Cam-bodge: Photos 42 to 63

We must be getting good as this travel lark - we entered Cambodia without having to bribe the immigration officials to stamp our passports as many travellers do, and even manged to haggle the money changers down to a decent rate. Riding away from the border post we entered a surreal world of high rise hotel casinos, neon signs, bars and expensive cars. Could this Las Vegas-like border town really be Cambodia? A kilometre or 2 later and we had our answer - no. Leaving town we reflected how yet again a simple line on a map has resulted in such a huge change. The green paddies of Vietnam had given way to endless brown, dry flat unplanted paddies. Where in Vietnam there was life and generators pumping water into many irrigation channels to feed the lush agricultural lands, in Cambodia there was dust and the odd wandering buffalo desperately seeking shade from the few scant palm trees. Cambodia, while it is not as empty as Laos, still felt pretty empty compared to Vietnam. There was hardly any traffic and we were left on the silent empty roads battling into a hot headwind.

The landscape was incredibly open, with endless

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