It is monsoon season. The Mekong River is flooded. We will be able to ride the flood up to Siem Reap in Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat, the state temple of the ancient Khmer kingdom. At two in the afternoon we board our boat the RV La Marguerite.

Earlier today I changed all the Dong and AU$ I had into American Dollars. I went to the supermarket, deposited all my hand held items into the lockers provided (as in Hue) and bought a bottle of Black Label Johnnie Walker and Maskva Vodka (again cheaper than duty free).

Luggage out at 11.45 and passports handed over to Long. This is necessary for the transit from Vietnam to Cambodia. The trip from Saigon to My Tho industrial port takes two hours. Aboard we are welcomed with fruit juice and a safety talk that is followed by a safety drill. An Asian buffet is the afternoon meal accompanied by local wines. The wine is complementary and will be for the seven day trip. In fact all drinks on board are free any time of day. That includes local spirits and beer. I am to discover that the local products are of a high standard.

103 is our cabin number. The cabin; floor, ceiling and walls are crafted out of timber and that includes the en suite. The Steward, in a general address to the passengers, begins by saying that the toilet standard on the ship is not up to western standards. I wonder what he's leading up to. Delicately put, he requests that we do not flush paper down the toilet. We are to put it into a basket next to the toilet bowl? Well, there is a water gun next to the bowl. Judicious use of this apparatus ensures there are no skid marks on the used up toilet paper. This turns out to be a most hygienic procedure.

The daybed - Our window to the Mekong

I lie on the day bed next to the window, dozing off, when the boat casts off at 1600hrs. The passing river traffic is too fascinating. I force my eyes open to watch sampans, tugs pushing barges that haul sand, speed boats and cargo vessels with eyes painted on the prow. The Mekong is about one kilometre wide, of white coffee colour and there is floating vegetation that grows in the water.

1800hrs finds us having a cocktail hour with the Captain. The drinks are generously laced, inducing a glow in the earlobe. At 1900hrs dinner is accompanied by a troupe of local artists enacting village life. There are depictions of lover reunited across the Mekong, drunks walking home from the inn, farm life and wars. The actors are backed by an orchestra of a one string violin, moon guitar, western guitar and a monostring. The artists will sleep on a launch that is towed by the boat, getting off at the next port to work in cabarets and wait to perform on a boat going downstream, back to My Tho Port.

There is a knot of smokers on the sun deck. At 6am they are busting for a weed I'm told. There is an urn in the Saigon Bar so I grab two mugs of tea to take down them for me and the sleeping Ruth. The seven o'clock breakfast is a delight of Asian goodies. Some have bacon and eggs.

After breakfast the boat drops anchor for us to board a launch that will take us to Cai Be, one of the settings in the novel "The Lover" *. Yellow safety vests are donned and the launch veers away from our river boat. Soon we are amongst large sampans (larger than the boats of the Thai floating markets) and barges with painted eyes. They all bear vegetables, meat, fruit and general merchandise for sale.

Launch ready to depart

...to market, to market...

The Catholic Missionaries followed the French colonialists into Indochina. It seems in every town there is a Catholic church. In Cai Be there is a cathedral. The guide tells us that mass is well attended on Sundays. Christianity constitutes 8% of the population. It's remarkable how the set out of the church and grounds is universal. I could have been in Northam WA except for the writing...and the monkeys. There are three monkeys in cages in the grounds. The gibbon puts on such a shrieking ear- splitting performance that we can only but applaud. While I clap another simian grabs me by my calf from behind. They tell me I leaped one metre in the air.

Down the road is a sweets factory. The rice is puffed by mixing hot sand with the raw rice in a wok. The rice is poured into rectangular moulds; some treacly sweet mix is poured in, mixed up the left to cool. The set product is then cut up into candy bar sizes. They also produce coconut and rice paper sweets. They serve us green tea and sweets. Mmm... not bad.

	The Supervisor (hmm.. something familiar here..) bottom left: cutting the sweets below: puffing the rice

At noon we are back on the Marguerite, the engines start then it continues in a westerly direction. Lunch is served. After the meal I'm drowsy, the hum of the motors is soporific, so I sleep until woken by the silence of the stilled engines. The boat has dropped anchor at Vinh Long.

Jump on the launch, don the yellow vests and we rip off to the Vinh Long market.

These markets are so colourful I must let the pictures do the talking. Note the free mix of mo'bikes and pedestrians, as in all Indochina markets. People buy food astride their vehicles. Apart from the fruit and veg, the protein variety offers fish, frog, squid, entrails, sea snake and field mice. Most are fresh: they are live until bought whence they are killed, degutted and cleaned.

Back on the ship I get a vodka and a beer to take down to my cabin and finish watching The Lover* - a story about a rich Chinese layabout and a French Catholic school student from a dysfunctional family. We loved the film.

After dinner, our guides Long, Thoai, Thang and Thinh form a singing quartet, calling themselves 'The Grasshopper'. They wow the passengers with swing era songs. All are grinning and clapping. We finish the night with dancing at the Saigon Bar.

The boat has been churning against the flood current all night, mooring at Sa Dec. This quaint city was the home town of Marguerite Duras the prize winning author of "The Lover". She met her lover, Huinth Thuy Le, the son of a wealthy Chinese family, on a Mekong ferry. We are to visit Le's house today.

Early in the morning our launch pick its way through the traffic of barges, commuter ferries, cargo boats, fishing vessels and sampans to drop us near a brick factory where the product is made the traditional way - by hand.

All by hand! This lovely lady carting bricks to stockpile. I love this photo of her disappearing into the sunshine to unload the bricks.

Walking to The lovers* house, I investigate the town's market. I'm fascinated by the produce and the colourful proprietors.

Field Mice anyone? Why not? These wild rodents live on wheat and rice alone.

I catch up with the others at a Vietnam War memorial. Of particular interest to us is the depiction of slouch- hatted diggers surrendering to the North Vietnamese Army.

I love a bit of street theatre. At a discreet distance I watch a woman screaming and slapping a youth. Police arrive and talk to her. This allows the youth to disengage and start walking away. The police are now laughing. The woman tongue lashes the man at a distance. He is now far away enough to give her a finger and a few words. She takes off after him. The police chase the woman. They all disappear around the corner into the traffic.

After a visit to a Chinese Pagoda (they are all out of the ordinary) it is a short walk to the 'Lover's' house. It has been developed as a tourist attraction. There photographs of the 1929 protagonists and their families. In another room there is a presentation of memorabilia of the 1992 French film L'Amant.

Around the house there is a scent of, what I can only imagine is, opium. It is related that the father ran his business from an opium den in the house. The young lover also used the pipe on occasions.

The Lover's house in Sa Dec

The launch has us back on the La Marguerite at 11am. After lunch I have a nap, Ruth goes to have a massage. Later I go to the library to check on my bank accounts on the computer. All OK. I take out the DVD of "The Social Contract". It is now 5pm. I get a vodka and a beer at the Saigon Bar and start to watch "The Social Contract" film in our room.

After dinner we all go up to the Saigon bar where 'The Cricket', by popular demand, puts on a performance. Ruth is handed a microphone, making the quartet a quintes. She has a good ear, a good voice and good timing, belting out a couple of songs earning a standing ovation from the passengers. There is further audience involvement then dancing to the ship's trio.

Good night at 11.30.

At the Tan Chau dock a horde of cyclos await our launch. These rick-shaws will be pulled instead of pushed by a bike as in Ha Noi and Saigon. This mode of propulsion changes the design of the carriage making it more difficult to mount. Some need a milk crate to get on. I find that my knees are about my ears.

Vietnam gives an impression of industriousness. In the streets all the people are working at something. We have visited pottery, a silk farm, a brick factory, a sweet factory, markets and many other enterprises where the products are handmade. Today, the cyclos' first stop will be at a bamboo mat weaving works. The trip through the town takes thirty minutes. People wave, laugh and point at our progress. The highlight is the cheering by a large number of children at an open air kindergarten. Their faces are wreathed in smiles.

In the factory the bamboo is stripped, dyed and assembled into mats of many sizes.

The Rouseabout at the matworks

More rickshawing round the town then a walk through a residential area on the way to the launch. Because the Mekong will rise another two metres or so in this monsoon season, all the homes are up in the air on stilts. Rice, corn and rubber plants are grown when the river is down. Fishing is the more rewarding industry for these people when the Mekong submerges the land. Approaching flood warnings are issued on TV and radio by the government. Mopeds, tuk-tuks and scooters are replaced by watercraft. The change in lifestyle is as normal to these dwellers as the coming and going of the seasons.

Village on Stilts

Village People

The launch is waiting for us on a branch of the Mekong. It slaloms off at great speed to the floating fish farms. Mid stream, guide Long makes a request; he wants to sing a song about Ha Noi, his home town. When the applause of assent dies down he bursts into a heart wrenching ballad in Vietnamese. When he stops there is a moment of silence then thunderous clapping. When this dies down I stand up and say that I want to sing a song about my home town, a song that brings memories of grief and despair. Face serious, Long signals to go ahead. I burst into:

"We are Geelong the greatest team of all"
"We are Geelong we're always on the go!"
"We play the game.. .......

For technical reasons, I'm glad that you can't hear Tony singing!    Ed./Webmaster

I don't get to finish - I'm howled down by the group. The launch ties up at a platform afloat on a branch of the Mekong.

It is the size of a basketball court, roofed and the wood plank floor has a pattern of rectangular openings covered with mesh. On the underside of the platform is a cage that contains the fish. The surface of the water boils with fish when the attendant scatters the food in. This proprietor buys pink baby snapper as fish seed to grow them for sale. Supermarkets in Australia are one of the destinations of these fish.

The proprietor raising the snapper

With our guide Thoai

The next stop is a 'dry island', in one of the channels of the Mekong, where the villagers grow crops then fish when the river is fully flooded. There is a cage on stilts where some goats are housed. It is up in the air for two reasons, firstly they are safe from floods and, in the dry, their droppings are easy to collect and use as fertiliser. A villager removes a kid from the cage allowing the children that are on school holidays to pat it. They are delighted.

Goats in the elevated cage

The delighted children

Back on shore the cyclos take us back through the town to the jetty where the Marguerite launch is waiting. Long hands over a wad of money to the chief of the cyclos who distributes it amongst the other drivers. It tip my drivers a U$5 to get a stony face in return. One of our group has tipped U$25.. geeezzz....

It has been a hot morning, a humid morning and a full morning. I'm glad to be back on the boat and have the wonderful Asian lunch provided by the La Marguerite. In mid afternoon there is an ice cream party but I prefer to finish watching "The Social Contract" in the cabin.

The ship sails on to the Cambodian border. The immigration official is on board completing the paperwork for our entry into their country. Ruth's and mine visas have been rejected on some technical grounds so we have to pay U$60 for new ones. This is despite several assurances by the Cambodian Embassy in Australia that they were OK.

The three launches we have been using for shore excursions have detached from the boat to head back down the river. The Marguerite has been towing the launches where their crews have been spending the night. They wave good bye as they drift off.

At Phnom Penh La Marguerite ties up quayside at the Passenger Port. Long and the other Viet guides have wished us goodbye. Our Cambodian guide Chea introduces himself. He's 32 years old, married with two children. His marriage was arranged as is common in this country. On the short bus ride to the Royal Palace, Chea waves his arms about as he introduces his country to us. One can see that he is ardent about the Khmer culture.

Ruth and Kaye outside the Silver pagoda inside the grounds of the Royal Palace.

This Pagoda houses many national treasures such as gold and jewelled Buddha statues. Most notable is a small 17th century baccarat crystal Buddha (the "Emerald Buddha" of Cambodia) and a life-sized gold Maitreya Buddha decorated with 9584 diamonds, the largest of which weighs 25 carats. It was created in the palace workshops during 1906 and 1907, the gold Buddha weighing in at 90kg.

Our guide getting passionate

The guide shows us the Hindu wall paintings that have been smeared and disfigured, in a fit of secularism, by the Khmer Rouge soldiers during the Pol Pot regime. I ask, if they did that, how is it that they spared the temples and pagodas. He seems irritated. "Ah the chief questioner again" I get the feeling that he does not like his patter being interrupted. Passionately he says: "Even if you non- Cambodians lived here for fifty years you could not understand Cambodian politics."

I think 'oh c'mon a little outline surely' but say nothing. Since returning to Australia I have read Neil Davis', the Aussie Cambodiaphile cameraman's biography, trying to understand what happened here during the Viet war. Nothing made sense. I googled the Wikipedia on Cambodia's politics - the more I tried to tie the political strands together the more I got knotted up..

In this kingdom of Cambodia, the king, Norodom Sihanouk went into self-imposed exile in 2004, took up residence in China and announced his abdication of the throne. The constitution of Cambodia has no provision for an abdication. The President of the Senate, assumed the title of acting Head of State (a title he has held many times before), until the Throne Council met and appointed H.R.H. Prince Norodom Sihamoni, as the new King.

I think our guide was right!

My French sister-in-law feels that travel in Asia would be too strange for her. The symbolism of art and architecture would not be automatically understood as, say, in Christian Europe whose motifs have been instinctively absorbed as we grew up. The environment is certainly alien especially where the expression of culture is emphasised as here in this Royal Compound. I find that I enjoy the mysteriousness of it all. After the Palace, Chea takes us to the adjoining National Museum. Ruth and I agree that we have cultural exhaustion, so, after informing our guide we go for a wander around the city.

It's hot, humid (what's new?) so a bar beckons us with its fanned interior.

"Owyergoinmateorright?"

The 'Rising Sun' bar is run by an Australian, an ex serviceman who decided to live in Cambodia. The other two barflies are Aussies as well. A couple of Tigers and a chat, then a walk back to the ship for lunch and a power nap in readiness for a trip through the world of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge, namely the S21 Detention Centre and the 'Killing Fields"

At the Rising Sun. Note the proprietor, behind us, giving a friendly salute.

The S21 Detention Centre

Gloom and grit and horror haunt the high school that was converted to a prison. Classrooms, with some walls demolished, are compartmentalised into cellules with rough brick walls. These cells spoke to me most eloquently, they, amongst the skulls, photographs, diagrams and torture tools. I sit in a cell for five minutes to get some tiny idea of the suffering.

The Inventory

From this house of horrors the bus takes us to the fields of horror: the 'Killing Fields', this designation adopted from the movie of the same name. The group is given the option of another excursion; no one takes up the alternative. I would have thought that there was some squeamishness. At the 'killing fields', as in the Detention Centre, my mind is outraged but the emotional reaction is flat. Is it because the information age spews a daily diet of disasters into our lounge rooms? Why, sometimes the blonde bimbs even smile as they announce another 1000 dead.

It is a slow crawl the 'field'. As always, amongst the human crush there is something of interest to be seen through the bus window. I keep photographing the mo'bikes. I will devote an appendix to the photos I have taken of the overloaded vehicles - and of the kerbside industry.

The workplace safety

Motorbikes

Choeung Ek is the site of a former orchard and Chinese graveyard is the best-known of the sites known as The Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge regime executed about 17,000 people between 1975 and 1979

Today, Choeung Ek is a memorial, marked by a Buddhist stupa. The stupa has acrylic glass sides and is filled with more than 5,000 human skulls. Some of the lower levels are opened during the day so that the skulls can be seen directly. Many have been shattered or smashed in.

The Stupa	The Stupa Detail
The horror

Here, the same as The Royal Palace, respect is having covered shoulders and knees. After visiting this memorial we walk to the nearby fields where the grisly harvest of bones and old clothes has been carried out. In 2005, the Municipality of Phnom Penh announced that it would not to disturb the remains still present in the field.

It takes one hour to drive the 17 kilometers back to the ship. I experience a delayed reaction to today's exposure. There is an anxiety attack and some depression. In some way I'm glad that I'm not totally dead in that department. I seek relief at the Saigon Bar. The lovely bar girl pours me a splash of vodka without using a measure: "say when" she says.

This evening we are entertained with a recital of song and poetry by some Cambodian children that are backed by a traditional orchestra.

La Marguerite abandons that highway, the Mekong, for a side street, a flooded tributary that services the Port of Phnom Penh. Upstream, its boundaries are defined by rows of houses on stilts strung out along both sides in an expanse of water. There are no crops now, the villagers have turned to fishing and, oh yes, the tending of animals that have been corralled by the rising water onto small islands. A thousand creatures' eyes, behind trees and out of tall grass watch our progress.

Life in the flooded tributary

On some islands they hand make silk. One such, Chong Koh, is our destination. Ruth is keen to shop. I take a lay day. The shoppers are advised to spread their custom amongst as many traders as they can. Don't give the children money. Give them sweets, pencils and ball points.

After departure I go to the library to find addresses I need for our postcards. The room is deserted apart from a Jewish couple, she with a wig to cover her head, he with a yarmulke. Both are reading a thick, leatherbound book each. I log on, find the information, but, no pen! I ask the lady.

She says: "No, it is the Sabbath we cannot carry pens today".

The bar provides me with a pen and I write out some postcards. I deposit them with the purser then relax in our cabin to watch the entertaining movie "Up in the Air". Ruth comes back, she shows me her silks, we have lunch.

The afternoon excursion is to the old capital of Cambodia, Oudong. The group will leave the ship at Prek K'Dam, bus it to Oudong, rejoin the ship at Kampong Tralach, going there by oxcart.

Ruth and I stay on the ship, she will have a massage, I will watch the villages on the river float by. About five I spy the group returning in oxcarts with the tropical rain crashing down. They come aboard soaked, half of them swearing they will need a physiotherapist for their back (there is no suspension in an oxcart).

The ship departs for Kampong Chhnang (yes it is hh).

From the Saigon bar I bring Ruth fruit, yoghurt, tea and Danish pastries. She stays in bed; I board the launch for Kampong Chhnang a port on the Tonle River leading to the Tonle Sap Lake. The economy of the area is dominated by rice production and many locals live on floating fishing villages during the high-water monsoon season. The town on high ground is surrounded by people living on boats, stilt houses and floating houses. There's a jetport here, even a mosque though Muslims are only 1.6% of the population.

The launch lands and for the first time in Indochina my nostrils are attacked by a hideous stench. We are able to walk away from it. What the hell was it? The guide cannot not explain. Dunno.

Street scenes - Kampong Chhnang

I need some 'band aids'. Approaching a likely vendor I say "band aid, band aid" but, as the saying goes I might as well have said 'pasta fazool'. From her hammock she smiles apologetically; she cannot understand my English or my attempt at French. Using a scribing motion, same as asking for the bill but being transposed to table level I indicate the need for paper and pencil. Some is found. Service with a smile. I draw an oblong rectangle with rounded ends a square in the middle of it and some small round circles in the middle of the square. Ahh! A big smile produces a string of stickies made in Australia. She writes 5?..10?... 100?. I write 20 and pay a U$1'

"band aid.. band aid??"

A walk around town ends our tour. The launch takes off for the boat then breaks down midstream. Another launch comes to help as we drift down stream. Our boatman opens the floor above the engine and disappears below. 'To work on the water pump" we're told. Just as the other launch begins to tow us, our engine coughs to life. So ends our last excursion off the boat

At 11 am there is a lecture on Cambodian History and a very involved history it is. It is concluded by a demonstration of the uses of the classic Khmer scarf (I have one). It can be headwear, a sweat absorbing scarf and a screen when attending to natures call in the public. I have used it as a scarf.

Lunch is followed by an amusing demonstration of towel folding. The cloths are folded into bats, lions, fish and many other shapes. I remember on our cruise to New Zeeland we were surprised to return to our cabin to find it made up with the towels in the shape of dogs, clowns and other surprises.

In the afternoon La Marguerite enters the Tonle Sap Lake. In places the lake is 40km wide, the forest on the horizon being barely visible, giving the impression of being at sea.

A few days ago I had formed a nodding acquaintance with a lad behind the bar. It had to be nodding, as he could not speak English and my Khmer vocabulary was zilch. I pointed at the chess set on the bar. Thus our game began, a few moves at each visit to the Saigon bar. It was desultory kind of game. Neither of us were experts and our backgrounds were so different, so we just moved the pieces around trying to find some common ground of communication. It was hard work and unfinished work because this was the last night on the boat. This evening we look at each other, shrug, gesture open, palms up, drink a toast and give up the game.

At 6.30, all the crew (I assume someone is steering the boat) introduce themselves then don costumes and perform a hilarious play drawing on Khmer culture. The officers join us for the farewell dinner with many toasts and animated repartee.

Tonight we dance the last tango on La Marguerite. We will arrive at Siem Reap late tonight.

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