Or a slow cruise up the Mekong Delta to give it a more accurate description. (Forgive my weak literary allusions)
After 4 days of farting around Saigon and doing not much of anything except getting this website up to date and sorting some photos, we finally moved on. We had booked a 3 day trip taking us up the Mekong Delta, across the Cambodian border and on into Phnom Penh, and bright and breezy we made our way to the tour office at the crack of dawn (this early morning thing really has to stop). During the initial coach journey to the Mekong river, we were lucky enough to be sitting in front of an American fellow whose high-pitched, nasally whining voice made my cranium resonate and my eardrums bleed. Now don't get me wrong, I love Americans as much as the next Arab, but this guy just didn't stop talking the whole way. And not only did our mellifluous pal not shut up, the topics up for discussion were how to finance a corporate takeover through the international banking system to the tune of 1.6 billion US dollars and how house cats can never be tamed and if you ever gave them reason to think they could get one over on you, they would probably try and kill you. Fascinating stuff I'm sure you'll agree. At this point my music player was plugged into my ears and the volume notched up to maximum. Unfortunately, our chum was getting so worked up his voice was rising in pitch to point where it penetrated directly to the cerebral cortex and bypassed the ears completely. My teeth started vibrating at high-frequency and some of my fillings fell out. I couldn't even hear the music anymore. You'll be glad to know it all worked out well in the end though, as just before I lost control completely and pushed an armrest through his temple, he went ultrasonic and only bats and small dogs could hear him. Sweet relief.
Now I don't want you to think for a second that I can only dwell on the negative aspects of this trip, but let's face it, situations like this are far more interesting to read than me harping on about how many pretty temples we've seen and how beautiful the countryside is. Be honest, when we write about scenic countryside and pretty mountains you just glaze over and skip to the juicy bits. You people should be ashamed of yourselves.
During the course of the next 3 days we visited a mini noodle factory, a riceflour mill, a sweet making enterprise, a house where people made rice crispies (I'm not eating them again), a fish farm, several floating markets and several slow, lazy cruises around tributaries and floating villages. It really was a cracking time and I very much enjoyed meeting some of the people who live and work on the river. Some of them have never stepped foot on dry land, how wacky is that ? One of the high points was on the first night of the trip, everybody else piled off to bed at about 9.30 so Cara and I settled ourselves into some small plastic chairs outside a locals bar near our hotel. After many beers and many games of cards our bill came to 68p. Superb.
We all had a great time, except everywhere we went bats fell out of the sky and small dogs tried to pull the armrests of our seats. Very strange.
On the morning of the third day we set off from the border town of Chau Doc (smugglers paradise apparently) for a slow cruise to the Viet/Cambodian border. Once there we sat around for a while as the border beaurocrats went about their business of doing things as slowly as possible ( seems to be the same the world over). Once done we left our boat, carted our luggage across the border and through passport control and we were in Cambodia. Onto another boat and then by boat and bus made our way to Phnom Penh.
p.s. It is worth pointing out here that up until this point, we have never needed to carry our luggage more than 100 yards at any one time. During the last few days we've had to carry it all over the place and I've just realised it's bloody heavy. I think I'll have to rummage around my backpack and see what we can safely jetison. After all, who needs more than 2 pairs of underpants ? It's not like I ever wash any of them anyway !
p.p.s. For those of you who are interested, the Mekong Delta and so far, Phnom Penh, are somewhat cooler than most of the places we have so far experienced. The upshot being that my hobby of power-sweating has taken something of a knock. Obviously, I'll continue to wear a thin sheen of perspiration at all hours of the day and night, as it clears out the pores and accentuates my cheekbones (!). It's a real shame as I'd just been offered a job as a waterslide at a local theme park and the hours were good.
p.p.p.s A fullsize bottle of Stolychnaya vodka in a Phnom Penh supermarket will set you back $4. What more reason could one need to visit Cambodia ?
Bye for now, or as they say in Cambodia "that'll be $4"
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