CAMBODIA TO VIETNAM, Sunday 6th May

And back on the road again.
It was sad to say goodbye to Cambodia, it has been a wonderful month. It is a complicated country undergoing a fairly major identity crisis. On one hand, the Khmer are fiercely proud of their heritage, Angkor, but on the other they still struggle under the shadow of more recent events. From what Muoy has said, the Cambodians have developed a distaste for all things Khmer in favour of things west instead, which is sad.
But, as I have said before, the people I have met here have been some of the most friendly that I have met in South East Asia and seem, for the most part, to be always smiling and friendly. The children I have worked with have been good-natured, happy and full of curiosity. It was hard to say goodbye to them, I've grown quite attached and I have now have a bag full of little farewell pictures from them all. Muoy is right, they are the generation that will be able to bring Cambodia forward. The country is still very poor but there is a glimmer of light at the end of a long tunnel.

So, after an hour's sleep (our leaving party being a rather drawn out affair) my alarm dragged me out of my slumber and Philip and I crept out of Seametrey, bidding a sleepy Channit (one of our students) farewell as he had woken up specially to see us off. We boarded a sweltering 'air con' bus that took us along a painfully bumpy road for a few hours to the boat. A few more hours down the Mekong, very wide at this point and lined with paddy fields, and we were at the boarder.
My visa had expired the day before but as it was only $5 a day for an over stay I had not bothered to extend it. I had not, however, read the small print which talks about the $30 penalty for overstaying at all. Ouch. So $35 poorer, I crossed over the boarder to Vietnam and we were scooped up by a friendly, efficient Vietnamese woman who swept us onto another boat for the remainder of the journey.
The 2 1/2 hour journey to Cau Doc was really beautiful. We made our way down a narrow fork of the river, lined on both sides by little basic corrugated iron huts on stilts. While the Khmers are farmers, the Vietnamese are fishing people and rather than stretches of farm land there were little communities of people bathing, fishing and waving cheerfully to us as we passed, looking very picturesque in pointed straw hats. A lovely welcome to Vietnam.
We were totally exhausted by the time we arrived at the busy little town of Cau Doc on the Mekong Delta. There was just enough energy to wander around the buzzy market place, dodging motors and bicycles, have and early dinner and then pass out.
We were up early again this morning but feeling much more human. We had a quick tour of the floating fishing villages on the Delta before we were on a bus to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon).
So far, Philip and I have been rather unlucky with our fellow travelers. Yesterday it was a middle-aged American gentleman from Boston who was intent on drawing a less-than-responsive me into a discussion about the War On Terror and religious fanatics, today it was a Frenchman who was demanding to know what I was proposing to do about oil shortages and my troublesome government. Quite a character, he has moved to Vietnam to be with his Vietnamese girlfriend but is so exasperated at her refusal to learn French (him speaking no Vietnamese) that he is threatening to go back to France in a huff. There are many like him out here I fear. And I have never seen anyone sweat so much.
From now on Philip and I operate a strict 'earphones in at all times' policy on long bus journeys. Although this might also have something to do with my insistence to sing snippets of songs from Miss Saigon increasingly as we drew near the city...

So here we are, safe and sound. So far Ho Chi Minh looks very much like other Asian cities: Straight, grid-system roads, three story balconied concrete buildings and an endless honking stream of motor bikes, driven by people in baseball caps and face masks. I look forward to exploring more tomorrow.
In the mean time, we have found a guest house in a sort of mini Khao San Road and are about ready to sample a Vietnamese beer...