Slow boat

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We caught the morning bus to Phnom Penh and arrived in the late afternoon. We ended up sharing a tuk-tuk to the lake-front district with a Dutch guy named Richard. Our guest house was built partially on land, but at least half of the structure was sitting on pilings over the lake. The four of us settled in to the room and then had dinner at the guest house restaurant while we watched the sun set over the lake. Sunset over the lake is one of the few sights in Phnom Penh that really should not be missed.

After dinner, we met up with the Aussie guys from Sihanouckville again and we ended up at a "games" bar, where we spent a great evening playing Jenga (I'm pretty bad, but I actually improved the more I drank) and then pool until pretty late.

The next morning Mickan, Jossan, and myself got up early and boarded a bus that would take us to the Mekong river. The Mekong flows through Phnom Penh, but for some reason they bus you two hours downriver before you actually get on to a boat. It was a bone-jarring ride too, but we made it safely. At the small dock, we filled out some forms and then we were the last people to board the boat, which meant that we had to sit below deck because they were worried about it becoming top-heavy. We really wanted to sit on top, so Mickan struck a deal with some of the other passengers wherein we would switch places halfway through the trip. I spent the first half of the boat ride staring out the window at the Cambodian countryside. It's absolutely beautiful along the river, and every boat that passed us had smiling (and waving) people on it.

Once we reached the halfway point we climbed up on top and traded places with some people. It was great just lying in the sun while the world slowly passed us by. Eventually, we pulled over to the side of the river for Cambodian customs, which took about 20 minutes. We got back on to the boat and went for about 10 more minutes until we reached the Vietnamese side of the border where we disembarked with our bags.

Vietnamese customs took about 45 minutes, and we sat in a restaurant waiting for our "guide" to return with our completed passports. Once we all had them we boarded a different boat and began the cruise into Vietnam. We were only on the Mekong for about 30 minutes before we switched to another, smaller, river. That river was lined on both sides with small houses and tons of smiling people. It was immediately apparent that there are a LOT more people living in Vietnam than Cambodia. The scenery continued to be amazing, and I was sad when we finally pulled in to Chau Doc around 4.

We all grabbed cyclos (bicycle taxis, basically) to the "bus station". The ride over was a blast, with our drivers competing to see who got there first. Mine lost, possibly because I weigh more than the girls, but I just think he was lazy. He did a lot of coasting, while the other guys were peddling hard! We arrived at a travel agency, not the bus station and there were a lot of confused and irritated looks on our part. Eventually, however, we just decided to take the bus that the travel agent was pitching and so they packed us into an SUV for a short ride over to what turned out to be the real bus station. We were loaded on to a small minibus and we began the cramped, frustrating ride to Saigon.

Stay tuned for more.

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Photos

Great ball of fire
Sunset over the lake

Jenga
after a few beers, the game kind of ended...