In the afternoon we went on a rickshaw ride around Phnom Penh, visiting the railway station and the Independence Monument followed by the Central Market, restored by the French Government in 2011.
We arrived in Phnom Penh early in the morning. After breakfast we embarked on a tour of one of the 398 Killing Fields in Cambodia, this one just out of the city and not far from the S21 Prison. The S stood for security and this was the prison where people suspected as security threats were sent. The threat was mostly that they’d been trained in Vietnam or China and so couldn’t be trusted to support the nationalist agenda of Pol Pot. Here people were harshly treated, housed in small rooms with multiple people to a room, or in small cells, tortured and executed without trial. The instruments of torture varied from whips and chains to machetes, hoes, spades and axes. 109s of people were killed here and their clothes removed and cleaned to be given to the next batch of prisoners. When the prison was finally shut down by the liberation army 4 young children were discovered hiding under one of those piles of old clothes.
Today we’re at the end of the Vietnam section of the river and will pass into Cambodia tonight.
We again boarded motorised Sampans to visit Evergreen Island, where a lot of the local vegetables are grown. We walked past field of lemongrass, Elephant grass used as cattle feed, bananas, papaya, coconuts and mangoes among many other plants we didn’t recognise.
We were then taken across the river to Tan Chau town where we watched a woman making straw mats on a loom then were taken on a cycloped ride through the town to a temple of a religion, Cao Dai, created in 1926 in an attempt to bridge Taoism, Confucianism and Christianity.
After lunch we sailed another 3 hours upriver to Sa Dec, where we again went ashore to visit the market and a famous house.
The market has both seafood and other live produce as well as fruit and vegetables.
We woke to a beautiful morning in Cai Be.
After a 2 hour bus trip from Ho Chi Minh City we boarded our cruise boat, had a pleasant lunch then relaxed before setting off in the late afternoon, upriver towards Phnom Penh. The Mekong River here is over 1km wide with two road bridges spanning it. Over the border in Cambodia the river is over 3km wide. The water is brown, a bit like the Yarra, and when it floods provides very fertile land for growing rice and tropical fruits, as well as various exotic fruits brought in by the French in the 19th century.
Our last day before flying home tomorrow. We took the ferry across the bay to the town of Russell. Russell was the first capital of New Zealand button is now a quiet town full of grand of houses and a few tourist types shops and eateries.
