We were woke up in the morning by the new tour guide screaming 'wake up 6am, wake up call' and banging on the door louder than jack Nicholson in the shining. we checked the time and it was actually 5.55. I think the following went something like this; we look at each other and lie back down, proceeding to nap until 6.20. It wasn't a problem as our bags were already done and all we needed to do was redress in yesterday's stinky clothes. The travellers life.
We checked out and retrieved our passports, before buying a small plate of fruit for breakfast, filling out our Cambodia visa forms and having some of the worst tasting coffee we've had since we've been away. It tasted like farts, and I sure know what farts taste like..... nom. We exchanged the last of our Vietnamese currency to Cambodian riel and at 7am were put on boat ready for our morning tours to a fishing farm and a minority village. The boat was much bigger than yesterday's so Hagrid was safe and so were we.
We travelled for ten minutes before reaching the floating fishing farm and we left our boat, took ten steps to where there were hundreds of fish in a small container underneath the floor in the River. We all gathered around and the guide muttered something about how they sold half a kilo of fish for two dollars a time and that's how they made a living. He then proceeded to feed the fish which all went berserk causing water to go everywhere and said, right back to the boat. Dire is the word i would use for that part of the tour. Onto the minority village I suppose.
I took around fifteen minutes to reach the village where we docked and we taking around the village to see how the Cham people lived. The Cham people have their own language different to Vietnamese but are essentially still Vietnamese and live along side them. They are followers of the islam religion so they wear different clothes, I.e men wear sarongs and women head dressed. We saw different schools, one for Cham and one for Vietnamese and then were shown some of the Cham houses. From the outside they looked like shacks but on the inside they were quite spacious and very well kept. We saw a women making some 'Cham cakes' which was rice flower and eggs mixed to make a sort of pancake. We were able to try some for a very small price, which we did and they were really tasty.
We then headed back to the boat where we sat in a small cafe for ten minutes to have a drink and use the toilet. We bought some water and orange juice and it was after this I noticed a very odd Vietnamese lady starring at me. I smiled at her very nicely in which she smiled back and I continued to go about my business. It wasn't until we went for the boat that I noticed she was still starring at me as we went down the ramp smiling like she did before. I told Nicola I thought I had an admirer and she promptly chuckled after she saw the way she was looking at me. She mentioned she'd seen her fifteen minutes earlier around the village when I was eating the Cham cake. I smiled at her again in the hope it would get her to stop and she started following us down the ramp to the boat like a sheep dog being called. We got onto the boat, sat down, and we both noticed she was stood at the end of the pier still smiling at me, watching like a hawk. At this point I was scared to death not knowing what to do with Nicola wetting herself next to me. She told me to wave at her as we drove off down the river, so I did and she then started walking towards us as much as she could without falling into the water.
To this day I swear she is still watching me from that pier, waiting like a loved one.. waiting for her sailor husband who would never return.
We travelled for an hour before reaching the border and jumping off the boat as our visas were being sorted by the guide. We waited for fifteen minutes, again using the toilet and taking the chance to buy some snacks from the shop there. Whilst i was using the toilet, I gave the money to Nicola in the hope she would take control of a transaction for once, to buy something nice and filling for breakfast. I came back to a packet of Oreos and peanut brittle. It was like handing a fiver to a child and saying they could spend it how they liked, and them coming back with a bag full of sweets and general crap. I immediately went back to the shop and bought some bananas and we then sat whilst waiting eating our snacks. We were then chucked back onto the boat, headed for five minutes to another check point where we had our visa stamped and confirmed. It was at this point that we changed boats to a more comfy, faster boat and continued on our four hour journey to phnom phen. I can't really say much more from here as we slept on and off for the rest of the time, roasting in the heat and ate a pot noodle style thing which we were given for lunch.
We arrived in phnom phen around 4.30, left the boat with our bags and headed off in the direction of the hotel. We found it within 15 minutes walk, checked in, dropped our bags off and headed out to a recommended place to eat. After the grub we went back to the hotel as we were tired from the morning start and settled in for the night. I was lucky to find the hotel had the football channel in the room, so was even more settled as I watched the liverpool game before sleeping whilst nicola was unconscious, asleep next to me.
