Christmas Eve

It all sounds fantastic, very poetically written & a wonderful experience! Most enjoyable to read, too!!
Will raise our glasses to you on Christmas Eve, our time 11pm, your time 7 hours on!!

Have fun.

The journey is the reward

The day started with a blood red sunrise over the Bassac (lower Mekong). It was in 1979, close to this spot, that the world first awoke to the full horror of the Khmer Rouge. Vietnamese patrols spotted dead bodies floating down stream from the closed world of Cambodia up river. This flow of death increased as the days passed: many starved, many were executed. Either way, the bodies swelled the river and the secret was exposed.

Yet two generations later, an irrepressible spirit lives on. You can see it in the smiling faces of school children; you can feel it through the determination of survivors of the Khmer Rouge to let go and look forward.

As we travelled up river into Cambodia, a whole new world opened up to us. When Matt*, our American 'speedboat hitchhiker' need a comfort break we surveyed the distant banks of the river for signs of life and eventually moored at a local village. Graciously allowing us to use their facilities, we were all directed to the cashew fields to pee in the wind!

Isn't it funny how the unplanned activities breath life into a holiday? Chancing on the local kids' inquisitiveness, we took photos on our digital cameras and were able to show them the results. The smiles and laughter (truly a universal language) remain with me to this day.

*See Matt's photos of his trip as it merged with ours during a memorable day.

Goodbye Vietnam

It seems a bit crazy to be writing this 200km up river on the Mekong, at the Vietnam / Cambodia border. But that's the miracle of modern technology - and the setting is out of this world (Victoria Hotel, Chau Doc). We woke at 5:45 this morning for a sunrise breakfast on a junk at Can Tho, and leave it looking out over the Bassac River in the Mekong Delta sunset.

Our guide, Thuy, has been fantastic - taking care of us in Saigon and around, traveling with us down through the Mekong Delta to Can Tho and on to the border. Absolute professionalism, great sense of humour and a fountain of knowledge. I'd recommend Vidotour as a great local tourism company that really look after you. Having said that, there's a definite feeling of guilt touring around like this as the lives of the locals continue on a couple of dollars a day, and the French-owned Victoria stands aloof and arrogant. It's been a weird day, seeing the best and worst of a developing country.

The best of Vietnam (a cliché) are its people - warm, generous, with open hearts. These kids saw us stop along the roadside and ran to investigate - offering their innocent, happy faces for a photograph; or when we waved back at startled teenagers from our car, shocked at our white, doll like faces (their dolls all have western features, so when they see a westerner they see a giant version of their own doll!), bursting into laughter at these crazy looking westerners!

But the draw of the city is strong in this, like any, developing country. Villagers leave their traditional working practices for the promise of the dollar, but lose the unquantifiable wealth of a social network, family unit and let go of the fabric that bonds them together.

So tomorrow we say goodbye to Vietnam and take a speedboat up the Mekong to Phnom Penh and I have to say we're both a little nervous but it's gotta be done, and Angkor beckons!