Hot Air

Day 68: Chau Doc (VN) – Phnom Penh (K). The best part about travelling and living simply is how excited you can get over the simplest of things. Arriving at the Phnom Penh in the Kingdom of Cambodia, Karen and I though we would splash out a bit and and check in to a real 'posh' hotel. Raiding our piggy bank we managed to coble together the $20 a night needed to stay at the Paragon hotel right by the riverside (no joke – this was positively expensive by Vietnamese standards!)

But it was worth every penny (cent?), as not only did we get a shower cubicle in our en suite bathroom but the public toilets downstairs actually had a working electric hand-dryer. Something that neither Karen nor I had set eyes on since Moscow. It was brilliant! Every now and then we would pop to the toilet to wash our hands just to feel the warm air gently caress our skin. In fact, it was so good that on one occasion I actually went into the toilet and switched it on without even washing my hands. Ah, life on the edge!!

Journeying across the border into Cambodia had been a magnificent experience. Chartering a speedboat to hurtle us the 80 miles or so up the Mekong River from Chau Doc to the Kingdom's capital at speeds in excess of 30 knots sure was a memorable way to enter our tenth country on the 'Road to Bangkok'. Even the border crossing itself was a breeze. The boat weighed anchor at the river checkpoints for both the Vietnamese and Cambodian officials. Both sets of border controls; impeccably courteous and ultra efficient (even though the Cambodian immigration did have to use thirteen rubber stamps to complete the proceedings!)

And from our initial impression of Cambodia; we could see this was going to be a very interesting country. Even though we had travelled less that 100 miles up stream from Vietnam, we could already see the subtle changes of our new environment. The people looked a little different, the markets smelled a little different and the food tasted a little different. Deep fried tarantula, anyone?