31st January - The Last Spring Roll. For now.

Today reminds us of what we like about independent travel. We wake up at a time to suit us, have breakfast at leisure, check out the pool and ancillary facilities and get the packing done by 10 a.m.  We pack a day bag and secure it in a locker at the pool, check the hold luggage with the porter, hand in our key and we are free. A day to do what we like until 5 p.m. Luxury. R has a couple of things on her purchase list so when the remorque driver at the end of the drive hails us we do a deal. 

It is overcast and there are a few spots of rain as we enjoy our five minute ride to the Old Market. This has a few stalls selling tee shirts and tourist tat but is mainly the real deal. We browse and chat to some of the stallholders. There is no really heavy sell going on. R gets the things on her list and we retire across the street to the Cafe Central for light refreshment. This has a very French feel with high ceilings, lazy fans and off hand service.

One of the recommendations in the book is a place that sells bags made from recycled fishing nets and plastic bags. The prices cause sharp intakes of breath but they do have some luggage tags that can be purchased without taking out a second mortgage. R treats herself to a tag for her cabin bag that has been anonymous for the last two weeks. We explore this street a bit further and find a shop offering silk Cambodian fancy pants. These seem very popular with the locals and are a sort of cross between trousers and a skirt. The young lady does a decent job of selling and takes time to teach R how to put this garment on as well as how to avoid a catastrophe while using the loo when wearing it.

After D walks away from a lady who tries to tell us that $32 for three tee shirts is a bargain we decide it is time for lunch. There are deals and promos everywhere. We settle on a place doing spring rolls and two dollar pitchers of beer. The spring rolls are good and the dipping sauce excellent. R asks the waiter about what it contains. He goes to the kitchen to ask and returns to tell us that it is peanuts and mojito. We express our doubts about this and eventually he returns to tell us that it is fish sauce which sounds more like it.

Over lunch the sun has broken through and it has become rather warm. We decide that we have done enough to boost the Cambodian economy and find a remorque to take us back to the hotel. The pool looks inviting so we don swimmers and do a few lengths until a couple of loungers become available under a shady canopy. We lie back, read and enjoy the warmth until it is time for R to go for the foot massage she has booked in the hotel spa. When she returns it is time to retrieve the big bags and do some repacking. It all fits and we sit back to await the arrival of Veebol and the coach. He was last seen swaying slightly and trying to lead off a karaoke on the coach home after dinner last night. When it gets to half an hour after he said he would be there we start to think about plan B.

At 5.31 he appears, bright as a button, and we board the last coach of the holiday, heading for the airport. We actually see a red setting sun and have fun trying to get a picture in the gaps between the buildings. The Business Lounge is at the opposite end of the terminal to our gate but there is plenty of time to settle in and enjoy a couple of drinks and a plate of spring rolls. We keep an eye on the departure screens and see our flight go into a sort of limbo with just a blank space where it should say Wait or Boarding. 

D gets twitchy and we take a walk to the far end where the rest of the group are congregated. R uses some initiative and asks the man at the gate what is happening. 'Flight late' is the response we return to the lounge and are readmitted. As we settle down with a beverage the screen suddenly shows 'Boarding' at the gate nearest to us. The plane is loaded with the minimum of fuss and we are off. It is quite a short flight so we only have time for a plate of dim sum and a glass of wine. 

30th January - Angkor Wat

There are those who will tell you that sunrise over the temples at Angkor Wat is one of the greatest sights on earth. We are not among them as it is a dull , cloudy morning with the threat of rain in the air. At 5 am it is already warm enough to cause perspiration just standing around. Half a dozen slackers in the group have opted out of this early morning visit. The rest of us climb on board the bus in the darkness.

A five minute ride takes us to the ticket office and we are all asked to debus and follow Veebol inside. There is a huge concourse reminiscent of a budget airline check in hall. Certain counters deal with groups and we are directed to join the queue at one of them. Nothing seems to happen for a while then each of us in turn has to step forward and have our picture taken by a digital camera on the counter. After another hiatus we are led back on to the bus where individual tickets are handed out. These cost $37 each but are part of our tour package and we are given strict instructions to keep them with us at all times. The pictures are as bad as you would expect at this time of the morning.

The coach drops us off as near to the Angkor Wat entrance as it is allowed to go. We disembark in darkness and follow our leader along a road closed to traffic. We then have to negotiate a wooden ramp down to a very odd floating bridge. This wobbles a bit and makes gurgling noises with every step. Apparently the Canadians have provided it while the one built in the 11th century across the moat is being restored. 

It is just starting to get light when we enter the main temple complex through the King's Gate which is the western entrance. We are not alone. The temple towers are just visible as the sky lightens in the east. There are a couple of lily ponds in front of the temple buildings and a large crowd sit, squat or stand gazing eastwards and hoping for a truly magic photo. They, and we, are thwarted by the weather. Some of them are singing and chanting, a bit much at this time of day. Veebol lets us loose to take pictures for a while then leads us into the temple building. There are lots of photo opportunities but most include a lanky Japanese youth all in black or a lady with an umbrella.

Our guide takes up a couple of flights of stairs and tells us to join the queue for access to the top level of the temple. This has a limit on numbers admitted at any one time. There are Disneyland style time boards and as we shuffle forward the first one we reach is marked 45 minutes. It doesn't quite take that long to reach the foot of the vertiginous stair leading up. As we begin the climb a gentle rain begins to fall. At the top we can largely stay dry by negotiating corridors around the perimeter of the tower. There are some splendid views including the one of the latecomers in the queue getting rained on.

By now the rain has stopped but it is approaching 8 am. and we need to be heading back to the gate. This is accomplished with only a few alarms and false turns. Back at the hotel we feel like we have earned our breakfast. D goes to town and indulges in Orange Spreadable (see photo). Our break is soon over and we are back on the bus heading for Angkor Thom, a ruined Buddhist temple featuring 216 enormous sculpted faces of Buddha. On the way we see elephants exiting the temple perimeter via the Elephant Gate.

Another couple of ruins make up our morning quota and then it is time for lunch at the KKK Restaurant. The staff do not wear white sheets and pointed hoods but they do serve up the Cambodian equivalent of a thali, six different dishes in lidded pots. The food is good but it is too soon after breakfast to do justice to it.

In the afternoon we visit another temple, made famous when it appeared in the film 'Tomb Raider'. Here the buildings look as though they have been through an earthquake but in fact the damage has been done by tree roots. There is an Indian team from the Archaeological Survey of India undertaking repair and restoration work. How far to go with this will be a tricky balance. 

The last part of the day is a return visit to Angkor Wat to see the sunset. The cloud has persisted all day and Veebol tells us that we would not see anything that we have not already seen. We return to the hotel, have a quick cuppa and set out on foot to find a local market. This is a rather longer walk than we anticipated and we finish up in the centre of the city just as the main Night Market is opening for business. We haggle hard for a couple of items before deciding that we need to get back.

We take the return trip on a remorque, a roomy four wheel passenger cart pulled by a motorcycle. Cambodia is the first place that we have seen these and the are much more common than normal autos, known here as Tuk-tuks. If you have a motorcycle in Cambodia you have the basic premises to set up a business. Today we have seen Juice bars, a brush and basket shop and a fully mobile kebab shop all built around motorbikes.

Of necessity tonight's cocktail hour gins are absolute stonkers as we need to empty the travelling drinks cabinet before tomorrow's flights. We are almost late for the 6.30 dinner parade. Tonight the bus takes us to a large restaurant with a stage. While we eat we are treated to a succession of dance performances, all very colourful and skillfully executed. By the time we get to the hotel we are quite tired but do feel the need to check out the place over the road from the hotel. This is described as a Container Night Market and Pub Street. It is garishly lit and has a noisy disco in one corner. There are plenty of empty containers but no evidence of any market traders, day or night. There are about a dozen small, mainly deserted bars/restaurants open and we choose the one furthest from the disco and sit down for a $0.50 draught beer. We have seen several of these container parks around Siem Reap. It is not clear how anybody makes money out of them.

29th January - In the Land of the Greenback

As far as we can tell we have not been poisoned by our visit to Fawlty Towers last night. Breakfast is good and we load up as there is no lunch provided today. The sky is lowering a bit as we watch the bags being loaded onto the coach. Our first visit today is the Royal Palace and on the way a gentle rain starts to fall. It is too warm and not quite wet enough for rain jackets as we get off the bus and head for the entrance. The Palace appears to be very popular and the crowds are concentrated by the viewing hours being very restricted.

The complex contains several spectacular gilded pagodas but is very crowded and there is jostling at some of the pinch points. The more interesting interiors are 'No Photography' and this is policed rigourously by men who look mean enough to have been henchmen of Pol Pot. The rain gets steadily heavier as our tour progresses.  Our visit lasts for about an hour and a half before we move on to the National Museum. En route Hong tells us that this has many Hindu and Buddhist statues on display. D opts out and delegates R to take pictures of the culture of necessary.

Having agreed an RV time with the guide D sets out for 45 minutes of being an independent traveller. As the rain is teeming down he heads straight for the nearest bar for draught beer and WiFi. Money is quite complicated in Cambodia. The local currency is the Riel but most things are priced in US dollars. If change is required for part of a dollar this is paid in Riels. D tried an ATM that offered a choice of Riels or Dollars but then wanted such enormous commission that the transaction was aborted. The bartender accepts D's proffered 10,000 Riel note and hands over a dollar change. After a while the rain eases off and the beer runs out. Round the corner is a street of backpacker type businesses and a place selling SIMs is quickly located. $4 gets 1.5 GB of data, plenty for the time that we have left. The girl in the shop fits the card and does the necessary to get it working. D is only a minute late back to the Museum gate.

We board our coach for the 310km trip to Siem Reap, where we will stay tonight. It is difficult to spot the difference between rush hour and other traffic levels here in Phnom Penh.  In a bit less than twenty  four hours we have seen a bit of the city but had no chance to explore. This tour is rated as medium paced by the company. We would not want to be on a fast paced one. On the outskirts of the city we stop at a bakery for supplies in lieu of lunch. The bakery seems clean enough but the forecourt is full of hawkers selling deep fried insects and other items that do not necessarily appeal to Western palates. We settle for sweet cheesy brioche with sweet corn and something reminiscent of luncheon meat. For pud we choose coconut tarts.

Once we clear the city we make good progress on well surfaced roads. The terrain is dead flat as far as the horizon. As we progress in a northerly direction the rain stops, the cloud clears and the sun comes out. There is a very distinctive style of house in these parts. Whether old or new nearly all of them are up on stilts. There are a few more birds for R to spot although speed of travel does not aid identification. As we get closer to Siem Reap the traffic gets heavier and our speed drops. The Tara Angkor Hotel looks very grand as we pull up outside.  Inside we meet our new guide , pronounced Veebol(?)

  and are soon unpacking in a nicely fitted twin room. The handy Minimart next door but one allows  us to refresh supplies.

We have time to take in a complimentary cocktail in the bar before boarding the coach for dinner. Early night tonight as tomorrow is a pre-dawn start.

January 28th - Fast Boat to Phnom Penh

Alarm call in the dark this morning as we have to get sorted and clear the cabins by 7 am. We have enjoyed having three nights in the same room, particularly as it easily the best accommodation of the trip. The sunrise is invisible and there is a covering of grey cloud. We take breakfast at one of the open air tables and enjoy the breeze while we wait for what has been described as a 'speedboat' to arrive and take us up river to the capital of Cambodia. This is scheduled to take five hours including passport formalities.

When said boat arrives it has an enclosed cabin and a rear deck with open sides and a canopy. Our luggage gets loaded in a hold underneath the rear. There is just enough room for us all to be seated in the cabin which is like a very cosy coach with limited headroom. At least the windows open to allow in a bit of air. We get under way and the ship's boy issues Application Forms for Cambodian Visas and a different form in two sections for recording arrivals and departures. We are asked to fill these in although some of the information requested is not available. Some of the group complete the forms in black ink to be told that they must start again using blue ink. By a stroke of good fortune the pen that D is carrying in his day pack is blue.

Having had the homework checked D is allowed to go out on the after deck but not for long. After about twenty minutes the power comes off and the boat glides in to moor at the Vietnamese border post. Our passports, paperwork and US $34 per head is collected and we are ushered into a waiting area/cafe/money changers. The temperature is getting quite sweaty and the room is not well ventilated. D changes his loose change Vietnamese dong into Cambodian Riels which means we can have a mug of Hot Lipton apiece. As we wait the room gets more and more crowded as more speedboats full of people arrive. After about half an hour we are called back to the boat. Our ship's boy is carrying a bag containing all of the paperwork.

The boat roars up the river for about five minutes and then pulls up at a jetty with a sign that tells us that it is the Cambodian Border Post. Here we hang around for another half hour until our passports are handed back to us and we have to queue up to get them stamped several times. Somewhere along the way a paper visa has been pasted in, valid for a month and bearing the endorsement 'Employment not permitted' . That's a relief.

Back on the boat we power on at an estimated 55 - 60 kph. The boat's speedometer is broken. On the Cambodian side of the border there is markedly less river traffic and the river banks are mainly open fields with much less afforestation than in Vietnam. We travel for about an hour before we see a town or any signs of industry. We only see one very modern bridge over the river and ferries are few and far between. About two and a half hours the high rise cityscape of Phnom Penh materialises through the haze. There are tower cranes everywhere.

We disembark and help the crew unload the luggage. Of a guide there is not a sniff but there only appears to be one way to go so we take it. Eventually a man introduces himself as Hong, our guide and he points us to a bus where we divest ourselves of the bags before retracing our steps to the Titanic Restaurant. Here we are shown to seats on an airy terrace with a canopy. There is a small stage with a roneat ek player and there is draught beer so it is the perfect Sunday Lunch venue. There is even a performance by a  costumed dancer. The food delivered bears no relation at all to what is listed on the set menu but it is very good.

After lunch the day gets rather heavy as we visit one of Pol Pot's prisons that is now the Genocide Museum and then drive out of the city to one of the Killing Fields. What happened in Cambodia in the 1970s was just appalling and the history is laid out with no attempt to water down the misery. There were no laughs on the coach this afternoon and some tears were shed. We were pretty quiet and thoughtful as the coach crawled through the rush hour traffic to our hotel. This is opposite the US Embassy and nowhere near anything useful like a SIM card shop. Despite information to the contrary the Viettel card will not work in Cambodia. This may cause problems with posting, only time will tell.

By the time we get to the Subway Hotel we are all hot, sweaty and grumpy. Hong tells us to be ready to go out for dinner in 35 minutes. We are still waiting for suitcases and there is a mutiny. He finally concedes a further 15 minutes as the bags arrive. We debate whether to skip dinner but decide to go ahead. Only 22 out of our party show up. The other eight miss a treat. We take a short coach ride to the Grand Palais Hotel which looks OK. There are two long tables set up in a high ceilinged dining room.

From the off it is clear that there is a language problem. Drinks are ordered but only some arrive. Some people are ignored as the try to order drinks. The food is pretty poor. Crunchy dried fish salad, tepid prawn and tofu soup without any prawns, chicken with over cooked Pak choi and a disgusting dessert called Pumpkin Custards. The only decent bits were the deep fried battered hard boiled eggs in tamarind sauce and the fried fish with ginger. The staff keep delivering stuff to the tables but never remove anything. It is as if none of them hads ever worked in a restaurant before and there appears to be nobody in charge. It is so inept that we can only laugh.

January 27th - D succumbs to International Pressure.

At last the sun is shining. At breakfast there is a bit of a scramble to get shady side tables to avoid the heat. What a contrary bunch we are. The buffet breakfast on the boat includes phō. In order to keep the audience happy D goes for it today. A few bean sprouts, some soggy noodles, a sprinkling of chopped leaves of some kind and a solitary prawn sit in a bowl and have steaming hot salt water poured over them. Hmm. A bit messy to eat and not as filling as porridge.

After breakfast we dock at a small landing stage on Tan Thuan Dong island, known also as mango island. Here we have the option of a bike ride and D goes for that while R takes the walking option. We ride along concrete paths about six feet wide, that mainly follow the line of a levee which protects the orchards from the incursion of sea water. The farmers have protected the mangos from birds and pests by climbing the trees and putting paper bags over each individual fruit. Birds can be heard but, apart from a small flock of cormorants perched on a power line and a few Swift's chasing insects over the water we have seen nothing.

It is Saturday and appears not to be a schoolday as lots of local children are about and they all wave and shout "Hello" at us. We respond in kind. When a halt is called we spot some teenage girls taking photos of us with  their tablets. They get all shy when we turn our cameras on them. The paved way doesn't have much traffic and what there is gives us a pretty wide berth. The houses look very prosperous and the main activity appears to be sorting and packing mangos. At last a Collared Kingfisher is spotted. The bright turquoise blue bird streaks along the creek and comes to rest on a branch with its less spectacular white front facing us. These birds are a Mekong signature species but have been elusive on this trip.

Our cycle circuit of the island takes just over an hour. There is a small cafe close to our boat's mooring where we wait for the walking party and and sample some kind of herb tea as well as a variety of local fruits. Rose apples are crunchy and refreshing, guavas need a bit of spice to give them flavour and lychees look like eyeballs when you peel them. The walkers return having had an interesting time viewing a place where fish are sun-dried on tables and another where fighting cocks are kept in individual cages. For such nice people they have some disturbing pastimes.

Dien is taking his leave of us at this point so he is thanked in the customary manner. He leaves us in the care of Lee, the boat's hospitality manager who prides himself in his English English. Not American. For the first time on the tour we have some complete down time. Nothing to do until lunch which is two and a half hours away. D wanders to the front of the boat where things are controlled from a deckhouse, looking for a photo. He is invited in and gets a shot at steering. 

The private balcony comes into its own. Shady with a breeze - the ideal place to sit in one's pants and watch the world go by. After lunch we have more free time. The crew are keen to keep up with the Final of the Asian Under 23 Football tournament in China where Vietnam are playing Uzbekistan. Their plans may be slightly thwarted by the Cookery Class that is scheduled for 4 pm, halfway through the game. Uzbekistan score after eight minutes but Vietnam hit back and equalise just before half time. The cheers of the crew reverberate around the boat.

Lee introduces the boat's two chefs who have unpronounceable names spelled Chiou and Trangh that sound identical when Lee speaks. The lesson today is savoury pancakes made with rice flour. Lee commentates while the two chefs do the hands on stuff. We sense a little tension. One chef is from the north and one from the south and apparently there is a geographical divide on how to make the perfect savoury pancake. Once a compromise is reached they show us how to make the batter and, while that stands, they cook a couple of fillings, one based on pork mince and the other on finely chopped prawn meat. 

Once the fillings are ready a fresh pan appears and a ladle full of batter poured. Once this starts to solidify the filling is spooned onto one side of the base and then the whole thing rolled with chopsticks. This must have been a fluke as they make quite a mess of the next two and resort to a fish slice. The audience are invited to have a go and R steps up and does a very neat job that looks like the photo on a packet of Findus frozen savoury pancakes. It tastes fine, especially with a bit of fish sauce. The boys have not missed too much football as the match has to be delayed at half time to clear snow off the pitch. 

By the time the sunset cocktail party on the foredeck kicks off the match has moved into extra time. For once we actually see the sun going down in a blaze of colour. It all ends in tragedy as Uzbekistan introduce a substitute with  two minutes to play and he scores a winner in the last minute. At supper the crew are pretty downbeat and we tell them that we are sharing their pain. Supper tonight is beef in a green peppercorn sauce and more chips. All day without a spring roll! Our meal has a bit of a Last Supper feel to it which is strange as we still have four days to go. Lee gives us a brief about paying our bills and being ready in the morning before reminding us that tips are accepted in any currency.