Days 19 and 20, 3–4 Oct Phnom Penh

 Day 19, 3 Oct Phnom Penh (pronounced ‘Pa-nom Pen’)

Up at 7am this morning for breakfast as we have a morning excursion. Could feel fluid up my legs last night, to about my shins and I swear the 7 trips to the bathroom through the night got rid of all that fluid! Was up every hour so obviously my body is self regulating ha ha. Graeme only fared a little better 😊. 

We got on the bus with our new Cambodian tour guide Leng, and he took us to the sobering killing fields in Choeung Ek first. It was out of town about 45 mins away and not what I had expected. I had seen the movie the Killing Fields, when I was about 11 or 12 – The same year I met two Cambodian refugees when I was on holiday with my friend at the Mount. They were teenagers and they had very broken English but had been boat people, and it was shocking the lives they had led compared to ours. 

I remember how shocking it was in the movie, when they showed people being forced to kneel down in the fields, and blue plastic bags being put on their heads to suffocate them. The reality was, it was not that big an area at all, but you could see what look like trenches where they later dug up mass graves. 

It was actually quite peaceful there now but it was the site of pretty awful atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot. I didn’t know that it actually stood for ‘political potential’ and was the name he gave himself.

It had been originally a fruit orchard so there were lots of lovely trees there but the genocide was evident everywhere – it occurred in the late 1970s and it wasn’t until 1988 that the memorial was erected. Of the 120 communal graves, 49 have been left intact. There were pretty woven bracelets that people have left in memory of those fallen and there was a memorial behind glass which had many skulls. You could buy two beautiful huge water lilies for 1usd and people were taking off their shoes and placing the flowers at the memorial along with incense. 

One of the ladies in our group hasn’t been feeling well and has had a stronger version of Graeme‘s cold with a continual cough and she got overheated while we were there, and started to fade so they checked her out and then we wamdered back to the bus after a look around. Went to the little shops on the way back and was going to get a can of drink but Graeme remembered about how in these asian countries many of the soft drink packs are left in sheds and mice and rats are a real issue running over them, so you don’t buy any cans and drink out of them – you have to pour them into a glass, so if you can’t do that you don’t drink it .

So I bought a little tub of vanilla ice cream from a lady there, she was on the phone and crying while she was talking to someone – she had tears falling down her face and I asked her if she was alright and she just nodded, but kept crying. Hope she is okay

After that visit we went to Tuol Sleng detention Centre. Originally it was a school and is also known as S – 21, it was turned into the Kymer Rouge‘s largest detention and torture headquarters. More than 17,000 men, woman and children moved through S 21 on their way to the killing fields. Only 7 survived at the end of the regime - and today we met the one, now remaining survivor who is in his 90s. He was there with his book and signing and selling it outside what has now, become the museum. The torture inflicted there was incredible, beds with metal racks on them that held their feet and there were a couple of Australians and a Kiwi who was sailing and accidentally came into an area controlled by the Khmer Rouge and he was arrested. 

Talking to our tour guide who grew up with his parents being affected in this era - he remembers some of it, he said they were all rounded up and tortured to get information out of them – being forced to admit they worked for the CIA or the KGB which was ridiculous. They were mostly after educated people who would stand up I guess, doctors, teachers that sort of profession and the Kiwi, Kerry Hamill apparently said when he was interrogated, that his CIA superior was Colonel Sanders of KFC and gave his phone number as the CIA number.

 As Graeme said – if you are tortured long enough you will admit to anything. Then they were all shipped out to the killing fields and executed anyway. Amazingly, Pol Pot was never prosecuted and died in 1998 I think it was, still a free man. The tour guide said people remarked he was not an intimidating man and seemed quite calm and hard to believe he had done what he had. He died not feeling any guilt and apparently said he would not waste bullets on killing the people under his regime, hence either bludgeoning them or suffocating them. Think he then also cleaned out his soldiers as he didn’t trust them. So very confronting, but glad we went. 

We travelled back to the ship for a lovely lunch, it’s hard not to eat something that resembles a dinner as they put on so much lovely food! Then we were taken by bus to the central markets. It’s very similar to Istanbul‘s grand bizarre and forks off into so many different directions. The central part is a great gold dome and boy is it hot in there! They were just thousands of small aisles with all sorts - from hairdressers to watches to clothing and the food market was outside. We wandered around for awhile but it was pretty airless in there – no scratch that, it was completely airless! So we decided to head off before the bus came back for us.

We followed what the tour guide had said to walk in a straight line and then turn left, but something went wrong somewhere and we ended up kilometres away, so the 15 minute walk took us almost an hour and I was seriously hot and over it by the time we got back to the port. You walk along the roads edge but it’s not bad as people all seem to merge, even though it’s very congested.

Before dinner, they had beautiful traditional Cambodian musicians and dancers come in for us. The dancers study for something like 4 years and the women can bend their fingers back into most incredibly far positions, that look impossible. The dancing was beautiful and they also did some dances with coconuts and also huge bamboo poles, which you didn’t want to get your feet caught in!

At 9 pm, those of us who had opted in for the extra excursion into town, all met just outside the ship and were allocated our tuk tuk drivers. We got Mr Sam – number 28! He was funny and gave us bits of information as we zoomed around the city as a group. They even closed off the little road for us when we were all getting in – must be dangerous white westerners ha ha!It was a pretty fast ride and he took us through all the major streets – so many people come out and apparently they just ride around for fun. There is an area which is like the arc de triumph with a big roundabout, lights and flags and noise and hustle and bustle everywhere – was fun to be a part of. 

Then they took us to a Skytop bar which looked out over all the city on level 26, where they also gave us a lovely cocktail. I had a piña colada! It was very warm up there surprisingly given that the bar was all open side, so it must be true that heat rises. After about an hour, they zoomed us back to the ship and into bed.

So a pretty full on day today but really enjoyed it – the heat is something else though and we both had 3 showers yesterday – you are that soaked in sweat! Even the locals find it too hot they said,  as since the rain has stopped, the temperature has gone up unusually high.

Day 20, 4 Oct Phnom Pen & North

Up at 7 am as per usual– By the time we got to bed last night only had about six hours sleep but felt fine. Breakfast at 7:30 am and at the door at 8:30 am. We were taken by tuk tuk – same driver we had last night – Mr Sam, driver 28! We had to have covered shoulders and knees today and closed shoes. They took us to the Royal Palace where we looked around the different beautiful pavilions. They were saying that there is even a crematorium for the king when they die and after it has been used once, they build a new one at 1-$2 million usd, so no two kings are cremated in there 😬.

The architecture is absolutely beautiful and the buildings are usually white and yellow with the terracotta tile roof and lovely statues adorning the buildings. It was incredibly, incredibly humid &  hot today. Even our driver said it was too hot for the locals and it’s unusual to have this much, he after the rainy season. We had another lady very overheated so we had to wait around quite a bit until they could get her out and into the tuk tuk back to the ship. Everybody was so hot is the humidity was about 90% today and all of our clothes were soaked! Sweating in places we didn’t know you could sweat 🥵🥵ha ha.

Nobody opted in our group, for the afternoon tour as everyone was so overheated, so back into our little limousines! And back to the ship into the cool lovely rooms :-) .  We mooched around for the rest of the day after showers – had lunch, ate way too much! And then reading and catching up. It is Danni’s 30th birthday today so we rang her on a video call and had a chat then later there was a group call with the family, so we all jumped on to sing happy birthday to her and it was good to catch up with everyone. Looks like she was having a good birthday, although has been crook with a Ggastro bug the last couple of days.

We had a lay down then got ready and went out to the information presentation, where they talk about the next days activities. We have been anchored for two days in Phenom Pen, but are moving on to Siam Reap, So we were off, sailed until about 8 pm and then anchored in the river for the night. The cruise director said they have to be careful as there are lots of fishing nets the local fishermen put out and they sometimes get caught on the ship so they go very slowly. Going to Angkor Wat is going to be amazing – just hope the heat is bearable! There are a lot of  older and not particularly mobile passengers on board and the heat saps everyone’s strength, but you just pace yourself.

Days 16,17 &18, 30th sep- 2 Oct – Mekong river cruise.Cai Be & Sa Dec. onto Phnom Penh

 Day 16 -Onto Mekong River 

Just following on from yesterday, When the bus picked us up from the New World Saigon hotel, there were actually two groups of us, so two buses. One the blue team which was us, and the gold team had the others. 

It’s interesting because there is a group of 40 who have been on another tour with imagine cruising, and they have been travelling all around Vietnam for the last 3 weeks and the river cruise is the last part for them. Whereas our group - and we have  only met a few so far, have just arrived and are beginning on the river cruise, then we are all flying onto Singapore for the F1 Grand Prix. So they obviously have a few tours going at the same time – must be a logistical nightmare!

Anyway, the bus trip was interesting – they had said it was an hour but it was actually 2 1/2 hours with a stop towards the end. Ho Chi Minh/Saigon is the most incredibly huge city. It just goes on and on and the traffic is very slow although no one is aggressive at all in their driving. We were crawling for the best part of 1 1/2 hrs, before it started to clear out into the delta a bit more. We arrived and were escorted to the ship – a beautiful French colonial style river boat ship- the Mekong Navigator.

We are in cabin 316, so on the top level for cabins, but even though we paid $1000 extra to be away from the engine (as the travel agent said the company makes it clear that if you’re towards the back, there is engine noise, they have a generator etc), we are still only 3 from the back so a little noisy, but not too bad. Something I will follow up with them. One good thing with this cruise is the captain said most of the travelling will be in the daytime, in between the 2 included excursions each day. The staff are so lovely and they are beautiful cabins with wooden floors and small balconies with railings that are pretty fretwork.

We had our briefing with Linh, our Vietnamese tour guide – she is lovely, but gosh she can talk! We met the rest of the staff and then had a lovely meal. The drinks are all included including a mini bar in our cabin, so everyone tied it on a little bit with drinking! Got back to our cabin and our air-conditioning was still not working properly and I’m thinking omg, I hope it’s not this hot the whole time or I will die, then we realised it had no air coming out at all, so got the room attendant, who got the engineer and he must’ve reset something because it started working well after that thank goodness! Will take a bit to work out the best way to do it with the ceiling fan so we’re not too cold or stuffy.

We woke up this morning, both having been up and down a lot in the night – way too much liquid drunk ha ha! Today we are off to Cai Be, where we will go on long boats and then onto smaller sampan boats – the villagers that are taking us, are all in their 60s and lean as, physically. They put us all on the boats two at a time and used the long oars to paddle up until they got to a certain point and then use them outboard motors as it is hard going against the tide. It was pretty cool in so quiet as we went out. 

There was quite a lot of rubbish in the water and apparently the government is just starting to do a push on the environment and recycling, so hopefully in a few years that will see a difference. Then we stopped at a place where some villagers came out in traditional dress and with their instruments and played us folk music, while we had the local fruits and hot tea. One of the instruments sounded like a harp but it was just one long horizontal wire and then an upright wire which she moved back-and-forth plucking it, to get the different sounds. 

Trying some of the exotic fruits was really interesting as well. After that, we returned to the boats and they dropped us into town at Cai Be where we came to a cottage factory where the artisans produced rice paper, rice wine and popped rice. There were also things like a pickled cobra snake to flavour the whiskey they produce in the still there😬.

Following that, we returned to the ship and had lunch – gosh it’s like eating courses of a small dinner! We aren’t used to eating 3 meals a day let alone different courses, it is so well prepared and the staff are incredible friendly and eager to please, even though they must go through continuous rotations of western passengers!

We went back to our room like everyone else afterwards and had a laydown, what a treat to do in the middle of the day. Pity when you’re working you can’t do what your body says and do this every day – and still get to sleep at night ha ha!

Then at 3 pm we were out again for another excursion to Sa Dec.it was extremely hot and muggy so I took along my neck fan and we had to cover our shoulders and knees because we’re going to a temple this afternoon. The sampans took us the scenic route through the narrow canals of the Mekong – the villages are like stepping back in time and yet across the water you can see modern city – such a juxtaposition. 

We visited a home of a very rich man called Mr Huynh Thuyn Le– He had built a very exotic home with lots of heavy dark wood and gold in-lays. Apparently he inspired a movie called “the lover”. Very interesting - about marrying into money, traditions and there was even a huge wooden bed there in the middle of the house with no mattress and beautiful in-laid shell work, that apparently was his opium bed! Didn’t expect that as he was an upstanding citizen but obviously tradition and culture was different then. 

After that we went through the towns markets – they are huge and hot and steamy! The sites, sounds & smells quite something. We were all absolutely dripping in sweat but was good to see apart from the live animals which I didn’t go and see. There was meat and chicken etc, all laying out in the sun – I cannot imagine how much campylobacter there is there that would affect all of us!

Back to the ship and we all jumped in cold showers to cool down and had a little bit of time before going back to a presentation by the tour director about Vietnam – very interesting what the exports are -mainly rice and fruit. 

Had a lovely dinner afterwards – we ended up sitting with a couple from Dubbo, although he is from Hamilton New Zealand of all places ha ha right where we spent 40 years! He is a high-end security person who looks after big sports teams, and she is a forensic police officer who goes into crimes scenes and works out what’s happened. Quite an unusual couple, very interesting.

Back up to the cabin to watch an incredible dry lightning storm going on outside it was just constant. There’s been a lot of flooding here and the rivers are very high. A full long day but gosh we have seen some amazing things that are out of our comfort zone but very interesting to see! Three showers today, that’s a first!! 

Smiled at the sign!😁

                               These grapes were insanely huge!

Day 17, 1st October - Giang (Mango) island 

Up at 7 am for breakfast at 7:30 and then ready to get off the boat for the included excursion this morning which is going to mango Island. It’s a small island along the upper Mekong river fairly untouched by tourism and famous for its mango farms. It was definitely a step up in lifestyle for the local Vietnamese, than the previous villages in the small inlets on the delta. 

We were taken by remork which is a scooter with a big open trailer for people to sit on, on the back. We zoomed up the road – these ones are tarsealed and even had a line painted down the middle, in places! They took us to a French designed house that was quite beautiful but stark inside. It has to stay in the same family so they have generations that anre basically  guardians who look after the house, as each generation passes on. It is quite empty of furniture, but I think they do most things on the floor from what we have seen so far anyway. The man who lives there now is the third generation and apparently he is 70 but he looked so much younger. The Vietnamese do look at at least 10 to 20 years younger than they are, maybe the simple living helps.

Next we went to a place where the family still do the traditional basket weaving. There was the grandmother the mother, niece and granddaughters all doing different parts of the bamboo baskets. Takes a lot of work and you can buy a set of baskets for $3.50 also so very cheap for all the work it takes – we left a donation instead, as it would be a bit of a hassle to take back through customs anyway. 

Then we stopped at a big Catholic Church and looked at it outside – it was weird though there was dog poop everywhere in front of it and nobody picks it up and they obviously let their dogs just do it – not sure what the virgin Mary would think about that?! 😬😅

There was an excursion in the afternoon to Long Thuan, but we didn’t go as it was incredibly muggy and hot and from what I heard it was kind of just another village. We stayed back and I got a book out of the library here I’ve started reading and Graeme has bought his own book so it was nice just to chill out. I went walking later on up and down the stairs just to get a bit of exercise, there isn’t a lot of places to walk but it was very nice and I sat and talked to Martina who we have got to know with her husband Richard, they are the Czech people who live in Perth.

Everyone on board seems to have settled into sitting with their shipmates they have befriended and the 4 of us have had some good talks – they are also going to the F1 so we will see them there as well. 

Tomorrow we are on the ship all day as we are crossing the border into Cambodia. The Delta continues to be a wide brown waterway with not much in the way of pretty outlook, but is still good to see but nothing like Europe’s views from river cruises!

                           Linh our tour guide

Day 18 – 2nd October – crossing into Cambodia.

A full day on board the ship today as we are doing 100 km from Vietnam and crossing into Cambodia. It’s a day completely on the ship as they have a lot of distance to cover. We’ve only been doing between 15 and 30 km’s a day before this.

I noticed as we move into Cambodia that it is becoming surprisingly more modern and what we would call proper housing is more evident rather than shacks on the waters edge. There has been a plethora of sand barges everywhere today, digging sand out to use for construction, concrete etc. Apparently the barges just need to get a license and there is not really any other regulation by the sound. The consequences are that they are constantly digging and removing huge amounts of sand from the Mekong river, which in turn is eroding the banks on the sides. You could see evidence of this we are whole lines of the river banks have broken away. Apparently, it will mean the houses and shacks on the water edge will be in the river within 5 years or so, the guide told us. Pretty sad to see there is no ecological or environmental priority put on this?

We had a slightly later start though today being on board all day, so breakfast was from 7:30–9:30. The food here is fantastic and presentation is wonderful as well – we are having to cut back on what we eat as we are feeling the effects– as you do when you first get on a cruise! We have read a lot today – my Danielle Steele book has been an easy way to pass time and we alternated between the very humid heat outside under the sun loungers and umbrellas, and then in the library which is a small room but air-conditioned, and later in our room. It’s funny every time Graeme goes outside his glasses are fogging up but he has developed a swinging action to clear them as quick as possible ha ha ha. 😳😁

We pulled into Phnom Penh an hour early and had a call that because of the earlier arrival we all needed to go straight away to have our face checks done by the Cambodian border control man who came on this morning. He has been writing little visas for everybody by hand all day and then we had to line up and get checked before we are allowed to embark into Cambodia. They charge you US$45 which you have to pay in cash – seems very dodgy! Nothing online available and the cash paying bit, is a bit odd but some people have said Cambodia is corrupt so? It’s looking pretty fancy compared to what we’ve seen in Vietnam, I have to say.

We are docked in quite a flash area for the night and then will be off tomorrow on land tours – it’s great they give you a morning and an afternoon tour included as well as all your drinks and food. We have been having a lot of sparkling water with lime to keep hydration up as it’s so hot outside.

They gave us a presentation on Phnom Penh today, was really interesting how pretty it looks on their presentation and how there are so many temples. We had a really nice cocktail of the evening today, it had vodka, fresh ginger, honey, and lemonade. Was very nice with the honey and ginger especially – that one was an extra cost at 5usd, but was worth it – I had 2!

After dinner we went and paid for the one extra excursion tomorrow night which is taking us through the city on tuk tuks and going up to some high floor of a bar, to lookout over the city and have a drink – that’s $25usd per person so pretty good. We have two included day tours beforehand, so it will be a big day.

After dinner we decided to walk with Martina and Richard down the road to the night markets – these are so placid compared to the chaotic atmosphere in the Ho Chi Minh market and no one asking us ‘ madam, sir, you want buy nice shirt’!Being night, it was a lot cooler as well.

Chef  Demonstrating fruit carving

                                  This name cracked me up- “Good time,Krud time”😂

                                    Night Markets- Phnom Penh