Day 4 - boat trip to Phnom Penh

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Bright and early start again, this time for an all-day slow boat up the mighty Mekong and into Cambodia. It's the only way to do the delta!

Our slow boat turned out to be somewhat of a marathon experience. Leaving Chau Doc at 6:30am, we didn't arrive in Phnom Penh until 6:30pm! This is despite the travel agents telling you that you will arrive at 4pm - they sneak in an extra 1.5 hour bus leg into the journey, so you end up taking 2 boats and a bus.

In more ways than one, Cambodia seems a desperate place.

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Before we left Chau Doc, we were treated to a tour of a floating village, which make their livelihoods from fish farms. The farms are housed in giant nets which float underneath the houses. The balconies have little trap doors in them through which you can observe the feeding frenzy. Apparently its a good little earner for them - they can store up to 100,000 fish under each house, and flog them off at $1 a pop at the markets.

We then went to a Cham village (minority civilisation originating from India), which was a little staged, but we were told there was no pressure to buy anything. We watched some girls weaving on a traditional loom, and were constantly harrassed by little girls in headscarves trying to sell us snacks.

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The first boat took us up to the border, where we had a 2 hour wait for our passports to be cleared and for the Cambodian boat to arrive. The second boat took substantially longer - over four hours, but it was worth every minute to have such a close-up view of life on the Mekong. People seemed to be involved in a range of pursuits - from duck farming to fishing to herds of cows. Children all stopped to wave as we sailed slowly past, but strangely adults did not.

Despite being sandwiched in between the Thais and Vietnamese, the Khmers have quite distinctive language, culture and traditions. Above all they have an awesome fighting spirit - which they've developed from several years of hardship and oppression. When we arrived in Phnom Penh, we were absolutely mobbed - everyone wanted a piece of us. They were quite aggressive in their approach to - we had to duck for cover in a guest house and sneak out when the touts had gone.

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We checked into the aptly named "Same Same but Different" guesthouse on the lake, which was a little inland from the central riverfront area. The guesthouse was one of a series built on stilts that went right out to the water. From the street, it was accessible via a rabbit warren of tiny, dirty alleyways full of kids trying to sell you stuff. In more ways than one, Cambodia seems a desperate place.

The folks at the guesthouse were nice and friendly, so we sat down for a chat - there was a mix of westerners and Khmers, so we were able to arm ourselves with a bit of local knowledge. We drunk Angkor beer - not a bad drop - before crashing out in our $US4 room - the bargains just keep on coming!