Friday, November 15 - Vietnam to Cambodia

Friday, November 15 - Vietnam to Cambodia

We traveled from our hotel to the boat dock by "Ho Chi Minh surreys", one-passenger trailers pulled by bicycle riders.  At the dock, we boarded a long speedboat for the half-day trip on the Mekong River to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia.  The river was wide, silty, and swift moving and we passed fishermen tending their nets, groves of banana and other fruit trees, water buffalo, isolated homes, small towns, and temples.

We left the boat at a floating Vietnamese immigration office to have our paperwork for departure certified.  After 45 minutes or so, we re-boarded and traveled a short distance before reaching the Cambodian customs and immigration station.  We've never before been processed at and entry station with hens and roosters wandering around accompanied by a litter of puppies!  We secured our entry visas, had our passports stamped numerous times, returned to the boat and waited, and waited, and waited.  One of the passengers was deemed to have had insufficient space around one of his passport stamps and this was determined to be a major problem, despite the fact that his passport had blank pages.  Once things were sorted out, we were on the road river again.

Our local guide and a driver met us at the boat and delivered us to our lovely spa hotel half a block from the Royal  Palace.  We had the rest of the afternoon on our own, so we walked a couple of blocks to the river for a look at the Royal palace from the lovely quay-side promenade.  We walked along the embankment for a bit, then took a tuk-tuk to Wat Phnom, the hilltop temple that legend holds marks the spot where the city was founded.  The temple was quite elaborate and is in a lovely setting, surrounded at ground level by a fine park.

Our short walk from the temple to the central market was punctuated by entreaties from numerous tuk-tuk drivers to ride with them.  Tuk-tuks are small carriages pulled by motorbikes and they are EVERYWHERE in this city.  We saw no car taxis, the tuk-tuk drivers union must have beaten out the cabbies here!

The central market is a huge, domed, Art Deco affair, with long halls extending from a central rotunda.  As usual, if you need it, you'll probably find it there, or in the busy shops that line its perimeter streets. 

Tonight, we had dinner at a restaurant run by an organization that rescues boys from the streets and trains them.  They did a wonderful job and the food and service were fine and the setting, the front garden and porch of a colonial house, was just lovely.

As we walked around today, we were struck by the challenges that pedestrians face here and in the Vietnamese cities and towns we visited.  The sidewalks themselves are treacherous, with holes in the pavement, broken pavers and very uneven footing. Add to that the reality that sidewalks also provide parking spaces for cars and motorbikes, showroom space for retailers, kitchens for street food vendors, and dining rooms for their customers and pedestrians frequently take to the streets; we've already covered what they're like!  Nimble is the name of the game.