Dong Nam Chau Doc

Today i am making my way to the border to enter Vietnam, finally i can use the phrase "back in Nam" and not mean Twickenham ! The bus left at 08:30 to make our way to the border and it was still raining, a 6 hour jounrey in total. The border crossings here are so anal but there are somedodgy people around. After about an hour at the border we made it through and then had a 45 min jounrey to a place called Chau Doc.
As soon as we got there we were staright out on ...

... swiftly exchanged emails and arranged to meet in Phnom Phenh for a drink.

It was then time to head towards the boarder. The 3 hour boat ride was speckled with stilted bank side villages and distant flooded rice paddies. Children cheered 'hello' with intrigue and glee as we meandered down the Kong. Teenagers were at work washing and grooming huge water buffalo immersed in the water. Women in large groups washed clothing; laughing and joking. It was ...

We last wrote from Hanoi - it seems like forever ago but actually is only just three weeks ago, incredible seeing as we have seen and done so much in that time.
From Hanoi we arranged a tour to Halong Bay, staying on a junk boat overnight. Luckily the rain which had flooded parts of Hanoi seemed to have dried up by the time we reached Halong bay and so we spent a lovely sunny and ridiculously hot day on the boat, visiting an amazing, enourmous cave on one of the islands, kayaking, and ...

After leaving Ho Chi Minh City we decided upon spending a couple of days meandering up the mighty Mekong before we head to Cambodia. We firstly went to the small town of My Tho (pronounced 'Mee Tow') supposedly the best place to see the Mekong, we took a tour which took us up various streams, villages and of course craft shops before we went back to town. It was a cool day. After the tour, Izzy and I left the tour group and went solo for the ...

... hopped off the boat and followed our guide Lan, replying to the numerous shouts of "Hello" . A few hundred yards down the road, Lan showed us around the local market. So many different kinds of fruit, vegetables and fish were on offer. At times we had to tip toe around fish that had lept out of their containers onto the floor. The smells were also incredible, some good and some a little bit nasty. Durian (or jack fruit) has to be the smelliest fruit ...

... bit of magic really does exist in that place! From there myselves and The Jenster headed to the south coast of Cambodia ..............we were met with Pristine Beaches , Clear Blue Water as warm as a bath ......Beautiful skies..........beach huts ........cocktails.......Beer.......and everything else that encompasses finding your own little bit of paradise. (check the Pics!!) Out of season ........even other tourists are scarce................ We then left ...

... people here, its where they fish and transport their rice. We saw some families building huge boats for the river, just outside their homes. The river is also where all washing of body and clothes takes place, as well as lots of play of course. There were lots of very excited and waving kids along the way to see a boat full of tourists float past. While in Can Tho, we did a cruise along the Mekong to see the ...

... and many of the people, in fact most of the people, would never had done anything like it before. Some of them looked terrified and I was amazed that we all made it. Still, no one had any idea what the objective was, what was it we were supposed to be seeing? We headed down the other side of the tributary in the direction from whence we came until, to my great amusement, we came to a concrete bridge that took us back to where we'd left the boat. I hadn't noticed it on the way down but ...

... To list my favorite experiences in Vietnam would be impossible... I can't think of one thing that wasn't possitive, fun or enlightening. But I'll try and list some of the little things I noted about Vietnam in general that I might not have mentioned before...

> Traffic (motorbikes in particualr) and honking horns... ok, I know that I've mentioned this one before but it warrants repeating. Unless you've seen/heard it you won't believe it. In a country ...

... pretty good. I slept on and off for 4 hours, so Bill had to fill me in on some of these details. Around 6 pm we crossed the river on a ferry (mode of transportation #7). After this the road became really rough. Do you know how hard it is to sleep when you head is bouncing off the head rest??? It is tough, but I managed in my drug induced state. We stopped at 8 pm for 1/2 hour. We had a pee break and I had a Chinese bun with pork, but did not like the ...