Chau Doc was a bit of a one horse town that has only one thing to distinguish it; for about 3 hours after dark the town is swamped by a plague of bugs so thick you have to cover your mouth and nose to avoid breathing them in. They look a little like baby flies and congregate anywhere there is light of any kind. No amount of insect repellent can save you. Going out for dinner was a bit disgusting as we couldn't find any restaurant that was indoors and as we ate my plate was filling up with bugs and my rice became more black than white.
In the morning I headed off about 7am by boat to a local fish farm and then to visit a Cham village (they look nothing like me!) Before long we were settled back on the slow boat and on our way up the Mekong to the Cambodian border. The boat trip was really nice and I saw more of what I had expected the Mekong to be a few days ago. It was very peaceful as we chugged our way slowly up the river and arrived at the border crossing in Kaam Samnor 3 hours later.
I already had a visa but no one else did and it took nearly 2 hours for 5 'on the spot' visas to be issued! I think that is some sort of record. From there we went 5 minutes further up river to proceed through immigration and be given a health clearance (even though no one looked at us). The boat trip from the border to Neak Luong took about 4.5 hours and then a bus for an hour before finally arriving in Phnom Penh in the evening.
The Germans (Boris and Juric) and I are staying in the riverside area and we went out for a Khmer dinner and Ankor beer before calling it a night. I didn't think 1am was particularly late but I had to wake up the doorman of the hotel who was sleeping in a hammock across the front door and was quite disgruntled at being disturbed!
