Up the Mekong to Cambodia

HPenny, Josh, Laura and I are currently approaching the Vietnam - Cambodia border aboard a 10 passenger narrow-boat on various side-streams and canals that criss-cross the vast Mekong delta. We're with 4 other backpackers with whom we've enjoyed some great 'traveller's grape-vine' conversations like those that Pen and I relied on back in the 70's. As usual, when we join groups for multi-day trips such as this 3-day expedition from Saigon to Phnom Penh, most of our fellow travellers are about a half to a third our age. Pen and I enjoy mostly sitting on the sidelines listening to all the exchanges, but occasionally we'll throw in one of our chestnuts from days of yore, which our young friends seem to enjoy.

Our little band of gypsies at breakfast             

We've had marvelous cell phone coverage with an unlimited data plan for our Vietnam visit but we expect to lose that coverage shortly and will then be dependent on wifi. I'm posting this from my iPhone Blogger app before we travel out of cell range.

The blog has fallen behind a bit so I'll have to describe our Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) experiences in a future post. Our travels on the Mekong have lived up to expectations, with many exotic sights, smells and sounds. Now we're looking forward to meeting the friendly Cambodian People we've heard so much about. Today began with breakfast at 6.00 am followed by a brief bus ride to a dock at the edge of the river. There we were met by a flotilla of two-passenger skiffs propelled by twin crossed-oars from behind.

 Skiffing up the Mekong

On the water by 7.00 am for a fish farm tour

We visited a carp and cat fish farm run by a community of Cambodian refugees, then a community of Indonesian Muslim refugees living in a village built on stilts to avoid the annual 1.5 to 2 meters of flooding in the delta.

3-hour ferry ride to the border

Our 3 hour ferry ride was followed by a 2 hour mini-bus ride from the border town on the Mekong to Phnom Penh. The van took us through rural Cambodian villages skirted on one side by the river and on the other side by the road. Through many of the villages, half the road was taken over by rice and corn sun-drying on large tarps. Drivers of all manner of vehicles take pains to avoid driving on the precious crops.

We noticed a dramatic difference in the number of people populating these villages compared to similar travel through Vietnam over the past month. However that changed once we hit the outskirts of Phnom Penh and by the time we boarded a Tuk-Tuk in search of a hotel, we spent 30 minutes in frenetic peak hour traffic in the old-town.

Kids throughout the region love to practice their few words of English, calling "Hello", "Hi" and "What's your name?" from their homes by the river and road and from the back and front of motor scooters zooming by.

Joyful kids skylarking in the river yelled greetings to us as we passed, then tried their best to splash us and our furiously clicking cameras.