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Published: January 23rd 2011
Tuk Tuk ride
Night market P PJust spent the last 3 days cruising the up the Mekong with a wonderful Norwegian family - their 2 year old daughter has kept us amused for days.(Yes you guessed it we are already planning our Norwegian trip lol) After a 4 hr drive to Cat Be (I think?) we boarded a 10 cabin junk with just us, the Norwegians and the crew and worked our way up the Mekong to Sa Dec and hit the evening markets. The girls were an instant hit with the locals and the Norwegian couple were instant celebrities with their blue eyed blondies! Vietnamese babies are rarely in public until they can walk we were told.
Interesting produce and meat at the markets all laid out on the streets but we understand that all of it is fresh that day and is sold same day. We especially were impressed with the fully skinned and fillited field mice on sale - best to stir fry apparently and are a speciality of the Mekong! We were taken to a rice cake and sweet factory. It's all made by hand pretty much and the most high tec is a large electric mixing bowl for the rice candy
(which is delicious) and comes in peanut flavour. That night got a taste of what was to come. Every meal was at least 5 courses (even breakfast!) and by the end we decided we don't need to eat for at least a week when we get home. It's soooo nice to be in Phnom Penh where we hopefully will get a buffet breakfast and we can just have toast - that's it, 1 course and we're done!
Second day on the Mekong we saw how they make bricks in large kilns and it takes 4 months for them to be ready after this we went to a large flower market and then caught the big boat again and we motored up to Long Ny___n?, In the morning we took a small boat to the floating markets and then to Tiger Island where we cycled around - very cool. When the local kids saw us they ran out of their houses and "low fived" us as we rode past. They were very friendly. One little girl was fascinated with me and my camera so I took a video of her and showed her it which she watched with stunned silence.
Then she became my best friend and we shared a sprite - well I had a couple of sips and she had the rest lol! Ella got the photo but no t-shirt😊
The next day we sailed to Chau Doc didnt get there until early eveing but we went off to see a Cham village, the most scary thing about that was walking across a wooden bridge that looked like it would not support one of us let alone all of us, but suffice to say we survived.
Today we caught a fast boat to Phnom Penh from Chau doc, took us an hour to complete border control had to stop at the Vietnam one first and our boat almost took off without the guy who had all our passports. Travelled 5 mins then got to the Cambodia control so here we are in Phnom Penh wishing we had more days in Cambodia. Guess what the first thing we did when we got here was?, eat lol!!!!!
We went to the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda. These guys really know how to do palaces A... MAZING. Everyone we have met so far has been really friendly
and their English is very good. Our guide is very good and knowledgleable about the history of Cambodia. So we have had the condensed version in under 1 hour. So our first monkey in the park and hanging out in the trees. Went to the Musuem of Cambodia which has three main exhibition halls and as our guide said they are all "the same same but different"!!! and we have the T shirt that says that comment as you here it all the time.
Just finished our first 5 course Khmer meal and it was very nice. Went to the night markets on the way home and we were expecting Camodian Tourist stuff but it was very westerns selling mainly clothes, shoes and jewellery abit like the Aotea square markets of old.
Tomorrow we catch a turbo prop plane to Siem Reap really looking forward to seeing the Temples but not so keen about how hot that is going to be one saving grace is that our hotel has a pool.
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Atishma
non-member comment
Sounds like more and more fun. Apart from the bit about the field mice...not sure about that...LOL It is pouring here in Auckland which is such a shame as I am not enjoying summer. We are going camping this weekend and I am praying for nice sunshine. Take care and enjoy the rest of your trip.