Paradise and Crossing Boarders

We crossed the Cambodian / Vietnamese boarder yesterday and are now in a place called Cantho which is in the middle of the Mekong Delta. It is a good place to explore the Mekong and we have booked a half day trip tomorrow morning (6.30am start) where we check out the various floating markets, visit a village, have lunch and see the life on the river. We are also trying to organise a home stay on the river out of Vinh Long which is about 45mins from here before heading on to Ho Chi Min.

At the border crossing - goodbye Cambodia

Hello Vietnam

Have to go back a few days to our last week in Cambodia. Had a long bus trip from Siem Reap to the coast. We were on the night bus which made a few additional stops to pick up locals, drop enough wood to build a house at a place in Phnom Penh at 1.00am and then at 3.00am we had mechanical problems. Luckily the kids slept through the banging and hammering but it meant we could only go 30k/h. We were meant to arrive at 6.00am but it was clear that anytime before 10.00am would be a stretch. It seemed the closer we got the slower the bus went to the point where we would have been going 10k/h. Finally another bus appeared but we only had 2k to go.

Our last drink/meal in Siem Reap

Excited about the start of the overnight bus trip on the sleeper bus!

Are we there yet?

As with all mis-adventures when you travel, you can either get angry or try to laugh and luckily we all saw the funny side! We made it there at 11.15am and as we had already booked our ferry for 12.30pm we had a quick lunch before heading over to Monkey Island.

The trip over to Monkey Island

As you can see from the pictures, we quickly forgot about the long trip. Since the beach was only 20m from our bungalow much of the time was spent on the beach having to make some tough decisions... read a book, play card games with the kids, swim,  play classic catches with Ben, or have a $1 beer at the bar overlooking the beach.

Jas reading in the hammock

Tough day at Monkey Island

Needless to say all options were taken and Ben & I after 2 hours of classic catches were a little sunburnt (yes Mum, we did have sunscreen on!). Really was nice just to chill out for a few days, think of a rough plan for our next 5/6 weeks in Vietnam and Laos and enjoy time away from computers, mobiles and tv.

Yeah - no school for another two months!

Had a nice walk around some of the island one of the days and kept our eye on the water buffalo. Apparently 3 weeks before we got there, a drunk Dutch tourist thought it would be a good idea to pat one. Not so good when you get the horn through you though! Luckily for him, Survivor was filming on the island so they put him on the crews speedboat to the mainland and sent him to Phnom Penh, then onto Bangok where he still is!

The bar / restaurant at Monkey Island

Anyway, the weather was great for the most part though the last day was overcast and a little stormy so made our decision to move on instead of stay one more day much easier. Unfortunately this meant our boat trip to the mainland was just a little rough so about a quarter of the boat where left feeding the fish. This included Ben who was pretty good considering we were on it for 2hrs 45mins! The trip over was only 2hrs.

Anyway, while waiting to leave the island all of a sudden the locals got excited and were shouting. We looked at what the excitement was and there was a decent size fish under the wharf. So one of the kids jumped in clothes and all to catch it - check out the photo.

Caught dinner with his own hands!

Then went to Kampot for a few days which was a nice sleepy little place. Unfortunately Jas was not feeling great so had a quiet day there before another long day travelling to here.

Bike ride in Kampot

Afternoon drink on our hotel rooftop in Kampot

As with all travel in Cambodia, our little bus was packed with everything which made for a cramped trip till we got rid of someones bike! 

Actually, the bike might have been quicker

I'll finish with our favourite things from our time in Cambodia, at least at the time of writing this:

Ben - Playing soccer at Anjali & Monkey Island
Jas - Meeting Sovann at Anjali and Monkey Island
Clarissa - Temples, the people, Waterfall at Kolen Mountain and vegetable khmer curry
Rich - Temples, soccer at Anjali & Monkey Island (and the food in general)

Monkey Island - late arvo beer enjoying the view