a flag, flying their daily tradings.


Can you see the pet rooster saddled up in this next shot?

This river is a happy place - and nothing says it more than really really happy boats. This cracked us up - it was like being in an episode of Thomas the tank engine. They are everywhere.

After the markets it was a little slow, with walks to rice paper factories and a fruit vendor.. Zzzzzzzz
We then piled onto a minibus and were taken to a crocodile farm. This farm has about 10,000 crocs in different concrete pens according to age. We had this crazy Indian guy with us who decided he knew the alligator distress call from the discovery channel. He made these ridiculous noises at the adult crocs, and to the caretakers amazement the big crocs started swimming towards us.. Wow, what the ?? Next second there was a terrific bang as one of the crocs charged the concrete perimeter trying to get to us and the distressed Indian man alligator.


Our next stop was a mountain on the border of Cambodia with a beautiful Pagoda on top which we would visit. Of course while we were here a monsoon came through and bucketed upon us. This was a great place to see the storm though - as you can can see for miles from the mountain across Vietnam and Cambodia. The big difference at this point looking at Cambodia is the sparse clean land with a lack of development. There is actually a man made river in this shot between the countries. This river was used for Cambodian armed forces to float up and down protecting their country in the 70s.. I think perhaps it was something to do with the Vietnam and Cambodian problems with the ruling of the Khmer Rouge during their reign of terror.

The mountain Pagoda was protected by these lions.
The rain here is more like someone tipping a bucket over your head all at once.

A peeping Tom hole back to the outside world

the view from Vietnam looking out to Cambodia


Next morning we were taken by boat to the Cambodian border. But first we had to visit a fish market and minority village.. At the minority village the kids try anything they can to sell you their little plastic wrapped waffles, until we spotted this sign.

The slow boat took a good 6-7 hours of cruising up Cambodia. Straight away we noticed how friendly the people were, waving at us and genuinely quite excited to see foreigners. The people live their lives by the water and seem to do everything in it. Around 5pm everyone living around the Mekong was in it washing and shampooing not just themselves.. But their cows too!

The Captain really needed to go take a wizz off the back of the boat - so he handed the controls over to his 2nd in charge for a few minutes of excitement..

I decided the vessel would need more power for the muddy water up ahead.

After getting through the border we decided to celebrate with a sweet drop of gold. With such a strong message - I felt like it was saying "drink me or you will suffer"

So did Desh

Some good ol fashioned cow washing



After the boat ride we were piled into a mini van taking us into Phnom Penh. Arriving into this city is incredible, as no matter where you look there will be an amazing temple of some sort. The bus did the typical drop off to their recommended hotel, which happened to be on the far side of where we wanted to be. The rooms actually weren’t too bad, but we wanted to be closer to the river front. The final decision came when talking our way out of staying there a giant river rat ran past our feet - OUTOF HERE -
What followed next was cliché backpacker style - we spent a solid hour with our packs trudging from hotel to hotel to ghetto until we found what we were looking for >> a nice air-conditioned family joint down an alley.. Little did we know that everyday they have a 4 hour power cut to save on $ - not just the hotel, but the whole district. You see, the average wage in Cambodia is $1USD per day, yet their power costs more than the power in New Zealand or the U.K for instance. That is because the government is totally corrupt here and doesn’t believe in helping their people. Hence walking down the street there is a mix of sleeping dirty children and Porsche 911 turbos.