Vietnam - Chau Doc

Instead of taking a bus across the border from Cambodia into Vietnam, we decided to do an overnight tour down the Mekong Delta to do a water boarder crossing. The tour started with a minibus pick up in Phnom Pehn and a rather hairy fast drive to Neak Luong, where we boarded a slow boat. When they say ‘slow boat’, they’re not kidding -  it was so slow that a few of us had to nap. We stopped after a couple of hours to go through customs and immigration in Cambodia, got back on the boat and went another 10 mins down the river to go through immigration and customs in Vietnam - easy! 

The next 2 hours was spent drifting down one of the Mekong Delta’s channels. It was truly awesome to see how different Vietnam was just km’s from Cambodia - conical straw hat that you associate with people working in rice fields, giant wooden fishing boats, ducks in their millions swimming in herds and kids riding water buffalo.

A boat carrying hay and grain... perhaps a little overloaded

Every kid waves at you :)

Water Buffalo and SO many ducks

A house boat, Mekong Style

There were also a couple of rules we learnt about Vietnamese water craft safety:
No.1 Ensure your driver has very dexterous feet

No.2 If this fails, ensure your boat has a good set of eyes

The channel ended and we were sucked back out into the Mekong, which was over a km wide, an amazing site. Chau Doc was soon visible, also an amazing site with hundreds of houses floating on the water and many more houses hugging the river bank. We docked and were taken through a maze of tin shed abodes, to a hotel and our room being a modest and rather hot shoebox. 

Back on the Mekong we encountered huge wooden fishing boats

A rather typical Vietnamese picture

Approaching Chau Doc

River side homes, on stilts to avoid the wet season river rise

The bomb squad - recovering unexploded ordinates still left over from the US

After a crappy sleep, we awoke early to continue our tour, which was another ride down the Mekong to see the floating houses and fish farms. The houses originated after the war, as many people fled Vietnam to Cambodia and then returned with very little money. The government allowed people who couldn’t afford land to then build houses on top of boats and float them on the river. Chau Doc was heavily bombed by the US, as was Neak Luong and so they have had to rebuild with the small opportunities they could.

Examples of some river houses

A Vietnamese fishing boat partially submerged to keep it's catch alive

Fish going nut over their breakfast at one of the river house fish farms

Our journey out of Cambodia ( 3 day journey)

Kampot - Pepper anyone?

We sadly left Otres  (goodbye Bunna, dogs, ladies who cooked delicious food) and our new Mum, Panith (our Guest house owner at the Golden Sunset) generously gave us a lift to another guest house at which we were to be picked up by a mini bus. A green Late 90’s Merc pulled up and we were pleasantly surprised to find leather seats, leg room and nobody else on board. But we should learn to never count out chickens, as approx 5 mins into our journey the driver stops on the side of the road and politely tells us we need to change to another bus as the one we were in Air Con was on the blink. Next bus rolled up and it was filled over capacity with locals, a stinky Frenchman, a scooter hanging out the back door and what smelt like somebody’s catch of the day. We all fit in, blocked our noses and hoped our bags didn’t fall out the back.

We arrived in Kampot, booked into the first guesthouse we were offered which was nice except I am sure the bathroom had never been cleaned but with AC and Cable TV you can learn to accept these things. After a quick rest we walked around town in search of the Teuk Chhou River, it was positively scorching until we found it and enjoyed the cool breeze it offered. The river was huge with tankers anchored within it, the ‘boardwalk’ was picturesque with green tidy gardens and white colonial French light posts. We ate a superb lasagna and made our way back via side streets flanked by old French architecture looking worse for ware and with modern twists of Cambodian nestled in between.

Teuk Chhou River

 Examples of Kampot's French influence

Dave relaxing by the river

Riverside gardens

Kampot famous for it’s Pepper was a delightful stop, slim on tourists and high on local charm. It's hard not love any new Cambodian town once you give it 10 mins to sink in.

Kep - playground of war

Next morning we awoke early and caught a bus to the seaside town of Kep. Once the playground for Cambodian royalty and French holiday makers in the 60‘s. The 70’s brought the Khmer Rouge who decimated the town, the Vietnamese were happy to finish it off - apparently looting and destroying anything that was left over once the KR were overthrown.

It is so quiet that it’s hard to believe you are in Cambodia, it is so peaceful almost eerily so. There is a population of 4000 (tiny for Asia) and as we walked down the seaside road in hunt of the crab market we were confronted huge beach-front lots of land, occupied only by overgrown gardens and destroyed skeletons of what used to be houses. Unbelievably they remain un-cleared, un-demolished and overgrown with original stone fences still marking the lots - every single piece of land that faced the beach has still not been captilised for over 30 years since the war. 

Remnants of houses by the seaside

Another house that was once beautiful, abandoned since the war

Amelia checking out the fresh catch of crab

Kampot crab market

After our stroll, we realized we were low on money to quickly find out that Kep is low on ATM’s. In fact there are zero there. So we shared a $2 plate of noodles for lunch and the same for dinner, drank the free water and thanked our good fortune breakfast was included in our room rate before we headed back to Phnom Pehn for our last night in Cambodia :(

Otres beach, a few snap shots...

Our resident Gecko who lived in our roof

Our fishing trip, to the islands for some snorkeling and fishing

Panith, our guesthouse mum and the Catch of the day

Dave with two Barracuda

 

Dave having a sunset swim on our last night

Bunna, the resident Cambodian kid, always cheeky, almost always cute

Sihanoukville and Otres Beach

We took a 9.30am, 4 hour bus to Shianoukville the next morning. This is Cambodia’s seaside beach town. As we alighted the bus, as usual we were hassled by tuk tuk drivers. It’s hard to make a decision when there are 15 of guys looking to give you a lift. So the jist of  the deals they had on offer were ‘$6 for a taxi or $1 per person for a moto’. There were 4 of us (Neil and Katie too) so we enquired about ‘Moto’, is it a tuk tuk? Nope, it’s a Cambodian with a motor bike, who puts your 15kg pack in between the handle bars and himself and you on the back. It was actually quite fun, not too fast and smoother than being on the back of a scooter with Dave, ha ha…just kidding.

We stayed the night in a dingy ‘mozzie infested’ cheap room and left the next day for Otres beach. Otres beach is a bit hard to get too, but not really when you see the result. It’s a tuk tuk ride down a bumpy dirt road and before you know it you’re in paradise - a deserted blue beach scattered with islands, clean water, beachside huts, warm water and clean sand. The developers (Hilton, Hyatt, Westin) have not yet made an appearance thank god. Till then huts on the sand, electricity via generators and more or less isolation is still possible here. No more than 4 people can be seen swimming at once, there are no shops, just small beachfront guesthouses offering food, the odd boat is anchored close to shore and fishermen can still be seen casting nets from aqua longboats. What’s on the downside you ask? Not much, we used an outside toilet shed/shower, our abode was a grass hut with a less than comfy bed (makeshift slats built by an old Czech battler) but it was hard to complain as we virtually had a private beach and our bungalow oozed Cambodian charm.

Our humble hut

Views from our bedroom (Katie and Amelia sunbaking)

Dave getting a $5 hour massage

Sunset on Otres Beach

Dave trying renovation (trying to remove the slats from the bed)

A regular lunch spot

But being fussy western pain is the arses, we moved after 3 days to even greener pastures (next door) to the Golden Sunset which boats individual open grass roof bungalows, with bamboo blinds for walls, ultra comfy beds, power points and clean bathrooms. It costs just $10 to stay, that’s $5.00 per person, so we implore you to visit Otres Beach before the beachside shacks make room for the 5 star monsters because lets face it it‘s only a matter of time.

Our new beach hut

Believe it or not, Otres beach offers other pastimes apart from snoozing, reading, sunbathing, swimming and losing the concept of time, these include are Kayaking and snorkeling. So we hired a two person Kayak and only 1 paddle - for Dave. We headed towards a rather small but idyllic looking private island, anchored and dropped into the water for some reef snorkeling. The variety of coral and underwater plant life was amazing, the fish were plentiful and colorful too. After a couple of dives each Dave paddled east (this is a guess) towards home via a rocky outcrop for another spot of snorkeling, then we glided home with the current back to our abode.

Kayaking 

Dear Diary,

Last night it rained and we haven’t seen rain in Asia since we arrived on the 5th of February (shocking I know)… and it ‘s still raining this morning. It’s kind of nice as it’s a little bit cooler (we used a doona last night) and it sort of reminds us of home, except that the beach is still warm but perhaps a darker aqua, the man in the hut  next door still smoked his spliff at 7am and we still don’t have jobs.
Xo

After deciding to take an unexpected 2 weeks on the beach, we have had to cut our tour of the towns Kampot and Kep down to a night each, before returning to Phnom Pehn and boarder crossing to Vietnam. It has been delightful finding a place to overstay our itinerary, but Vietnam calls and our Visa here is quickly running out. We’ll stop rubbing out beach stay in your face and get back on a crowded hot bus and sleep in a stinky room for you all soon enough.

Enjoying a balmy evening