By dusk we had made anchor in the mainland to do a homestay with a family, we rode on the back of two local's motorbike way out of the town, down a dusty rural track between the boundaries of rice fields to a river edge, here we disembarked from the bikes as the only way to cross was to walk over a few loose logs tied together. Once safely over a small family welcomed us to their one story abode, We sat down and drank Vietnamese green tea with our host. throughout the evening he used us to practice his English, constantly jotting down certain words and asking us to spell them out for him, at one point he passed me his mobile and asked if I would talk to a very shy lady on the other end because she too wanted to brush up on her foreign languages. We tried to introduce the family to the Beatles but I don't think they were feelin' it. During dinner our host saw I liked spicy food and challenged me to a chilli eating contest, I lost. Around the grounds was a petting zoo of animals including; monkey, teripine, crabs, eels, fish, lizard and quail, they also had a dog so after asking if they ever eat canine he explained he'd never eat his own dog, its his pet, but if another dog strays onto his land then fair game. At dawn we were taken on two wheels to a bussling but pungent market along side the river. There were lots of freshly caught eels and fish, the market woman would gut the fish with scissors so quickly you barely saw it, we didnt have time to stay and explore though because our new vessel had pulled up along side us. We powered upstream to the floating market, there were hundreds of boats maneuvering in the river all selling fruit, fish and vegetables. Locals passing melons from one ship to another, any detritus froms preparation process is thrown overboard, the water is littered with pineapple stalks, roots and leaves floating out into open waters. boats saddle up beside ours as the seller bind the two boats with one foot whilst steering with the other and offering goods in her free hands.
We veered away from the main river and followed a small tributry heading west stopping of at a Cham minority village, the outside of their tall stilt huts had dates inscribes at different height correlating to the water level during the annual rainy season, 2002 indicating the most severe with it's height far exceeding my own and continuing up to the latches of the door. Inside the house a woman sewing traditional Muslim towels used during prayer. We climbed to the top of a grand monastery that offered great views and came complete with its very own bat cave. A couple more hours on the boat and a few new passport stamps later, we had crossed the Cambodian boarder and anchored on the outskirts of the capital Phon Phen, here we were all crammed into the back of a minivan. all air-con vents had been taped up and I couldn't move an inch, my legs were nestled between a little sleeping Chinese kid and a frenchmens crotch. Once in the city center I peeled my body away from the worn leather chair and evacuated the human sardine can. Later we booked a bus for the coast but because it was departing early next morning we wanted to sleep somewhere close by and stayed in a locals travel inn, there were no westerners and the Cambodians in the other rooms looked at us strangely, the bed was pretty dirty the bathroom had no sink and little running water, it was fine for one night though, most of the next morning was devoted to travelling down to Sihanoukville by bus and motorbike, after a long search we found a place to sleep and dump bags. The remainder of the day slip by whilst we chilled out on the beach, breathing in the fresh ocean air and basking in clear blue skies, the calm warm seas lapping under foot.
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