This is Saturday, it must be Cambodia

Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote. First, picture problems continue, Panasonic had run out of stock of LCD screens so the camera is point and hope at the moment, then the cafe here has no card reader. I will add pics later.

Spent thursday pm on the Saigon river, took a boat for myself for $10 and toured the river and the streams around the city. Just amazing how friendly the children are. I did not go past a single house on the river where children were playing who did not smile, wave and shout "hello".

Thursday evening spent in the park watching the local game, Da Cau, like badminton, a weighted feathered shuttlecock, which is kicked between the palyers keeping it airborne. Rallys are up to 12-15 shots for the best players who allow the shuttle to pass behind their backs before kicking it back with the sole of the foot, the heel or instep. Quite amazing, I will add a video and have bought one of the shuttles for practise at home.

Some young Vietnamese people came up and started to talk, just to practise their English but by the end of the evening they had taken me to their local bar, bought me all sorts of local treats to eat, and Trung, in the centre of the picture below, had become my son-in-law! (He had seen pictures of my girls and is in love with one of them. He has no idea how expensive Jo is to run)!



2 day tour of the Mekong delta was something special also. Just come up to Phnom Penh on a slow boat, 6 hours, but the scenery always changing and the river is just awesome. Between 2 and 3 km wide at the points we were travelling it is hard to make out details on either bank when travelling in mid stream. I wondered if this was the same water I was travelling on 2 weeks before in Laos? Perhaps someone could work that out.

This was a floating village on the river, 4 generations can live in these houses where they farm fish.



Home to a poor Vietnamese family whose lives are bound to the river.



I was not prepared for Phnom Penh. I thought it was a quiet backwater but it has more neon than Vegas. Will explore tomorrow as I think I have screwed up my timings and will not have time to get to the world's 8th wonder at Angkor, and will instead spend a day here before going to Bangkok for the flight home. Every step now brings me closer to home and while part of me is loving every experience here a large part of me now wants to be at home with my family, the English weather, (I wish it would rain) and wholemeal bread, toasted with marmalade!

This is the riverfront in Phnom Penh where the Tonle Sap joins the Mekong. The Tonle Sap river creates a lake in land, the largest freshwater lake in Asia, which fills from the flooding Mekong in the wet season to a size of 16,000 sq km, 9m deep and then drains during the dry season shrinking to 1 m deep and only 2,700 sq km. A natural wonder of the world and I can see it as I write this from the i cafe.