Days 25-27 Mekong River Delta (but first a note) FOUND HALF DECENT INTERNET - SOME PHOTOS ADDED

Please note that we are now in Cambodia and internet facilities are poor - we can receive emails but not reply and can add to blog but not upload photos - when we can we will.

Thanks for all the concern re:Thailand situation. We are not worried, knowing more here (on the ground) as it were. Rest assured we will take whatever action is required!

We had wanted to take a boat all the way up from My Tho to Pnohm Penh but that is not possible - however it is possible to take a tour of the delta and cross the border by boat, then continuing most of the way, also by small boat. First stop was Cai Bai, where we boated through the floating market, which is a collection of boats of varying sizes all containing goods (coconuts, dragon fruit, ducks, oranges, garlic, taro, baskets, etc) that are sold to those on smaller boats, who will then sell them on. It's a sort of wholesale market. Mingling in between are small boats cooking pho noodle soup or small bits of meat on a brazier that serve as portable lunch to whoever wants it.









The boats are fantastic pieces of wood lashed together in various states of decay. Most have a long propeller joined to a motocycle engine that makes them manouverable in the shallow muddy (and filthy) river. A sort of sea spinach grows along the banks (I get the feeling it's a poor man's vegetable because it is cultivated in front of sad little shacks) and chunks of it float freely on the rather swift currents.Leaving the market we trolled through narrow channels of river - it felt like being on the "African Queen" - passed houses that stuck in the silt on stilts.
A narrow cement path ran behind these huts, with other houses built behind on the solid ground.
Some houses were cement boxes, some were brick, but most were wood and thatch, all with a step down to access the river for washing. People slept in hammocks strung up in open porches (and on the boats too) with laundry hanging over the side (or off the stern). they were cheek by jowl in the market area, but there were bushes and trees between in the smaller channels.







We stopped at an orchard where we were given fruit and tea - mango, banana, pineapple, jackfruit and papaya - coconut candy and popped rice with sugar cane juice forming a sort of "rice crispie square".

We slept one night in Can Tho (where Martin found a restaurant serving snake - he's very resourceful) and another night in Chau Doc, near the border.

Normally, the differences over borders are not great, but here they were very distinct. Subtle, but distinct. The Vietnamese cultivate every piece of land, on the Cambodia side there are lots of big trees and green space. A wide array of tree roots grew out from the base, so it looked as if these large trees were about to delicately walk across the river themselves. Vietnamese houses here are on rickety stilts in the river, or boxes just back, the Cambodian houses are on thick beefy stilts on dry land (so below them is for animals? cooking? to be determined) and the roof sports finials some of which are fantastically ornate. Water buffalo are rare in Vietnam, and cows rarer but we saw lots and lots of white cows on the Cambodian side - almost every house had a few). The Cambodian people show their Indian heritage (as opposed to the Vietnamese originating from Chinese migration) being darker skinned, with thicker curlier hair. We passed by at sun down, and saw children and women washing themselves in the river, cocks being set against each other in loud cackling fights, and animals being herded back to home.

The engine of our narrow (and highly uncomfortable) boat brought children out in droves, all waving and calling to the foreigners. One felt honour bound to wave to every single one of them.